Die Europäische Union ist ein in der Geschichte einzigartiger politischer Versuch und - bei allen Schwierigkeiten - ein Modell für friedliche Koexistenz in der Zukunft.
Als 1952 der der Gründungsvertrag für die Europäische Gemeinschaft für Kohle und Stahl (EGKS) in Kraft trat, konnte niemand ahnen, welche Tiefe und Breite die Integration in Europa fünfzig Jahre später erreichen würde. Jürgen Elvert skizziert Idee und Vorstellung von Europa von der Antike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, um dann konkret und anschaulich den manches Mal mühsamen Weg der europäischen Integration von der Nachkriegszeit bis zur unmittelbaren Gegenwart darzustellen.
Rezension:
Dinan, Desmond: Europe Recast. A History of European Union. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan 2004. ISBN 0-333-98734-9; 373 S.; £ 17.99.
Judt, Tony: Postwar. A History of Europe Since 1945. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press 2005. ISBN 1-59420-065-3; 878 S.; $39.95.
Elvert, Jürgen: Die Europäische Integration (= Geschichte Kompakt).
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2006. ISBN 3-534-15444-4; VII, 152 S.; EUR 14,90.
Rezensiert für H-Soz-u-Kult von:
Jan-Henrik Meyer, Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
E-Mail:
Postwar European Integration: Europe Recast?
Judging by the growing number of publications in recent years, European history seems to be a booming industry.[1] At the outset of the new millennium, and as the Cold War is fading into history, historians from both sides of the Atlantic are reflecting upon the second half of the twentieth century. As a crucial aspect of post-1945 Europe, the peaceful process of European integration has slowly accumulated its own history, calling for explanation and interpretation. Moreover, with the expansion of European studies, there is a growing international demand for textbooks on the history of European integration.[2]
Two of these texts will be discussed here: Jürgen Elvert’s “Die Europäische Integration” is a concise, informative and very readable introduction in German. Desmond Dinan’s 370-page volume “Europe Recast”
is a well-written, well-informed and more extensive presentation in English. Tony Judt’s “Postwar. A History of Europe Since 1945” is an intimidatingly comprehensive and elegantly written narrative on the politics, economics, society and culture of almost all European countries, East and West. (The German edition has just been published:
Geschichte Europas von 1945 bis zur Gegenwart, Munich 2006; also available from the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung:
http://www.bpb.de/publikationen/2E8N7E). Still, as European integration is one of the book’s central themes, to which more than 50 of its roughly 800 pages of text are devoted, it is worthwhile to include it in this comparative review on the history of European integration.
Admittedly, it is impossible to do the richness of this book justice in this format.
Although in many respects different, these books all address four central questions: First, what marks the historical importance of European integration? Put differently, what is it that differentiates the European post-war experience from that of other parts of the globe?
Second, what reasons account for European integration, its origins, as well as the continuation of the process to the present day? Third, how can the history of European integration be divided into distinct periods? Fourth, what are, according to the authors, the central problems of European integration?
1. The historical importance of European integration
From their historical perspectives, the authors highlight what is easily forgotten in the everyday squabble about market regulation and net contributions. The historical importance of European integration lies in the fact that it provided a peaceful political order for a continent that had been riven by war for centuries. Particularly when viewed from across the Atlantic, Europe’s break with the past appears remarkable.
In his introductory chapter, Jürgen Elvert, a professor in Cologne, provides a longue durée overview of the concept of Europe since antiquity. According to Elvert, one of the most important aspects to consider in respect to “Europe” is its quest for a peaceful political order. Unlike in China, this was not necessarily associated with unity.
Rather, Europe’s political leitmotif has long been the balance of power.
This concept served as the guiding principle for European peace treaties well into the twentieth century. It was only after the disruptions of World War II and the experience of forced unification under the Nazis that the idea of a European federation was more widely received as an alternative that promised a more peaceful future.
Dinan, Jean Monnet Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, likewise emphasises Europe’s break with its
past: “The EU has helped to recast Europe in fundamental ways.” Dinan, an Irishman, maintains that the EU has become a central instrument for resolving conflicts within Europe. Lengthy intergovernmental bargaining in Brussels has taken the place of the “continuation of politics by other means” (p. 326).
It does not seem to be a coincidence that this observation is shared by another European working in US. Tony Judt, an English intellectual, teaches European Studies as Erich Maria Remarque Professor at New York University. To him, Europe is even a model that is characterised by peaceful conflict resolution between states as well as within society.
It relies on (protective) regulation by law and bureaucracy, both by the EU and the nation states. This “European Model” of peace and social protection has not only been attractive for Eastern Europe, but even for the rest of the world and is seen as a competitor to the “American Way of Life” (pp. 7-8). Judt praises the safer, better and healthier lives Europeans lead, including their deliberate choice to give up income for shorter working hours and longer paid vacation.
Judt, who admits in his preface to being “opinionated” in the positive sense of the word (p. XIII), seems to consciously ignore recent debates on the crisis of the European social model. Cynical critics have remarked that it was neither European (as it comes in different types) nor social (for its perverse effects on employment), nor a model (as it is not being imitated elsewhere). While Judt’s observation concerning the different role of the state in Europe is surely correct, his “European model” in its idealised form resembles a utopia[3] that is intended to convince an American audience that an alternative to war and deregulation is possible. He may also want to convince Europeans that the welfare state is worth defending against globalisation and American-style neo-liberalism.
To be sure, Judt is by no means an uncritical supporter of European integration. Unlike Elvert and Dinan who tend to measure the advances of integration, Judt does not hesitate to severely (and deservedly) criticise the blatantly wasteful agricultural policy and its unfair distributive effects, or to think of regional policy as a plot by the European Commission to create European loyalty in the regions (which is less plausible as regional policy had been introduced in part as a side-payment for Britain to reduce its net contribution to the EC budget).
2. Reasons for European integration
Which reasons for European integration the authors highlight seems to be a consequence of the different interpretative frameworks they apply.
Continental idealism and neo-functionalism can be juxtaposed to the more pragmatic Anglo-Irish calculations of national interest. For Elvert, the history of European integration commences with the European Coal and Steel Community’s (ECSC) foundation in 1952. It was the first instance of “real” integration, complete with supranational institutions with their own competences to legislate and regulate (p. 1). Thus, supranationalism is the principle and yardstick by which Elvert judges achievements in the course of the integration process. Like many continental, federalist-inspired historians of European integration, Elvert tends to present European development as the recurrent battle for the progress of supranationalism, which is hindered by the forces of old-fashioned egoistic national interest (passim, e.g. p. 41, p. 49, p.
137). Elvert interprets European integration as a response to the dual challenges of security and economic reconstruction that Western Europe was facing after World War II. To be sure, Elvert mentions the converging interest to integrate the German economy, as well as the goal to stabilise the Western European system of states (p. 87). Still, the focus of his narrative is on the conflict between Churchill’s Unionist – intergovernmental – model and Schuman’s federalist – supranational – model, which eventually prevailed.
