Wilfried Loth Building Europe Wilfried Loth Building Europe A History of European Unification Translated by Robert F. Hogg An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support of libra- ries working with Knowledge Unlatched. KU is a collaborative initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access. More information about the initiative can be found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. ISBN 978-3-11-042777-6 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-042481-2 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-042488-1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP catalog record for this book has been applied for at the Library of Congress. Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2015 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston Cover image rights: ©UE/Christian Lambiotte Typesetting: Michael Peschke, Berlin Printing: CPI books GmbH, Leck ♾ Printed on acid free paper Printed in Germany www.degruyter.com Table of Contents Abbreviations vii Prologue: Churchill’s Congress 1 Four Driving Forces 1 The Struggle for the Congress 8 Negotiations and Decisions 13 A Milestone 18 1 Foundation Years, 1948–1957 20 The Struggle over the Council of Europe 20 The Emergence of the Coal and Steel Community 28 The Drama of the EDC 36 The Difficult “Relance” 53 The Negotiations on Euratom and the European Economic Community 62 2 Formative Years, 1958–1963 75 The European Commission 75 The Struggle over the Free-Trade Area 83 The Construction of the Common Market 90 Fouchet Plans and British Membership Application 101 Accession Negotiations and Franco-German Treaty 108 The Success of the Economic Community 117 3 Crises of the Community of the Six, 1963–1969 123 Erhard’s Relaunch 123 Hallstein’s Offensive 132 The Crisis of the “Empty Chair” 138 The Time of the Arrangements 147 The Return of the British Question 155 France on the Way to Turning 162 4 Expansion and New Perspectives, 1969–1975 170 Turning Point: The Summit in The Hague 170 The Completion of the Common Market 177 The First Enlargement 183 The Project of Monetary Union 195 Political Cooperation 204 Crisis and New Beginning 213 5 Consolidation, 1976–1984 222 The Path to Direct Elections 222 The European Monetary System 229 vi Table of Contents Expansion to the South 242 The Defense of Détente 251 Thatcher, Genscher, and Colombo 261 6 The Era of Development, 1984–1992 271 The Single European Act 271 The Internal-Market Project 281 The Project for an Economic and Monetary Union 289 European Security and German Unity 300 The Path to Maastricht 310 7 From Maastricht to Nice, 1992–2001 323 Implementing the Monetary Union 323 The Northern Expansion 336 The Way to Amsterdam 342 Security and Eastern Policy 356 The Nice Complex 367 8 Constitutional Struggle and Euro Crisis, 2001–2012 372 The Eastward Enlargement 372 The Constitutional Treaty 384 From Prodi to Barroso 393 The Constitutional Crisis 404 The Euro Crisis 417 Conclusion: The Future of the Union 433 Afterword 441 The European Parliament 1979–2014: Party memberships 444 The European Parliament 1979–2014: Presidents 445 The Presidents of the High Authority and the Commissions 446 Sources 447 Bibliography 452 Index 474 Abbreviations AKP Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi BRRM Bank Recovery and Resolution Mechanism CAP Common Agricultural Policy CDE Conference on Disarmament in Europe CDU Christian Democratic Union CFSP Common Foreign and Security Policy CIA Central Intelligence Agency COMECON Council of Mutual Economic Assistance COPA Committee of Agricultural Organizations in the European Community COREPER Committee of Permanent Representatives CSCE Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe CSDP Common Security and Defense Policy CSU Christian Social Union DM Deutsche Mark EAC European Advisory Commission EC European Communities ECA European Cooperation Administration ECB European Central Bank ECJ European Court of Justice ECOFIN Economic and Financial Affairs Council ECSC European Coal and Steel Community ECU European Currency Unit EDC European Defense Community EEA European Economic Area EEC European Economic Community EFSF European Financial Stability Facility EFSM European Financial Stabilization Mechanism EFTA European Free Trade Association EKD Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland EMS European Monetary System EMA European Monetary Agreement EMU Economic and Monetary Union EPC European Political Community EPC European Political Cooperation EPP European People’s Party EPU European Parliamentary Union EPU European Payments Union ESM European Stability Mechanism EU European Union EURATOM European Atomic Energy Community EUSE Comité international