Europe: A History (223 page)

In August 1949 the Council of Europe started business in Strasburg. Its minimalist mandate, which was to promote European unity by debate, publicity, and research, was determined by British reservations. It had no executive powers. Its 11 original members, including Great Britain, soon swelled to 18. It was run by a Committee of Ministers meeting in private, and by a public Consultative Assembly. Its commissions on crime, human rights, cultural and legal
co-operation did useful work, as did the European Court of Human Rights over which it presided. But its vision was geared to a vague and distant future. Within a year of Strasbourg welcoming the Council, the far more ambitious Schuman Plan was unveiled in Paris.

The strategy of the activists was to press for maximum proposals in the hope that a modicum of the programme would be accepted. They had to operate within a Western alliance still dominated by Washington and London, and had to be seen to complement existing arrangements in NATO, the OEEC (later OECD), and the Council of Europe. None the less, the Schuman Plan of May 1950 proposed a far-reaching package of economic, military, and political institutions. It called for an economic organization co-ordinating the iron and steel industry and for a European army, which together would form the foundation for a United States of Europe. And it was prepared in secret, without advance consultation with London. In the event, the economic element took flight whilst the military and the political elements were shelved. Henceforth, the three strands of European unification were destined to progress along separate tracks and at different speeds.

The main strength of the Schuman Plan lay in its appeal to Franco-German reconciliation. It appeared at a juncture when the Bundesrepublik stood on the brink of spectacular economic expansion, but when it was still politically isolated. Chancellor Adenauer, a Rhinelander, had lived all his life in the shadow of Franco-German wars; and he shared Schuman’s liberal and democratic Catholicism. The prospect of harmony between France and Germany provided the fund of agreement which no one could reasonably oppose. Once rolling, it gathered momentum.

The European Coal and Steel Community (1951–) was the first-born child of the Schuman Plan. It was designed to prevent the reappearance of a separate military-industrial base in each member country; and its first president was Jean Monnet. Its founding treaty, signed in May 1951, brought together ‘the Six’— France, Germany, Italy, and Benelux. They agreed to operate free trade in coal and steel, to abide by common regulations governing manufacture and competition, and, in the event of‘manifest crisis’, to control prices and production. It was a manifest success. Britain did not participate.

The military strand encountered severe obstacles. The Pleven Plan (1950) floated a modified version of the military clauses of the Schuman Plan; but it still encountered the forthright denunciation of de Gaulle. Complicated negotiations dragged on for four years. The British were in no mood to weaken NATO; the French came out against a compromise organization, the European Defence Community (EDC). An eventual outcome was found in the Western European Union (1955), a deliberative body with few independent powers, which came into being just in time to experience the chaos of the Suez Crisis.

The Messina Conference of 1955 marks the moment when the European movement turned to economic integration as the leading element in its strategy. The political strand was not making progress; members decided that a strong and successful economic community would open up the surest path for pursuing their
long-term political goals. They were to hold to this course for more than 30 years. The two treaties signed in Rome (25 March 1957) embodied the determination of the Six to extend the success of the ECSC into all sectors of their commercial and economic life. They gave rise to the European Economic Community (EEC), otherwise known as the Common Market, which came into official effect on 1 January 1958 and also to Euratom. The main aims were to remove all internal tariffs, to formulate a common external trade policy, to harmonize transportation, agriculture, and taxation, to eliminate barriers to free competition, and to encourage the mobility of capital, labour, and enterprises.

In order to pursue these aims, four new bodies were created: the Council of Ministers, which was to control and authorize all policy decisions; a subordinate Executive Commission in Brussels, with a Permanent Secretariat and numerous directorates for proposing policy; the European Court of Justice; and a European Parliament sitting alternately in Strasbourg and Luxemburg. Once again, the venture prospered. Internal tariffs were abolished by 1968. The Common Agricultural Policy (1962), thanks to vast subsidies and despite the protests of manufacturers, brought a new lease of sturdy life to millions of farmers. The introduction of Value Added Tax (VAT) in 1967 raised important revenues which could be used to spread the Community’s growing wealth into deprived social sectors and backward regions. The first President of the European Commission, Professor Walter Hallstein (West Germany), guided its fortunes from 1958 to 1967. Among his successors were Roy Jenkins (UK) and, from 1985, Jacques Delors (France). Whatever the criticisms of the EEC—and there were many—it was demonstrably true that its members were waxing more prosperous than the countries which stayed out. ‘Anyone who does not believe in miracles in European affairs’, remarked Professor Hallstein, ‘is not a realist.’

