The Context: Reconstruction of a Continent in Ruins / 1

How has the European Community responded to the challenge of maintaining political stability within Europe?

The Context: Reconstruction of a Continent in ruins / 1

The Second World War left Europe devastated. Central Europe was in ruins. From the UK to Italy, from France to the USSR, infrastructure was broken, families were separated, and lives were lost. Figures only give some idea of the disaster the war had been for the continent:

●Between 18 and 20 million people were made homeless in Germany by the destruction of their cities and 10 million people were homeless in the Ukraine.

●84% of Budapest’s buildings were damaged and 30% uninhabitable. The northern French town of Caen lost 75% of its buildings. 202,000 British homes were heaps of rubble and 4.5 million were damaged. Even in far northern Lapland, more than a third of all dwelling places were destroyed.

●Both France and Yugoslavia had lost 77% of their railway engines. A third of Italy’s road network was unusable. The Netherlands had lost 60% of its transport.

●And finally: the people who died as a direct consequence of the war were between 35 and 40 million in total.

Historian Keith Lowe, whose book “Savage Continent” is the source of the figures above, suggests that such devastation “defies easy comprehension”, and the death toll “is truly mind-boggling”.

Besides, in some parts of Europe the war did not end in 1945. For example, Greece had to endure a civil war for another five years. Also, struggles for control of political institutions started in Eastern Europe as Stalin negotiated with the Western Powers the division of Europe into spheres of influence. The birth of NATO (1949) and of the Warsaw Pact (1955) gave a firm military dimension to this division. Europe was split, and not neatly in half.

The existence of a “Soviet threat” pushed the US to drop their initial de-Nazification policies, and focus on the defence of Western Europe against Communism. The idea of the USSR, not Germany, as an enemy gave unity of purpose to US and Western European governments. Working with the constitutional democracies of Western Europe, the US built its influence on economic and political pressure (the Marshall Plan was a very heavy diplomatic weapon), and on military protection (For Western Europe against the Soviet Union). The Soviet Union built its influence on the use of force against Eastern European governments that would not cooperate (a situation which will be later encoded into the Brezhnev Doctrine), and on State monopoly of education and information. The Cold War split Europe into two sides of the Iron Curtain from 1947.

Officials in the US realised that Western Europe needed a stronger unifying principle than a commitment to capitalism not communism. Thus, the US government supported the European project from the start. The Marshall Plan (1948-51) itself required nation states receiving money to cooperate, including with West Germany, and was part of the US strategy to foster European cooperation.

●Think - how did the US and Soviet post-war governments think that stability should be achieved in Europe? Summarise their views in a few sentences .

The Context: Reconstruction of a Continent in ruins / 2

While the US saw the European Project as a way to ensure political cooperation among Western European countries and unity against the USSR, European leaders also thought of the European project as a way to ensure peace between the nation states. They welcomed US military protection along the Iron Curtain. Western European countries were also very concerned about the balance of power. Indeed, just as after the First World War, the main concern in France and Britain was Germany, although it was now split into two parts.

There were idealistic and influential Western Europeans who were pro-European federalism. However, most European leaders were concerned about one main issue, security. For French and British leaders West German rearmament was a worrying idea. At the same time, Western Europe needed an armed border to the East, to give protection from a Soviet invasion. Germany was thus key to the security of Western Europe.

To solve this dilemma, Western European politicians established a common ownership of coal and steel production. The fact that the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was a Coal and Steel Community was vital to the aim of reaching stability on the continent. These were the key materials needed for war at the time. Shared ownership meant that no single power could use them for hostile plans. At the same time, the ECSC itself had agreed rules to sort out disagreements; a way of containing tensions in Western Europe. This policy of conflict resolution continued with the common European security policy (1950s, Pleven Plan). It failed, but in 1957, the Treaty of Rome led to the birth of the European Communities, and in 1993, the Maastricht Treaty included the Common Foreign and Security Policy in its Three Pillars of the European Union.