Additionally, in his chapter on the most recent period of European integration, Elvert introduces a concept of Europeanisation[4], which reflects his neo-functional inspired interpretation of what explains European integration: Europeanisation is the gradual process of supranational integration in the European Union that had grown out of the institutions of the original Six. Enlargement induced deepening, which produced – apparently as a functional necessity – institutional change, namely the adjustment of competences at the supranational level.
In turn, this brought about the stabilisation and strengthening of a genuinely supranational political structure. At the same time, and here he integrates Wolfgang Wessels’ “fusion thesis”, this process leads the “fusion” of national and European policy making, which combines the different levels of government into a multi-level polity (p. 126).[5]
This definition is not without problems. Europeanisation is used here essentially synonymously with European integration. Surely, Elvert is not the only one using the concept this way, but it is not apparent what is gained by such a usage.[6] Moreover, while a good concept should be parsimonious[7], Elvert’s definition attempts to capture in one word the entire complexity of the European integration process. Consequently, the term is overburdened with factors and qualifications, and carries a slightly deterministic undertone. It is probably due to this complexity that in the remainder of the chapter the term is not used consistently, nor is it fruitfully applied in the analysis. The only time it is mentioned again, the term merely describes the “fusion” of levels of government (p. 126). This is all the more irritating, as Elvert claims Europeanisation to be a key concept for the analysis of Europe’s most recent developments (ibid.).
Dinan agrees with Elvert on the importance of the emergence of “supranational governance”. Nevertheless, what appears most remarkable to him and requires explanation is European states’ willingness to “limit their own sovereignty” in order to achieve collective peace and economic integration (p. 1). According to Dinan, European integration is not so much driven by the battle between national and European interests over how much supranationalism can be conceded. Rather, he, as well as Judt, follows Milward’s hypothesis of the “European Rescue of the Nation State”. Milward argues that European leaders purposefully gave up part of their national sovereignty in a situation of severe economic and strategic challenge in order to strengthen and consolidate their nation states. European integration was propelled by the convergence of national and EC/EU interest, rather than by conflict between the two.[8]
There is an interesting transatlantic (or trans-channel) divide about the importance of the idea of Europe – about Europe as a political project. Arguing in the tradition of Walter Lipgens[9] Elvert conceives of European integration as the project of postwar European leaders attached to a federalist finalité politique (p. 1). Judt and Dinan agree that “Monnet’s flights of fancy notwithstanding” (Judt, p. 158), European integration was clearly not a project, but a contingent outcome based on converging national interest. Instead, the ECSC was a tool, a “political vehicle in economic guise, a device for overcoming Franco-German hostility” (ibid.).
However, interests are only part of the story. Dinan additionally stresses the importance of the “right” combinations of individuals and ideas (such as Delors and the Single Market), and the long-term effects of institutions, recurrent interaction (such as in the Franco-German tandem under the Elysée Treaty) and networks (pp. 323-324). Judt highlights a network of postwar Christian democrats, their pre-1918 transnational experiences and the knowledge of a common language that helped to build up trust among politicians like De Gasperi, Schuman and Adenauer (p. 157). Research on such transnational networks is surely a promising route to follow, especially because it reaches beyond the at times sterile interest-ideas-divide.[10]
3. Periods of European integration
The periodisation of European integration history that the authors suggest overlaps in many respects: 1950/52 – the founding of the ECSC is recognised as a new departure by all three authors. 1973 – the first enlargement – is an important dividing line for Elvert as well as for Judt. All three of them also agree on the importance of the changes of 1989. As a result of the divergent interpretative frameworks discussed above, however, the authors’ interpretations differ in respect to the 1970s and 1980s.
Judt’s periodisation is oriented towards the entire history of Postwar Europe. The immediate “Post-War” until 1953, when the Cold War started, was followed by “Prosperity and its Discontents 1953–1971”. This boom of not even “vingt glorieuses” turned into “Recessional 1971–1989”, which characterised the 1970s and 1980s. In “After the fall 1989–2005” he recounts the coming back together of Europe after the end of Communism.
In each of these chapters, he also covers European integration history which he at times divides up differently.
Elvert distinguishes only three partially overlapping periods and focuses on different aspects within the respective periods. The founding years (Gründungsphase) of the Communities included the years between
1952 and 1973, i.e. from the founding of the ECSC until the first enlargement. Given that his book is about three times as long as Elvert’s, Dinan’s chapters distinguish eight different periods between
1945 and 2004. The first chapter covers the immediate postwar situation, the activities of the European movement, and first attempts at integration up until the Schuman Declaration of May 1950. The second chapter describes the establishment of the three Communities until 1958.
The third chapter finishes with the end of the 1960s and covers the launch of the Common Agricultural Policy as well as the Empty Chair Crisis.
While traditionally the 1970s and early 1980s have been understood as Europe’s “Dark Ages”, characterised by “Eurosclerosis” and lack of substantive progress, Knipping and Schönwald have more recently called for a re-evaluation. Stressing the long-term effect of projects that were not immediately realised such as the foundations laid by the establishment of the European Council, direct elections to the European Parliament, and the European Monetary System, they suggest conceiving of the period from 1970 to 1984 more positively as “Europe’s Second Generation”.[11] While Elvert and Judt broadly agree with this re-interpretation, Dinan’s judgement is more differentiated.
In his second chapter on the years of consolidation
(Konsolidierungsphase) Elvert follows the long and winding road to establishing the European Union from 1970 until 1992. That tour d’Europe actually started at the Summit of The Hague in December 1969. Then French President Pompidou issued the leitmotif of this period (and Elvert’s chapter), namely the goal of “deepening” (approfondissement).
Ambitious plans for political, as well as economic and monetary union, institutional reform and direct elections were developed in the early 1970s. However, these plans took a very long time to be realised. Elvert attributes the “Eurosclerosis” of the 1970s in part to the reluctance of the new member states who were more interested in economics than deepening and developing the supranational institutions, but also to the economic shocks following the oil crisis (p. 101). Despite the talk of Eurosclerosis, Elvert does not interpret the 1970s and early 1980s as the “Dark Ages”. Calling these years the period of consolidation, he rather agrees with Knipping’s and Schönwald’s re-interpretation. Hence, he traces the gradual steps towards the Single European Act, and subsequently to European Union. Starting with the founding of the European Council (1974), he draws a long line of continuous progress via the European Monetary System (1978), the direct European Parliament elections (1979), the Single European Act (1985), and Mediterranean enlargement (1981/86). The Maastricht Treaty (1991) eventually established both monetary and political union and strengthened the supranational institutions.
Dinan’s interpretation of the 1970s is more pessimistic than Elvert’s.