pour les États-Unis socialistes d‘Europe FDP Freie Demokratische Partei GATT General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade GDP Gross domestic product viii Abbreviations GDR German Democratic Republic GNP Gross national product ILEC Independent League of European Co-operation IMF International Monetary Fund JDP Justice and Development Party of Turkey MBFR Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction MLF Multilateral Force MSEUE Socialist Movement for the United States of Europe NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization NEI Nouvelles Équipes Internationales OECD Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development OEEC Organization of European Economic Cooperation OPEC Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries PASOK Panellinio Sosialistikó Kinima PES Party of European Socialists PHARE Poland and Hungary Aid for Restructuring of the Economies PKK Partiya Karkerên Kurdistan SAA Stability and Association Agreement SALT Strategic Arms Limitation Talks SDI Strategic Defense Initiative SEA Single European Act SFIO Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvrière SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands SSM Single Supervisory Mechanism TEU Treaty on European Union UDF Union pour la Démocratie Française UEF Union Européenne des Fédéralistes UEM United Europe Movement UMP Union pour un Mouvement Populaire UNO United Nations Organization USA United States of America WEU Western European Union WTO World Trade Organization Prologue: Churchill’s Congress From 7 to 10 May 1948, 722 representative figures from twenty-eight European countries met in The Hague to discuss paths and possibilities for a unification of Europe. Six former prime ministers of European countries took part in the gathering along with fourteen active and forty-five former ministers. In addition, West German governors, leading members of parliaments, business leaders, key representatives from organized labor, academics, artists and religious officials were present. Winston Churchill, Britain’s celebrated prime minister during the war years and now leader of the opposition in the House of Commons gave the opening address. Outside the official halls, public interest was evident. Around forty thousand people attended a public declaration during the third day of nego- tiations. The congress led to the formation of the European Movement and indi- rectly to the founding of the Council of Europe.1 Four Driving Forces The Hague Congress set off crucial negotiations for the creation of European institutions. These negotiations—otherwise than the talks around the proposal for “a kind of federative association” among the peoples of Europe that had been proposed by French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand in September 1929 to the assembly of the League of Nations—would prove successful and lead to the foun- dation of a European community that today has great influence over the lives of Europeans. This community concentrated movements that aimed to overcome the functional deficits of nation states and of the nation-state-dominated Euro- pean political system and that had developed as early as the First World War. They were driven by four varying yet closely linked agendas. 2 The first objective was to deal with the problem of anarchy among states which had been the spark for all “classical” plans to secure the peace, ranging 1 On the pre-history and course of The Hague Congress, cf. Frank Niess, Die europäische Idee aus dem Geist des Widerstands, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2001, pp. 158–173 and 181–220; Wil- fried Loth, “Vor 60 Jahren: Der Haager Europa-Kongress,” in: Integration 31 (2008), pp. 179–190; Jean-Michel Guieu and Christophe Le Dréau (eds.), Le “Congrès de l’Europe” à la Haye (1948– 2008), Brussels: Peter Lang, 2009. 2 This systematization was presented for the first time in Wilfried Loth, “Der Prozess der eu- ropäischen Integration. Antriebskräfte, Entscheidungen und Perspektiven,” in: Jahrbuch für Europäische Geschichte 1 (2000), pp. 17–30. For a complete presentation developing these moti- vations, cf. Wilfried Loth: Der Weg nach Europa. Geschichte der europäischen Integration 1939– 1957, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990, 3rd edition, 1996. 2 Prologue: Churchill’s Congress from Dante to Kant. The urgency of finding a better institutional solution to deal with its prospects was ever more pressing with the development of modern military technology and the resulting death of millions of victims followed by economic damage of a magnitude unimagined in the era of cabinet warfare. Hence, the experience of the First World War had led to multiple