The European Free Trade Area (EFTA, 1958- ) was created in response to the EEC by the so-called ‘Outer Seven’, led by Britain, who had not been parties to the Treaty of Rome. Its interests were confined to the commercial sector; and its long-term future was constantly clouded by the likelihood of defection to the EEC. It played a valuable role until 1973, when Britain and Denmark left EFTA to join the EEC.

Britain’s membership of the European movement proved a bone of contention that rankled for more than 40 years. The UK Government did not participate in the ECSC in 1951, and dropped out of negotiations preceding the Treaty of Rome. The inhibitions were both psychological and practical. Not having suffered the sobering humiliation of national defeat, many Britons still harboured illusions of sovereignty and self-sufficiency. They also possessed very real commitments to the Commonwealth—including the thorny matter of Commonwealth commercial preference. In the political sphere, they gave priority to relations with the USA and to membership of NATO. In 1961 and 1967 under Macmillan and Wilson, they twice applied to join the EEC, only to meet the shocking rebuff of de Gaulle’s veto. Throughout the decade before the Treaty of Rome, de Gaulle was in retirement and France’s European policy had rested with milder men. But de Gaulle’s
return to power coincided with the launching of the EEC. Conflict was unavoidable. The General was still nursing resentments about the alleged betrayal of French interests first by the British in wartime and then by the leaders of the Fourth Republic. He held strong views about ‘l’Europe des Patries’, a ‘community of nation-states’; and he insisted on reinstating what he saw as France’s sovereign rights. The results were seen in his vetoes against Britain’s entry, and then in a long-running battle against the European Commission—‘the Emperor versus the Pope’. French representatives boycotted proceedings in Brussels until they forced through the Luxemburg Compromise (1966)—an arrangement whereby members were permitted to disregard the rules of the Treaty of Rome on majority voting in matters of supreme national concern.

The first two decades of the EEC were crowned by a number of important financial developments. The European Monetary System (EMS), which began in 1979, tied the currencies of member states into the framework of an exchange rate mechanism (ERM) which was designed to dampen previous fluctuations. It was conceived by its authors as the initial stage on the long road to European monetary union (EMU). The appearance of the European Currency Unit (ECU) promised later moves towards a single currency. The European Social Fund and the European Development Fund were both designed to redistribute wealth into areas of social or regional deprivation.

The Community’s economic success ensured a steady stream of new applicants. In 1973, under Edward Heath, the UK was admitted at the third attempt, together with Denmark and Ireland. A British referendum (1975) confirmed the permanence of UK membership. The Six became the Nine. In 1981, the admission of Greece turned the Nine into the Ten. In 1986, after lengthy negotiations, Spain and Portugal were admitted: the Ten became the Twelve. For the first time, the Community embraced three ‘developing economies’, and, in the case of Greece, an East European country with no contiguous frontier.

Yet the military and political strands of European union remained stalled. In the early 1980s the Atlantic alliance was reactivated by the assertive Reagan-Thatcher duet; and the value of NATO was emphasized by the controversy over Soviet and American missiles. The political and international role of the EEC was peripheral. Its institutions, which were designed to fit a small Community of Six, were increasingly strained by the expanding business of the Twelve. In due course, one of the leading Europeans would call the Community ‘a growing man still walking around in babyclothes’.
¹⁹
There seemed little chance that the EEC could soon break out of its narrowly economic concerns.

One would like to think, however, that the creation of the Twelve had given birth to something qualitatively new. Europe had seen any number of alliances between the rich and powerful, any number of visions based on selective membership of the privileged ‘West’. But now the point appeared to have been reached at which the European Community was changing itself into a voluntary association of equal nations—rich and poor, East and West, great and small. The main criteria for entry, apart from being European was that applicants should have
shed the nationalistic, imperialist, and totalitarian traditions of the past. Only time would tell whether the change was permanent.