Under the programmatic headline “Reversal” (chapter 4), Dinan perceives the hopes of the Summit of The Hague as a false dawn in what essentially remained the “Dark Ages”. Still, he devotes a lot of space to the extension of policies. “Recovery” (chapter 5) was only gradually achieved from 1978 onwards, starting with the establishment of the European Monetary System and direct European Parliament elections. This promising start was followed “the doldrums” of the early 1980s. However, he warns against exaggerating the difficulties, particularly the blockage of decision-making due to the struggle about Britain’s contribution to the EC budget – the infamous “British Budget Question”
(BBQ). After the “Bloody British Question” had been resolved in 1984 the institutions continued to work and “lay the groundwork for the EC’s resurgence later in the decade” (pp. 185-186). Even earlier, member governments’ interests converged in the direction of deeper economic integration, so that the process of “Recovery” was “Picking up speed”
with new initiatives, e.g. by the newly elected European Parliament.
Hence, in Dinan’s interpretation, rather than the entire period from 1970 to 1984, it is more specifically the period from 1978 through 1984 that should be understood as “Europe’s Second Generation”.
With respect to European integration, Judt distinguishes the period from
1973 to 1986. During this period, the EC went through a period of “activism and expansion”, albeit not on a steady basis, but as a “sequence of irregular big bangs” (he quotes an unnamed historian). The “biggest bang”, indubitably was the Single European Act. Like Elvert, Judt therefore tends to interpret the period rather as “Europe’s second generation” than its “Dark Ages”.
What Dinan calls the “Transformation” (chapter 6) of the EC was a consequence of the Single European Act. Dinan – as well as Judt – interprets the completion of the Single Market as a response to a “new era of globalization” (Dinan, p. 205). The Single Market Programme was complemented by new policies of European solidarity and required the abolition of national vetoes. Dinan’s story of European integration reaches its peak in the seventh chapter “Achieving European Union”, which celebrates the Treaty on European Union “as one of the greatest milestones in the history of European integration” (p. 233).
The evaluation of the period after 1989, respectively after Maastricht, is ambiguous among these studies. If we apply the distinction of different narratives of European history suggested by Jost Dülffer, the narratives presented by all three authors until Maastricht are broadly “progressive” ones.[12] Elvert continues to highlight the advances of the European integration process, which arrived at a new stage of more intense integration that he calls the “Europeanisation of European integration” (Die Europäisierung der Europäischen Union). Dinan appears less sanguine about continued progress. While acknowledging the remarkable achievements, he prefers to stress “The Challenges of European Union” (chapter 8). All three authors agree that the introduction of the Euro, the EU’s emerging international role, Northern and Eastern enlargement, as well as the consecutive treaty reforms and the constitution pose formidable new problems and are aggravating old ones.
4. The problems of European integration – Europe’s democratic deficit
What all three authors emphasise as the EU’s central problem in recent years is the question of the democratic deficit alongside increasing public dismay and opposition. Since Maastricht, the EU’s growing power does not seem to be matched by a commensurate increase in democratic control, e.g. via the European Parliament, despite recent institutional improvements that Dinan highlights (p. 293). Citizens’ growing disaffection has been voiced in referenda since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Falling turnout in European elections also seems to indicate the continued distance from what average citizens perceive as an elite project upon which they have no influence.
Opinions concerning this problem and its solutions differ: Elvert and Dinan rightly warn against overestimating the results of the referenda.
Referenda are very blunt instruments for expressing dissatisfaction.
Elvert clarifies that there were manifold reasons for saying “no”. In France, for example, many citizens were not necessarily against European integration, but would have preferred deeper integration and more transparent decision-making. Citizens were fearful about the social consequences of enlargement (the infamous “Polish plumber”) that they had not been asked about. Elvert interprets the “no” as a chance. Well in line with his interpretation of the past, he continues to believe in political leadership. He suggests that after a period of reflection, European decision-makers should issue clear directions where they want Europe to go, which citizens could understand and possibly agree upon in a referendum.
Realistically, clear and understandable directions are increasingly difficult to achieve in an ever-wider Union with a growing divergence of interests and attitudes towards European integration. Elvert himself points to the contrary views about Europe’s finalité politique. There is a dilemma: Closing the democratic deficit implies ceding sovereignty, which in many countries is anathema to politicians and voters alike.
Despite his enthusiasm for European integration, even Judt argues:
“Citizenship, democracy, rights and duty are intimately bound up with the state.” (p. 798) Moreover, despite the Convention’s experiment with deliberative democracy, there remains the institutional problem. At the end of the day, European constitutional politics are the result of interstate bargaining and concomitant compromises, which tend to be complex and do not always resound well with the majority of Europeans.
Compromise and complexity, thus, cannot be avoided. It is the role of the European public sphere to mediate between citizens and policy makers, to hold policy-makers accountable, and to enable opinion formation. Judt is rather pessimistic: The communications problem of European politics is aggravated by the lingering effects of decades of technocratic unconcern for public opinion. Despite the Convention’s efforts to inform and organise debate, the European public has simply not been interested. Dinan is more optimistic, however, referring to supply rather than demand: “Media coverage of Europe, often highly critical, is pervasive and intense.” (p. 325) Whether this will be enough to trigger the “democratising dynamics” of the European public sphere will be for the future to judge.[13]
5. Conclusion
Much of the current debate about the EU is devoted to its problems, such as the failure of the constitution, the lingering democratic deficit and citizens’ growing dissatisfaction. While the authors agree with this assessment, they also put these problems into long range perspectives:
The importance of European integration lies in the remarkable historical innovation that European integration brought to the European continent.
Europe was recast. Conflict was domesticated by integration. Surely, this happened under the umbrella of NATO and with benevolent encouragement by the US. Still, the break with the past and with the experience of the other continents is truly unique.
The authors differ in their interpretation of the reasons for integration. What is remarkable here is the apparently lasting effect of national academic research traditions on a topic that has been researched and debated internationally. Elvert clearly argues in the tradition of Lipgens, focusing on Europe as an idea-driven project to overcome old-fashioned national interest. Conversely, the English-speaking authors are apparently Milward’s disciples and stress converging national interests, particularly in national self-strengthening. More interestingly, Dinan points to the importance of transnational networks. This is a promising direction of research because it allows for an assessment of the interplay of shared, as well as, divergent interests and ideas.
With respect to the periodisation of European integration history, the traditionally negative view of the 1970s and first half of the 1980s is apparently giving way to a more positive evaluation. However, this should not lead to the construction of an uncritical “progressive”
narrative that suggests a continuous, linear advance leading to Maastricht and beyond. Dinan’s presentation remains appropriately differentiated on this.
Finally, a few remarks on the practicalities of the books. There seems to be a trend to save on documentation. In fact, Dinan’s book is the only one complete with endnotes and a comprehensive bibliography. Judt rarely places a footnote as a comment or to occasionally provide the source of an extensive quote. An extensive systematic 30-page bibliography of general interest English-language works is only available online at the website of the Remarque Institute.[14] While this may have saved the life of a few trees and trimmed the cost and the weight of a surely heavy book, it is a questionable innovation.