However, there was still a long way to go. The great improvement in Franco-German relations, the bedrock of the European Community, was sealed in 1963 with the Elysee Treaty. Routine joint consultation on a range of policies was made formal. Although this agreement was not part of the Treaties of the European Communities, it provided the two major member States with an institutionalised forum for arranging a common position before discussing it with the other States, thus greatly affecting the decisions taken by members.

At the end of the 1960s (the last decade of the six-members-only European Community), tensions between East and West Europe were certainly high, but the protection of NATO, the heavy diplomatic and military influence of the US, and the internal cohesion between Western European countries made for a strong, fast developing block. The system was not significantly challenged and at the time most politicians in power were moderate, pro-Atlantic alliance, although Socialist and Communist parties had seats in Parliaments. This “quiet” domination by moderate, centre-right parties in government was to end abruptly in the last years of the 1960s. However, the European Communities kept thriving through the change. Their role in harmonising policy, solving disputes, and neutralising confrontation was too valuable.

●List the threats to stability in Europe from the perspective of European leaders. What steps had they taken to create stability by 1963?

The Context: Democracy & stability / 1

The European Communities were a forum for avoiding confrontation by turning political issues into technical matters to be dealt with at ministerial level by bureaucrats with (nominally) no allegiance to any particular member State, but to the EEC itself. Nevertheless, in 1968-69, civil unrest exploded across Western Europe against the perceived authoritarianism of governments. Some democracies in Western Europe were rigid and not so stable after all. For example, France had almost suffered a coup by right wing militarists in 1958, during the French Algerian war, and Italy had the most powerful Communist Party in Europe. However, civil unrest was contained and faded. The European Communities nurtured increased affluence and member states gradually evolved into better functioning democracies, where different parties could win at the elections and society at large slowly became more tolerant. The contrast with those countries in Europe where authoritarian regimes still existed grew starker. Development in Spain and Portugal was suffocated by conservative authoritarian regimes; in Greece, civil war haunted the population well into the 1960s, until the military took over (the “military junta”, 1967 - 1974). In the east, beyond the Iron Curtain, single party rule brought varying degrees of oppression. The European Communities had a commitment to liberal democracy that prevented authoritarian regimes from applying to join. While this was not enough for regimes to crumble, membership certainly was an appealing option for new born democracies, and they commonly applied for membership as soon as circumstances allowed.

The 1990s saw a boom of application requests: after the fall of the Soviet regimes, the Eastern countries applied to the EU, leading to the single largest enlargement in EU’s history. The EU now has 28 member States. The Council, where the governments are represented, and which was born as a ‘conflict resolution chamber’, acts as a legislator, together with the European Parliament, and there are rules that ensure that most of the decisions can be made by the majority. But when it comes to matters that are still the exclusive competence of the member States, such as defence, foreign policy, and most social policies, and where unanimity is required, the 28-member Council struggles to ensure swift and effective decision making.

Conflict has not been prevented outside the territory of member States, for example the 1967 coup in Greece, or the crushing of the rebellions in Budapest (1956) and in Prague (1968). The European Union (as it became after 1993) could do very little when confronted with the conflict in the Balkans. The EU could effectively contain conflict within its border, but it was not effective at peace-keeping activity in the rest of the continent. Member States kept (and keep) their own foreign policy. Harmonisation of trade and development aid developed, but hard matters such as defence and pure foreign policy decisions still lie with the national states and are shaped by the past, for example, by the imperial legacy for Britain and France.

●‘The European Communities have increased the stability of Europe.’ Find evidence in the text that supports this assertion.

The Context: Democracy & stability / 2

With the birth of the European Union, the concept of political stability had considerably evolved since the 1950s. it was not just about conflict management, but also about free and fair elections, fully transparent and accountable governments, equal possibilities for any citizen regardless of background. It was, in summary, about greater democracy.

The 1990s and the early 2000s, years of reasonably rapid growth, did not put the European system under any kind of stress test. Political stability in Europe seemed to be a matter of fact: within its borders, modern and functioning democracies, albeit with varying levels of transparency and accountability, lived and thrived. Some members began to share a common currency, the Euro. Outside its borders, other European countries were rapidly shrugging off the remnants of past authoritarian regimes, and were steadily heading towards membership of the Union. Some other countries, long-established democracies (such as Norway and Switzerland), were not part of the Union, but benefited from comprehensive agreements with the block in the terms of visas, trade, finance.