The Neutral States

Neutrality has been a feature of the European scene throughout the twentieth century. Eleven neutral states existed in 1945; four countries which had avoided involvement in one or both World Wars also declined to be drawn into the postwar military blocs; two countries achieved neutral status in the early post-war years. There was a high correlation between neutrality and affluence; and most neutrals did not make haste to join the European Economic Community.

Switzerland, for whom neutrality was a way of life, thrived mightily. It had steeled itself to resist German invasion during the war, and saw a marked rise in population afterwards. It benefited greatly from the proximity of northern Italy and southern Germany, both regions of massive post-war economic growth, whilst continuing to play a special role in banking and in tourism. It welcomed numerous multinational companies and international agencies, from Bayer chemicals to UNESCO. Rhaeto-Romanic was raised to the status of a national language, alongside Swiss German, French, and Italian, and the French-speaking Jura was made a special canton. The defence budget was high, and universal male conscription remained in force to support the national militia. Swiss women had no vote until after the (all-male) referendum of 1980. Switzerland shunned the Council of Europe till 1963; its association with the EEC was limited to a free-trade agreement signed in 1972.

Thanks to Switzerland, several adjoining territories have claimed the status of free customs zones. These include the German enclave of Büsingen, the Italian districts of Campione d’ltalia, Livigno, and Val d’Aosta, and, since 1815, the French
département
of Haute-Savoie.

Sweden had prospered from neutrality in wartime, and continued to do so in peacetime. It was the centre-piece of the regional Baltic Council, but remained aloof from both NATO and the EEC even when its Scandinavian partners joined. The long rule of Social Democracy carried on to the elections of 1989. Especially under its premier, Olaf Palme, who was murdered in 1986, Sweden took the lead in a number of initiatives involving Third World, refugee, and environmental issues.

Franco’s Spain remained a political pariah so long as the Caudillo lived. Indeed, the extraordinary longevity of both Franco and Salazar held Iberian politics in a time-warp until the mid-1970s. The anachronistic survival of fascism served to offset anti-communist opinion in Western Europe, especially in France. With Portugal a member of NATO, Spain agreed to receive American bases, but rejected any greater involvement. Mass tourism, however, militated against total isolation. The re-establishment of the constitutional monarchy in 1975 opened the way for EEC membership, and for the remarkable economic resurgence of the 1980s. Basque terrorism in the north-west, Catalan separatism in Barcelona, and
the intractable dispute with Great Britain over Gibraltar all complicated the Spanish revival.

The Republic of Ireland had survived the threat of British occupation during the war, and left the Commonwealth at the end of it. But economic dependence on the United Kingdom remained a reality: Ireland had little alternative to following in Britain’s contorted wake in negotiations with the EEC. Political life centred on the privileged position of the Catholic Church, on the endless conflict with Northern Ireland, and on the rivalry of the two main parties, Fianna Fail (‘Soldiers of Destiny’) and Fine Gael (‘Race of Gaels’). The Irish Constitution treated the counties of British Ulster as an integral part of the Republic. But the Irish Republican Army (IRA) was regarded as an illegal organization on both sides of the border; and relations between London and Dublin were not a major obstacle to a settlement.

Finland, which had joined the German attack on the USSR (see p. 1013), escaped Soviet occupation, though further territory, notably Viipuri (Vyborg) and Petsamo, had to be ceded at the armistice of 1944. In 1947, however, a peace treaty confirmed the country’s limited sovereignty in return for the lease of the Porkkala naval base. Henceforth, Finland was obliged to observe strict neutrality, to reduce its armed forces, and to pursue a foreign policy concordant with Soviet interests. After that, the economy boomed, and Helsinki became one of Europe’s most elegant and expensive cities—a western showpiece on the doorstep of Leningrad. ‘Finlandization’ was a status which many Soviet-occupied countries coveted, but none, except Austria, ever obtained.