Similarly, and more surprisingly so for an introductory work, Elvert does not provide any references. The select bibliography at the end of the book is surely helpful. Sadly enough, it is slightly dated even though the book first appeared in June 2006.[15] The wide margins, the brief biographies and explanations, and the excerpts of sources that are placed intermittently within the text are very user friendly.
Unfortunately, exact references to the sources are missing here, too.
Judt’s book offers an original selection of at times symbolic photos – his own personal European “visual archive”.[16] Both of the English books seem to have troubles with “mapping Europe”, particularly Germany.[17] In Judt’s book, the map of “Allied occupation sectors” (p.
55) wrongly includes America’s port cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven into the British zone. Dinan’s book wrongly suggests that Rügen Island was part of West Germany and thus part of the Common Market in 1958 (p.
48, same error p. 172), while a few pages earlier (p. 33) it does not seem to belong to Germany at all.
All in all, for the student with little time, Elvert’s book will provide a quick and focused overview. Dinan’s “Europe recast” provides more in-depth information on both the institutional and the policy development in chapters made accessible by topical headlines. Judt’s book I would reserve for pleasant and very rewarding bed-time reading.
Notes:
[1] E.g. James, Harold, Europe Reborn: A History, 1914–2000, Harlow 2003; Schmale, Wolfgang, Geschichte Europas, Wien 2000; Mazower, Mark, The Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, New York 1999; Roberts, J.M., A History of Europe, New York 1997; Davis, Norman, Europe. A History, Oxford 1996.
[2] Most recently: Brunn, Gerhard, Die europäische Einigung, Stuttgart 2002; Gilbert, Mark, Surpassing Realism. The Politics of European Integration since 1945, Lanham 2003; Gillingham, John, European Integration, 1950–2003. Superstate or new market economy?, Cambridge 2003; Knipping, Franz, Rom, 25. März 1957: Die Einigung Europas, Munich 2004.
[3] It is important to be aware of the utopian traditions of the concept of Europe that are often implicit in present usage of the term. Cf.
Schulz-Forberg, Hagen, Europas post-nationale Legitimation. Überlegungen gegen eine Essentialisierung von Kultur und Identität, in: Schoeningh, Matthias; Seidendorf, Stefan (eds.), Reichweiten der Verständigung.
Intellektuellendiskurse zwischen Nation und Europa, Heidelberg 2006, pp.
103-128, here p. 103. Dinan also highlights Europe as a utopian vision (p. 1).
[4] For a clarification of the term see: Olsen, Johan P., The Many Faces of Europeanization, in: Journal of Common Market Studies 40 (2002), pp.
921-952; Vink, Maarten, What is Europeanisation? and other questions on a new research agenda, in: European Political Science 3, no. 1 (2003), pp. 63-74; Eising, Rainer, Europäisierung und Integration. Konzepte in der EU-Forschung, in: Jachtenfuchs, Markus; Kohler-Koch, Beate (eds.), Europäische Integration, 2. Aufl. Opladen 2003, pp. 387-416.
[5] Interestingly enough, Dinan also defines Europeanisation as “the growing intermingling of EU and national politics and policy-making” (p.
xiii). Judt makes a similar observation (p. 798). No-one gives credit to
Wessels: Wessels, Wolfgang, An Ever Closer Fusion? A Dynamic Macropolitical View on Integration Processes, in: Journal of Common Market Studies 35 (1997), pp. 267-299.
[6] Buller, Jim; Gamble, Andrew, Conceptualising Europeanisation, in:
ESRC/UACES Series of Seminars on Europeanization of British Politics and Policy-Making (EBPP), Sheffield, 29 November 2002, URL:
http://aei.pitt.edu/1724/01/bullerandgamble.pdf.
[7] Ibidem, pp. 7-8; Gerring, John, What makes a concept good? A Criterial Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences, in: Polity 31 (1999), pp. 357-393.
[8] Milward, Alan S., The European Rescue of the Nation-State, 2nd ed.
London 2000. The convergence and/or reconciliation of national
(economic) interest is also a core argument in Moravcsik’s liberal
intergovernmentalism: Moravcsik, Andrew, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht, Ithaca 1998.
[9] Lipgens, Walter, Die Anfänge der europäischen Einigungspolitik 1945–1950, vol. I: 1945–1947, Stuttgart 1977; idem, Der Zusammenschluß Westeuropas. Leitlinien für den historischen Unterricht, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 34 (1983), pp. 345-372.
[10] For research on networks cf. Wolfram Kaiser in his forthcoming book on Transnational Christian Democracy and the Making of Contemporary Europe, Cambridge 2007; also: Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht and Morten Rasmussen in a forthcoming edited book on supranational and transnational approaches to understanding EU history.
[11] Knipping (fn. 2), p. 156, idem; Schönwald, Matthias (eds.), Aufbruch zum Europa der zweiten Generation. Die europäische Einigung 1969–1984, Trier 2004. The term is a contemporary one, appearing in French and German newspapers at the Summit of The Hague: Drouin, Pierre, Le Nerf de l’Europe, in: Le Monde, 27 November 1969, p. 1, and Strick, Hans-Josef, In die zweite Generation, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29 November 1969, p. 25.
[12] Dülffer, Jost, Europäische Zeitgeschichte – Narrative und historiographische Perspektiven, in Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 1 (2004), pp. 51-71, URL:
http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/16126041-Duelffer-1-2004. He distinguishes between progressive, tragic, regressive, dialectic and catastrophic narratives of Europe’s history.
[13] Trenz, Hans-Jörg; Eder, Klaus, The democratizing dynamics of a European public sphere. Towards a theory of democratic functionalism,
in: European Journal of Social Theory 7 (2004), pp. 5-25. For the historians' perspective on the European Public Sphere cf. Meyer, Jan-Henrik, Europäische Öffentlichkeit aus historischer Sicht, in:
Preuß, Ulrich K.; Franzius, Claudio (eds.), Europäische Öffentlichkeit, Baden-Baden 2004, 209-227.
[14] http://www.nyu.edu/pages/remarque/postwar.html.
[15] For a number of books, updated editions have long been available.
Dinan’s, Gilbert’s (fn. 2) and Moravcsik’s (fn. 8) important books are entirely missing from the bibliography.
[16] A European visual archive is currently being developed by James Kaye as part of the research project “EMEDIATE: Media and Ethics of a European Public Sphere from the Treaty of Rome to the ‘War on Terror’”, coordinated by Bo Stråth at the EUI’s Robert Schuman Centre in Florence (http://www.iue.it/Personal/Strath/projects/emediate.htm).
[17] For “Mapping Europe” see e.g.: Stråth, Bo, Karten – Repräsentationen Europas aus vier Jahrhunderten, in: Hohls, Rüdiger; Schröder, Iris; Siegrist, Hannes (eds.), Europa und die Europäer.
Quellen und Essays zur modernen europäischen Geschichte. Festschrift für Hartmut Kaelble, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 237-249.
Diese Rezension wurde redaktionell betreut von:
Jan-Holger Kirsch
URL zur Zitation dieses Beitrages
Als 1952 der der Gründungsvertrag für die Europäische Gemeinschaft für Kohle und Stahl (EGKS) in Kraft trat, konnte niemand ahnen, welche Tiefe und Breite die Integration in Europa fünfzig Jahre später erreichen würde. Jürgen Elvert skizziert Idee und Vorstellung von Europa von der Antike bis ins 20. Jahrhundert, um dann konkret und anschaulich den manches Mal mühsamen Weg der europäischen Integration von der Nachkriegszeit bis zur unmittelbaren Gegenwart darzustellen.
Rezension:
Dinan, Desmond: Europe Recast. A History of European Union. Basingstoke:
Palgrave Macmillan 2004. ISBN 0-333-98734-9; 373 S.; £ 17.99.
Judt, Tony: Postwar. A History of Europe Since 1945. London: Allen Lane, The Penguin Press 2005. ISBN 1-59420-065-3; 878 S.; $39.95.
Elvert, Jürgen: Die Europäische Integration (= Geschichte Kompakt).
Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 2006. ISBN 3-534-15444-4; VII, 152 S.; EUR 14,90.
Rezensiert für H-Soz-u-Kult von:
Jan-Henrik Meyer, Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
E-Mail:
Postwar European Integration: Europe Recast?
Judging by the growing number of publications in recent years, European history seems to be a booming industry.[1] At the outset of the new millennium, and as the Cold War is fading into history, historians from both sides of the Atlantic are reflecting upon the second half of the twentieth century. As a crucial aspect of post-1945 Europe, the peaceful process of European integration has slowly accumulated its own history, calling for explanation and interpretation. Moreover, with the expansion of European studies, there is a growing international demand for textbooks on the history of European integration.[2]
Two of these texts will be discussed here: Jürgen Elvert’s “Die Europäische Integration” is a concise, informative and very readable introduction in German. Desmond Dinan’s 370-page volume “Europe Recast”
is a well-written, well-informed and more extensive presentation in English. Tony Judt’s “Postwar. A History of Europe Since 1945” is an intimidatingly comprehensive and elegantly written narrative on the politics, economics, society and culture of almost all European countries, East and West. (The German edition has just been published:
Geschichte Europas von 1945 bis zur Gegenwart, Munich 2006; also available from the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung:
http://www.bpb.de/publikationen/2E8N7E). Still, as European integration is one of the book’s central themes, to which more than 50 of its roughly 800 pages of text are devoted, it is worthwhile to include it in this comparative review on the history of European integration.
Admittedly, it is impossible to do the richness of this book justice in this format.
Although in many respects different, these books all address four central questions: First, what marks the historical importance of European integration? Put differently, what is it that differentiates the European post-war experience from that of other parts of the globe?
Second, what reasons account for European integration, its origins, as well as the continuation of the process to the present day? Third, how can the history of European integration be divided into distinct periods? Fourth, what are, according to the authors, the central problems of European integration?
1. The historical importance of European integration
From their historical perspectives, the authors highlight what is easily forgotten in the everyday squabble about market regulation and net contributions. The historical importance of European integration lies in the fact that it provided a peaceful political order for a continent that had been riven by war for centuries. Particularly when viewed from across the Atlantic, Europe’s break with the past appears remarkable.
In his introductory chapter, Jürgen Elvert, a professor in Cologne, provides a longue durée overview of the concept of Europe since antiquity. According to Elvert, one of the most important aspects to consider in respect to “Europe” is its quest for a peaceful political order. Unlike in China, this was not necessarily associated with unity.
Rather, Europe’s political leitmotif has long been the balance of power.
This concept served as the guiding principle for European peace treaties well into the twentieth century. It was only after the disruptions of World War II and the experience of forced unification under the Nazis that the idea of a European federation was more widely received as an alternative that promised a more peaceful future.
Dinan, Jean Monnet Professor of Public Policy at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, likewise emphasises Europe’s break with its
past: “The EU has helped to recast Europe in fundamental ways.” Dinan, an Irishman, maintains that the EU has become a central instrument for resolving conflicts within Europe. Lengthy intergovernmental bargaining in Brussels has taken the place of the “continuation of politics by other means” (p. 326).
It does not seem to be a coincidence that this observation is shared by another European working in US. Tony Judt, an English intellectual, teaches European Studies as Erich Maria Remarque Professor at New York University. To him, Europe is even a model that is characterised by peaceful conflict resolution between states as well as within society.
It relies on (protective) regulation by law and bureaucracy, both by the EU and the nation states. This “European Model” of peace and social protection has not only been attractive for Eastern Europe, but even for the rest of the world and is seen as a competitor to the “American Way of Life” (pp. 7-8). Judt praises the safer, better and healthier lives Europeans lead, including their deliberate choice to give up income for shorter working hours and longer paid vacation.
Judt, who admits in his preface to being “opinionated” in the positive sense of the word (p. XIII), seems to consciously ignore recent debates on the crisis of the European social model. Cynical critics have remarked that it was neither European (as it comes in different types) nor social (for its perverse effects on employment), nor a model (as it is not being imitated elsewhere). While Judt’s observation concerning the different role of the state in Europe is surely correct, his “European model” in its idealised form resembles a utopia[3] that is intended to convince an American audience that an alternative to war and deregulation is possible. He may also want to convince Europeans that the welfare state is worth defending against globalisation and American-style neo-liberalism.
To be sure, Judt is by no means an uncritical supporter of European integration. Unlike Elvert and Dinan who tend to measure the advances of integration, Judt does not hesitate to severely (and deservedly) criticise the blatantly wasteful agricultural policy and its unfair distributive effects, or to think of regional policy as a plot by the European Commission to create European loyalty in the regions (which is less plausible as regional policy had been introduced in part as a side-payment for Britain to reduce its net contribution to the EC budget).
2. Reasons for European integration
Which reasons for European integration the authors highlight seems to be a consequence of the different interpretative frameworks they apply.
Continental idealism and neo-functionalism can be juxtaposed to the more pragmatic Anglo-Irish calculations of national interest. For Elvert, the history of European integration commences with the European Coal and Steel Community’s (ECSC) foundation in 1952. It was the first instance of “real” integration, complete with supranational institutions with their own competences to legislate and regulate (p. 1). Thus, supranationalism is the principle and yardstick by which Elvert judges achievements in the course of the integration process. Like many continental, federalist-inspired historians of European integration, Elvert tends to present European development as the recurrent battle for the progress of supranationalism, which is hindered by the forces of old-fashioned egoistic national interest (passim, e.g. p. 41, p. 49, p.
137). Elvert interprets European integration as a response to the dual challenges of security and economic reconstruction that Western Europe was facing after World War II. To be sure, Elvert mentions the converging interest to integrate the German economy, as well as the goal to stabilise the Western European system of states (p. 87). Still, the focus of his narrative is on the conflict between Churchill’s Unionist – intergovernmental – model and Schuman’s federalist – supranational – model, which eventually prevailed.