The so-called subprime crisis struck Europe in 2008. The stress test was finally there and the EU responded in a way that some found wanting. Some Euro member countries’ economies crashed dramatically: Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Greece. France was badly hit. No country was left untouched. The financial and banking system in the Union did not possess the tools for an effective and coordinated response, yet most EU countries were bound together by a common currency.

The choice was then made to provide the 19 Eurozone members with “the tools”: a banking union and a coordinated financial system. The problem was that, without a comprehensive treaty change, the main institution that would coordinate economic policy at EU level was the so-called Euro group: an informal institution for the 19 members, only partially accountable, with informal and bendable rules, and not applying to the 9 members outside the Eurozone.

Faith in the European Union, “the guardian of political stability”, was shaken. Were there limits to what it could achieve? If a democratically elected government decided not to follow the aims of the Eurogroup, was the Union entitled to retaliate, in the name of political stability? The question could also be reversed: could a single government, elected by only a fraction of the European citizens, jeopardise the coordinated effort towards political stability? Does the EU, in its current form, have the tools for maintaining political stability and upholding the current concept of open, transparent, and accountable democracy? Should member States take back their competences and use their own tools, or should the EU federalise even further, and take full ownership of the economic policy instruments? And most importantly, how can democratic accountability be ensured, and reinforced, through this shift in its governance?

●Summarise in your own words how the economic crisis that began in 2008 adversely affected the stability of the European Union.

On Cold War in Europe:

A shadow has fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory…. From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.

Winston Churchill, Fulton, Missouri on 05/03/1946 ( )

On the birth of the coal & steel community:

Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries. (...)

It proposes that Franco-German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common High Authority, within the framework of an organisation open to the participation of the other countries of Europe. The pooling of coal and steel production should immediately provide for the setting up of common foundations for economic development as a first step in the federation of Europe, and will change the destinies of those regions which have long been devoted to the manufacture of munitions of war, of which they have been the most constant victims. (...)

By pooling basic production and by instituting a new High Authority, whose decisions will bind France, Germany and other member countries, this proposal will lead to the realization of the first concrete foundation of a European federation indispensable to the preservation of peace.

(Schuman, 1950)

On enlargement:

Un succès pour Constantin Caramanlis (Le Figaro, 11/02/1976, translated by CIVCE)

During their meeting on Monday, the Foreign Ministers of the Nine decided that negotiations for Greece’s accession to the Common Market would be opened as soon as possible. They rejected any political precondition as well as any idea of a ‘probationary period’, thus contradicting the opinion of the Commission, which had wanted to delay Greece’s entry until that country’s economy was better able to cope with all the consequences of entry. (...) As soon as the news was received in Athens, the Prime Minister declared that the complete integration of Greece as the tenth Member State of the EEC was a historic event for his country and that it confirmed the confidence that Greece now inspired internationally. (...) The news was well received by the population and, in particular, by the industrialists and retailers who see attractive prospects opening up. (...) People here are asking how the Greek economy will manage to bring itself into line with those of its partners, something that will require further price rises, less easily absorbed than in the other countries of the Community. (...)

Why are these two countries joining the EU, and why now?

Bulgaria and Romania applied to join the EU in the early 1990s along with eight other former communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, once they were no longer under the power of the Soviet Union. The other eight moved quickly to carry out political and economic reforms, and joined the EU in 2004. Bulgaria and Romania were slower, and are only now judged to have met the EU's membership conditions.

Are Bulgaria and Romania really ready for membership?

Officials at the European Commission have been quoted as saying that they are not really ready, but that delaying accession may not be the best way to encourage further reforms.

The Commission was hoping, for example, that Bulgaria would take big steps over the summer to tackle high-level corruption and organised crime, but officials in Brussels say they have been disappointed. Nonetheless, a decision has been taken that it is better to have Bulgaria and Romania inside the club - under threat of strong sanctions if EU funds are not properly administered or crime gangs continue to flourish - rather than leaving them out in the cold.

Views on the Eurogroup and negotiations with Greece: