Whence Europe? Past and Present Sources of European Union Tore Nedrebø 0 CONTENTS PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...................................................3 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................... 6 THE CURIOUS DIVIDE IN ATTITUDES TO EUROPEAN INTEGRATION ................................... 6 THE SHORTCOMINGS OF TRADITIONAL THEORIES ............................................................ 7 THE CLASH OF PARADIGMS ........................................................................................... 10 THE RELEVANCE OF ROKKAN ........................................................................................ 17 METHODOLOGY AND ORGANISATION ............................................................................. 18 1: POSSIBLE SOURCES OF EUROPEAN UNION ..................................... 21 ATTITUDES .................................................................................................................. 21 INTEREST ................................................................................................................... 24 IDEOLOGY ................................................................................................................... 26 LEARNING .................................................................................................................. 30 LOCATION ................................................................................................................... 32 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................... 37 2: PAST SOURCES OF EUROPEAN UNION ........................................... 38 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 38 THE NEAR EAST .......................................................................................................... 42 ANCIENT ISRAEL .......................................................................................................... 45 ANCIENT GREECE ........................................................................................................ 47 The Greek origin of geographical Europe .................................................. 47 The Greek contribution to Europeanness ................................................... 51 The national-liberal polis ............................................................................ 56 THE HELLENISTIC MONARCHIES ................................................................................. 58 THE ROMAN EMPIRE .................................................................................................. 62 The Roman idea of empire .......................................................................... 63 The Romanisation of Europe ...................................................................... 69 Roman law ................................................................................................... 70 The Christian empire ................................................................................... 74 1 EUROPEAN CHRISTENDOM ........................................................................................... 79 Christendom, West and East ....................................................................... 81 The Making of Europe ................................................................................ 90 Charlemagne’s Europe .............................................................................. 110 The medieval papacy and empire .............................................................. 117 MODERN EUROPE ...................................................................................................... 136 Universalist-descending ideology ............................................................. 139 Particularist-descending ideology ............................................................ 157 Particularist-ascending ideology .............................................................. 170 Europeanist-ascending ideology .............................................................. 181 CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 197 3: PRESENT SOURCES OF EUROPEAN UNION ................................... 199 INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 199 POSTWAR PATTERNS OF EUROPEANISM ...................................................................... 202 THE COUNCIL OF EUROPE ..................................... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED. THE EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY .......................................................... 208 THE EUROPEAN DEFENCE COMMUNITY ..................................................................... 220 THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY ................................................................... 222 ENLARGEMENT AND EUROPEAN UNION ..................................................................... 224 CONCLUSION ...................................................................................... 232 WHENCE EUROPE? ................................................................................................... 232 WHITHER EUROPE? .................................................................................................. 234 REFERENCES ...................................................................................... 237 2 PREFACE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The present study is an enquiry into which factors influence Europeans’ atti- tudes to the idea of European union. The reason why I became interested in this problem is quite personal, and it may be illuminating if I start by briefly describ- ing how the following pages came to be written. This will reveal not only some of my bias, but also the first-hand experience that forms the background of the project. In the fall of 1978, when I began studying at the University of Bergen, I came across a youth organisation called the Young European Federalists (in French Jeunesse Européenne Fédéraliste, JEF; and in Norwegian Europeisk Ungdom, the youth section of the European Movement). As I had a need for meaningful free time activities and was interested in European and international affairs, I joined. I was also influenced by my father, who had been an ardent supporter of Norwegian membership of the European Communities during the referendum campaign in 1972. Soon I found myself engaged at all levels of the organisation, from the local to the European one. Having just finished my undergraduate studies in the summer of 1982, I was accepted for the post of Secretary General of JEF Europe. Consequently, I moved to Brussels, where I lived and worked for two years. During my assignment in Brussels I had to travel extensively in Europe, east and west, north and south; to get acquainted with the European Community institutions (especially the Commission and Parliament); and to organise and attend innumerable meetings, conferences, seminars, etc. on issues related to European union. During these two years on the Continent, I met much more positive attitudes to European union than I had at home. In Norway, where the issue of EC membership had been anathema since the “No” of the 1972 referendum, our advocacy of European union had mostly met with indifference or hostility. At university, the conventional wisdom was that European union was a cause of the elite and the political right. However, in continental Europe, I discovered that it was championed by most mainstream political currents, although more eagerly by some than others. Still, I was struck by the diversity of opinions that could be encountered, especially in the European youth fora I attended. Our discussions on Europe came to a head when we discussed the Draft Treaty Establishing the European Union, adopted by the European Parliament on 14 February 1984 (also known as the Spinelli Initiative). Generally, and on practical matters nearly always, in the meetings of the European youth networks I sided with the representatives of what I considered rational and pragmatic organisations with their mainstay in northern Europe. However, on the Draft Treaty I found myself sharing beds with what some of us sometimes referred to as the Latin or Catholic faction from continental and southern Europe, facing fierce and emotional opposition from the otherwise so sensible and cool north, i.e. the UK, Ireland and Denmark (the Swedes I met were equally sceptical, but 3 as this was before the end of the Cold War they stood quite aloof from the issue of European union). I discovered a similar geographical pattern of attitudes in the media and when I travelled in Europe. Moreover, I found that the votes in the European Parliament on the Draft Treaty, as well as the deliberations of the Council of Ministers and European Council generally reflected corresponding divisions. The further destiny of the initiative (Dooge Committee, various European Councils, the Maastricht Treaty, one referendum in Ireland, two in Denmark, etc.) indeed proved to be a contest between pro-Union and anti-Union tendencies along similar lines. I began asking myself: What can explain this pattern of Euro-attitudes? Why are so many people in northern Europe, and notably in the UK and Scandinavia, sceptical to European union, while continental and southern Europeans sometimes see it as a question of survival?