Additionally, in his chapter on the most recent period of European integration, Elvert introduces a concept of Europeanisation[4], which reflects his neo-functional inspired interpretation of what explains European integration: Europeanisation is the gradual process of supranational integration in the European Union that had grown out of the institutions of the original Six. Enlargement induced deepening, which produced – apparently as a functional necessity – institutional change, namely the adjustment of competences at the supranational level.
In turn, this brought about the stabilisation and strengthening of a genuinely supranational political structure. At the same time, and here he integrates Wolfgang Wessels’ “fusion thesis”, this process leads the “fusion” of national and European policy making, which combines the different levels of government into a multi-level polity (p. 126).[5]
This definition is not without problems. Europeanisation is used here essentially synonymously with European integration. Surely, Elvert is not the only one using the concept this way, but it is not apparent what is gained by such a usage.[6] Moreover, while a good concept should be parsimonious[7], Elvert’s definition attempts to capture in one word the entire complexity of the European integration process. Consequently, the term is overburdened with factors and qualifications, and carries a slightly deterministic undertone. It is probably due to this complexity that in the remainder of the chapter the term is not used consistently, nor is it fruitfully applied in the analysis. The only time it is mentioned again, the term merely describes the “fusion” of levels of government (p. 126). This is all the more irritating, as Elvert claims Europeanisation to be a key concept for the analysis of Europe’s most recent developments (ibid.).
Dinan agrees with Elvert on the importance of the emergence of “supranational governance”. Nevertheless, what appears most remarkable to him and requires explanation is European states’ willingness to “limit their own sovereignty” in order to achieve collective peace and economic integration (p. 1). According to Dinan, European integration is not so much driven by the battle between national and European interests over how much supranationalism can be conceded. Rather, he, as well as Judt, follows Milward’s hypothesis of the “European Rescue of the Nation State”. Milward argues that European leaders purposefully gave up part of their national sovereignty in a situation of severe economic and strategic challenge in order to strengthen and consolidate their nation states. European integration was propelled by the convergence of national and EC/EU interest, rather than by conflict between the two.[8]
There is an interesting transatlantic (or trans-channel) divide about the importance of the idea of Europe – about Europe as a political project. Arguing in the tradition of Walter Lipgens[9] Elvert conceives of European integration as the project of postwar European leaders attached to a federalist finalité politique (p. 1). Judt and Dinan agree that “Monnet’s flights of fancy notwithstanding” (Judt, p. 158), European integration was clearly not a project, but a contingent outcome based on converging national interest. Instead, the ECSC was a tool, a “political vehicle in economic guise, a device for overcoming Franco-German hostility” (ibid.).
However, interests are only part of the story. Dinan additionally stresses the importance of the “right” combinations of individuals and ideas (such as Delors and the Single Market), and the long-term effects of institutions, recurrent interaction (such as in the Franco-German tandem under the Elysée Treaty) and networks (pp. 323-324). Judt highlights a network of postwar Christian democrats, their pre-1918 transnational experiences and the knowledge of a common language that helped to build up trust among politicians like De Gasperi, Schuman and Adenauer (p. 157). Research on such transnational networks is surely a promising route to follow, especially because it reaches beyond the at times sterile interest-ideas-divide.[10]
3. Periods of European integration
The periodisation of European integration history that the authors suggest overlaps in many respects: 1950/52 – the founding of the ECSC is recognised as a new departure by all three authors. 1973 – the first enlargement – is an important dividing line for Elvert as well as for Judt. All three of them also agree on the importance of the changes of 1989. As a result of the divergent interpretative frameworks discussed above, however, the authors’ interpretations differ in respect to the 1970s and 1980s.
Judt’s periodisation is oriented towards the entire history of Postwar Europe. The immediate “Post-War” until 1953, when the Cold War started, was followed by “Prosperity and its Discontents 1953–1971”. This boom of not even “vingt glorieuses” turned into “Recessional 1971–1989”, which characterised the 1970s and 1980s. In “After the fall 1989–2005” he recounts the coming back together of Europe after the end of Communism.
In each of these chapters, he also covers European integration history which he at times divides up differently.
Elvert distinguishes only three partially overlapping periods and focuses on different aspects within the respective periods. The founding years (Gründungsphase) of the Communities included the years between
1952 and 1973, i.e. from the founding of the ECSC until the first enlargement. Given that his book is about three times as long as Elvert’s, Dinan’s chapters distinguish eight different periods between
1945 and 2004. The first chapter covers the immediate postwar situation, the activities of the European movement, and first attempts at integration up until the Schuman Declaration of May 1950. The second chapter describes the establishment of the three Communities until 1958.
The third chapter finishes with the end of the 1960s and covers the launch of the Common Agricultural Policy as well as the Empty Chair Crisis.
While traditionally the 1970s and early 1980s have been understood as Europe’s “Dark Ages”, characterised by “Eurosclerosis” and lack of substantive progress, Knipping and Schönwald have more recently called for a re-evaluation. Stressing the long-term effect of projects that were not immediately realised such as the foundations laid by the establishment of the European Council, direct elections to the European Parliament, and the European Monetary System, they suggest conceiving of the period from 1970 to 1984 more positively as “Europe’s Second Generation”.[11] While Elvert and Judt broadly agree with this re-interpretation, Dinan’s judgement is more differentiated.
In his second chapter on the years of consolidation
(Konsolidierungsphase) Elvert follows the long and winding road to establishing the European Union from 1970 until 1992. That tour d’Europe actually started at the Summit of The Hague in December 1969. Then French President Pompidou issued the leitmotif of this period (and Elvert’s chapter), namely the goal of “deepening” (approfondissement).
Ambitious plans for political, as well as economic and monetary union, institutional reform and direct elections were developed in the early 1970s. However, these plans took a very long time to be realised. Elvert attributes the “Eurosclerosis” of the 1970s in part to the reluctance of the new member states who were more interested in economics than deepening and developing the supranational institutions, but also to the economic shocks following the oil crisis (p. 101). Despite the talk of Eurosclerosis, Elvert does not interpret the 1970s and early 1980s as the “Dark Ages”. Calling these years the period of consolidation, he rather agrees with Knipping’s and Schönwald’s re-interpretation. Hence, he traces the gradual steps towards the Single European Act, and subsequently to European Union. Starting with the founding of the European Council (1974), he draws a long line of continuous progress via the European Monetary System (1978), the direct European Parliament elections (1979), the Single European Act (1985), and Mediterranean enlargement (1981/86). The Maastricht Treaty (1991) eventually established both monetary and political union and strengthened the supranational institutions.
Dinan’s interpretation of the 1970s is more pessimistic than Elvert’s.
