The European Union Explained: Institutions, Actors, Global Impact

Notes

Notes 1. Parameters of European Integration It is important to note that the Council of Europe is not an EU institution. Similarly, the European 1. Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, which is related to the Council of Europe, should not be confused with the EU’s European Court of Justice, which is located in Luxembourg. Jean Monnet, a rather illustrious character, was born in France in 1888 and spent his early years 2. working in his father’s cognac business. He was not drafted in World War I because he suffered from nephritis. During World War II and after the fall of France in 1940, he worked for the UK government and was instrumental in organizing supplies for the French Resistance movement. Monnet died in March 1979 at the age of ninety. The WEU began life as the Brussels Treaty Organization. The Brussels Treaty was signed on 17 3. March 1948 by Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom, and provided for collective self-defense and economic, social, and cultural collaboration between its signatories. In 1954 the Brussels Treaty was modified to include West Germany and Italy, thus creating the Western European Union. The WEU was primarily concerned with increasing Soviet control of Central and Eastern Europe, and committed all signatory countries to the mutual defense of any member. The initial purpose of EURATOM was twofold: it sought to ensure the creation of the necessary 4. conditions for the development of nuclear energy within the community and also worked to guarantee an equitable supply of ores and nuclear fuels. The treaty created the EURATOM Supply Agency, which had the power to purchase fuels for community use and develop a common supply policy based on the principle of equal access to fuel. The Treaty of Rome also established the institutions of the EEC: an Assembly (renamed Parlia5 . ment at its first meeting), the Council of Ministers, the Commission, and the Court of Justice. The balance between these institutions would evolve as the EEC developed, but the Treaty set an important precedent in securing a supranational decision-making institution in the Commission, while limiting the role of the Parliament and therefore the involvement of European citizens whom that institution ought to represent. British interest in European integration was largely a product of the country’s declining interna6 . tional political prominence, especially in the aftermath of the Suez crisis in 1956. By the end of the 1950s, 19-EUE Notes (147-60).indd 147 9/24/08 9:11:25 AM 148 · Notes to pages 12–25 Britain also had to confront the fact that economic ties were shifting away from the Commonwealth toward the European continent. The European Commission, the EU’s key bureaucracy, is analyzed in detail in chapter 3. 7. Charles de Gaulle had been forced to leave office in 1969 at the age of seventy-nine, and his 8. counterpart in West Germany, Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, resigned in 1963 at the age of eighty-seven. According to the country’s statistical office, West Germany’s exports nearly trebled between 1960 9. and 1970, rising from 24.5 billion Euros (at 2004 prices) to 64 billion. Luxembourg’s prime minister, Pierre Werner, was commissioned to write a report on the suitabil10 . ity of an economic and monetary union. The report had a marked impact on the process of establishing the Euro in the 1990s. Chapter 13 offers a more detailed analysis of the Euro. The Merger Treaty, which was signed in April 1965 and implemented on 1 July 1967, integrated 11. the EEC, the ECSC, and EURATOM as the European Community. This system was called “the snake,” as the value of a national currency was allowed to fluctuate by 12. 2.25 percent in either direction in relation to other national currencies. It was this continual fluctuation that inspired commentators to use the metaphor of a snake wiggling its way from one end of the scale to another; more on this in chapter 13. With the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, the U.S. underwent a drastic transformation of its 13. macro-economic approach. The neo-liberal agenda of “Reaganomics” advocated tax cuts for big business and high-income earners, based on the premise that the subsequent savings would help boost productivity and employment levels. Through a “trickle-down effect,” Reagan contended, the generated wealth would eventually reach broader segments of society. Reagan also argued for a limited role of the state in addressing and managing...