Under the programmatic headline “Reversal” (chapter 4), Dinan perceives the hopes of the Summit of The Hague as a false dawn in what essentially remained the “Dark Ages”. Still, he devotes a lot of space to the extension of policies. “Recovery” (chapter 5) was only gradually achieved from 1978 onwards, starting with the establishment of the European Monetary System and direct European Parliament elections. This promising start was followed “the doldrums” of the early 1980s. However, he warns against exaggerating the difficulties, particularly the blockage of decision-making due to the struggle about Britain’s contribution to the EC budget – the infamous “British Budget Question”
(BBQ). After the “Bloody British Question” had been resolved in 1984 the institutions continued to work and “lay the groundwork for the EC’s resurgence later in the decade” (pp. 185-186). Even earlier, member governments’ interests converged in the direction of deeper economic integration, so that the process of “Recovery” was “Picking up speed”
with new initiatives, e.g. by the newly elected European Parliament.
Hence, in Dinan’s interpretation, rather than the entire period from 1970 to 1984, it is more specifically the period from 1978 through 1984 that should be understood as “Europe’s Second Generation”.
With respect to European integration, Judt distinguishes the period from
1973 to 1986. During this period, the EC went through a period of “activism and expansion”, albeit not on a steady basis, but as a “sequence of irregular big bangs” (he quotes an unnamed historian). The “biggest bang”, indubitably was the Single European Act. Like Elvert, Judt therefore tends to interpret the period rather as “Europe’s second generation” than its “Dark Ages”.
What Dinan calls the “Transformation” (chapter 6) of the EC was a consequence of the Single European Act. Dinan – as well as Judt – interprets the completion of the Single Market as a response to a “new era of globalization” (Dinan, p. 205). The Single Market Programme was complemented by new policies of European solidarity and required the abolition of national vetoes. Dinan’s story of European integration reaches its peak in the seventh chapter “Achieving European Union”, which celebrates the Treaty on European Union “as one of the greatest milestones in the history of European integration” (p. 233).
The evaluation of the period after 1989, respectively after Maastricht, is ambiguous among these studies. If we apply the distinction of different narratives of European history suggested by Jost Dülffer, the narratives presented by all three authors until Maastricht are broadly “progressive” ones.[12] Elvert continues to highlight the advances of the European integration process, which arrived at a new stage of more intense integration that he calls the “Europeanisation of European integration” (Die Europäisierung der Europäischen Union). Dinan appears less sanguine about continued progress. While acknowledging the remarkable achievements, he prefers to stress “The Challenges of European Union” (chapter 8). All three authors agree that the introduction of the Euro, the EU’s emerging international role, Northern and Eastern enlargement, as well as the consecutive treaty reforms and the constitution pose formidable new problems and are aggravating old ones.
4. The problems of European integration – Europe’s democratic deficit
What all three authors emphasise as the EU’s central problem in recent years is the question of the democratic deficit alongside increasing public dismay and opposition. Since Maastricht, the EU’s growing power does not seem to be matched by a commensurate increase in democratic control, e.g. via the European Parliament, despite recent institutional improvements that Dinan highlights (p. 293). Citizens’ growing disaffection has been voiced in referenda since the ratification of the Maastricht Treaty. Falling turnout in European elections also seems to indicate the continued distance from what average citizens perceive as an elite project upon which they have no influence.
Opinions concerning this problem and its solutions differ: Elvert and Dinan rightly warn against overestimating the results of the referenda.
Referenda are very blunt instruments for expressing dissatisfaction.
Elvert clarifies that there were manifold reasons for saying “no”. In France, for example, many citizens were not necessarily against European integration, but would have preferred deeper integration and more transparent decision-making. Citizens were fearful about the social consequences of enlargement (the infamous “Polish plumber”) that they had not been asked about. Elvert interprets the “no” as a chance. Well in line with his interpretation of the past, he continues to believe in political leadership. He suggests that after a period of reflection, European decision-makers should issue clear directions where they want Europe to go, which citizens could understand and possibly agree upon in a referendum.
Realistically, clear and understandable directions are increasingly difficult to achieve in an ever-wider Union with a growing divergence of interests and attitudes towards European integration. Elvert himself points to the contrary views about Europe’s finalité politique. There is a dilemma: Closing the democratic deficit implies ceding sovereignty, which in many countries is anathema to politicians and voters alike.
Despite his enthusiasm for European integration, even Judt argues:
“Citizenship, democracy, rights and duty are intimately bound up with the state.” (p. 798) Moreover, despite the Convention’s experiment with deliberative democracy, there remains the institutional problem. At the end of the day, European constitutional politics are the result of interstate bargaining and concomitant compromises, which tend to be complex and do not always resound well with the majority of Europeans.
Compromise and complexity, thus, cannot be avoided. It is the role of the European public sphere to mediate between citizens and policy makers, to hold policy-makers accountable, and to enable opinion formation. Judt is rather pessimistic: The communications problem of European politics is aggravated by the lingering effects of decades of technocratic unconcern for public opinion. Despite the Convention’s efforts to inform and organise debate, the European public has simply not been interested. Dinan is more optimistic, however, referring to supply rather than demand: “Media coverage of Europe, often highly critical, is pervasive and intense.” (p. 325) Whether this will be enough to trigger the “democratising dynamics” of the European public sphere will be for the future to judge.[13]
5. Conclusion
Much of the current debate about the EU is devoted to its problems, such as the failure of the constitution, the lingering democratic deficit and citizens’ growing dissatisfaction. While the authors agree with this assessment, they also put these problems into long range perspectives:
The importance of European integration lies in the remarkable historical innovation that European integration brought to the European continent.
Europe was recast. Conflict was domesticated by integration. Surely, this happened under the umbrella of NATO and with benevolent encouragement by the US. Still, the break with the past and with the experience of the other continents is truly unique.
The authors differ in their interpretation of the reasons for integration. What is remarkable here is the apparently lasting effect of national academic research traditions on a topic that has been researched and debated internationally. Elvert clearly argues in the tradition of Lipgens, focusing on Europe as an idea-driven project to overcome old-fashioned national interest. Conversely, the English-speaking authors are apparently Milward’s disciples and stress converging national interests, particularly in national self-strengthening. More interestingly, Dinan points to the importance of transnational networks. This is a promising direction of research because it allows for an assessment of the interplay of shared, as well as, divergent interests and ideas.
With respect to the periodisation of European integration history, the traditionally negative view of the 1970s and first half of the 1980s is apparently giving way to a more positive evaluation. However, this should not lead to the construction of an uncritical “progressive”
narrative that suggests a continuous, linear advance leading to Maastricht and beyond. Dinan’s presentation remains appropriately differentiated on this.
Finally, a few remarks on the practicalities of the books. There seems to be a trend to save on documentation. In fact, Dinan’s book is the only one complete with endnotes and a comprehensive bibliography. Judt rarely places a footnote as a comment or to occasionally provide the source of an extensive quote. An extensive systematic 30-page bibliography of general interest English-language works is only available online at the website of the Remarque Institute.[14] While this may have saved the life of a few trees and trimmed the cost and the weight of a surely heavy book, it is a questionable innovation.
Similarly, and more surprisingly so for an introductory work, Elvert does not provide any references. The select bibliography at the end of the book is surely helpful. Sadly enough, it is slightly dated even though the book first appeared in June 2006.[15] The wide margins, the brief biographies and explanations, and the excerpts of sources that are placed intermittently within the text are very user friendly.
Unfortunately, exact references to the sources are missing here, too.
Judt’s book offers an original selection of at times symbolic photos – his own personal European “visual archive”.[16] Both of the English books seem to have troubles with “mapping Europe”, particularly Germany.[17] In Judt’s book, the map of “Allied occupation sectors” (p.
55) wrongly includes America’s port cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven into the British zone. Dinan’s book wrongly suggests that Rügen Island was part of West Germany and thus part of the Common Market in 1958 (p.
48, same error p. 172), while a few pages earlier (p. 33) it does not seem to belong to Germany at all.
All in all, for the student with little time, Elvert’s book will provide a quick and focused overview. Dinan’s “Europe recast” provides more in-depth information on both the institutional and the policy development in chapters made accessible by topical headlines. Judt’s book I would reserve for pleasant and very rewarding bed-time reading.
Notes:
[1] E.g. James, Harold, Europe Reborn: A History, 1914–2000, Harlow 2003; Schmale, Wolfgang, Geschichte Europas, Wien 2000; Mazower, Mark, The Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, New York 1999; Roberts, J.M., A History of Europe, New York 1997; Davis, Norman, Europe. A History, Oxford 1996.
[2] Most recently: Brunn, Gerhard, Die europäische Einigung, Stuttgart 2002; Gilbert, Mark, Surpassing Realism. The Politics of European Integration since 1945, Lanham 2003; Gillingham, John, European Integration, 1950–2003. Superstate or new market economy?, Cambridge 2003; Knipping, Franz, Rom, 25. März 1957: Die Einigung Europas, Munich 2004.
[3] It is important to be aware of the utopian traditions of the concept of Europe that are often implicit in present usage of the term. Cf.
Schulz-Forberg, Hagen, Europas post-nationale Legitimation. Überlegungen gegen eine Essentialisierung von Kultur und Identität, in: Schoeningh, Matthias; Seidendorf, Stefan (eds.), Reichweiten der Verständigung.
Intellektuellendiskurse zwischen Nation und Europa, Heidelberg 2006, pp.
103-128, here p. 103. Dinan also highlights Europe as a utopian vision (p. 1).
[4] For a clarification of the term see: Olsen, Johan P., The Many Faces of Europeanization, in: Journal of Common Market Studies 40 (2002), pp.
921-952; Vink, Maarten, What is Europeanisation? and other questions on a new research agenda, in: European Political Science 3, no. 1 (2003), pp. 63-74; Eising, Rainer, Europäisierung und Integration. Konzepte in der EU-Forschung, in: Jachtenfuchs, Markus; Kohler-Koch, Beate (eds.), Europäische Integration, 2. Aufl. Opladen 2003, pp. 387-416.
[5] Interestingly enough, Dinan also defines Europeanisation as “the growing intermingling of EU and national politics and policy-making” (p.
xiii). Judt makes a similar observation (p. 798). No-one gives credit to
Wessels: Wessels, Wolfgang, An Ever Closer Fusion? A Dynamic Macropolitical View on Integration Processes, in: Journal of Common Market Studies 35 (1997), pp. 267-299.
[6] Buller, Jim; Gamble, Andrew, Conceptualising Europeanisation, in:
ESRC/UACES Series of Seminars on Europeanization of British Politics and Policy-Making (EBPP), Sheffield, 29 November 2002, URL:
http://aei.pitt.edu/1724/01/bullerandgamble.pdf.
[7] Ibidem, pp. 7-8; Gerring, John, What makes a concept good? A Criterial Framework for Understanding Concept Formation in the Social Sciences, in: Polity 31 (1999), pp. 357-393.
[8] Milward, Alan S., The European Rescue of the Nation-State, 2nd ed.
London 2000. The convergence and/or reconciliation of national
(economic) interest is also a core argument in Moravcsik’s liberal
intergovernmentalism: Moravcsik, Andrew, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht, Ithaca 1998.
[9] Lipgens, Walter, Die Anfänge der europäischen Einigungspolitik 1945–1950, vol. I: 1945–1947, Stuttgart 1977; idem, Der Zusammenschluß Westeuropas. Leitlinien für den historischen Unterricht, in: Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht 34 (1983), pp. 345-372.
[10] For research on networks cf. Wolfram Kaiser in his forthcoming book on Transnational Christian Democracy and the Making of Contemporary Europe, Cambridge 2007; also: Wolfram Kaiser, Brigitte Leucht and Morten Rasmussen in a forthcoming edited book on supranational and transnational approaches to understanding EU history.
[11] Knipping (fn. 2), p. 156, idem; Schönwald, Matthias (eds.), Aufbruch zum Europa der zweiten Generation. Die europäische Einigung 1969–1984, Trier 2004. The term is a contemporary one, appearing in French and German newspapers at the Summit of The Hague: Drouin, Pierre, Le Nerf de l’Europe, in: Le Monde, 27 November 1969, p. 1, and Strick, Hans-Josef, In die zweite Generation, in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 29 November 1969, p. 25.
[12] Dülffer, Jost, Europäische Zeitgeschichte – Narrative und historiographische Perspektiven, in Zeithistorische Forschungen/Studies in Contemporary History 1 (2004), pp. 51-71, URL:
http://www.zeithistorische-forschungen.de/16126041-Duelffer-1-2004. He distinguishes between progressive, tragic, regressive, dialectic and catastrophic narratives of Europe’s history.
[13] Trenz, Hans-Jörg; Eder, Klaus, The democratizing dynamics of a European public sphere. Towards a theory of democratic functionalism,
in: European Journal of Social Theory 7 (2004), pp. 5-25. For the historians' perspective on the European Public Sphere cf. Meyer, Jan-Henrik, Europäische Öffentlichkeit aus historischer Sicht, in:
Preuß, Ulrich K.; Franzius, Claudio (eds.), Europäische Öffentlichkeit, Baden-Baden 2004, 209-227.
[14] http://www.nyu.edu/pages/remarque/postwar.html.
[15] For a number of books, updated editions have long been available.
Dinan’s, Gilbert’s (fn. 2) and Moravcsik’s (fn. 8) important books are entirely missing from the bibliography.
[16] A European visual archive is currently being developed by James Kaye as part of the research project “EMEDIATE: Media and Ethics of a European Public Sphere from the Treaty of Rome to the ‘War on Terror’”, coordinated by Bo Stråth at the EUI’s Robert Schuman Centre in Florence (http://www.iue.it/Personal/Strath/projects/emediate.htm).
[17] For “Mapping Europe” see e.g.: Stråth, Bo, Karten – Repräsentationen Europas aus vier Jahrhunderten, in: Hohls, Rüdiger; Schröder, Iris; Siegrist, Hannes (eds.), Europa und die Europäer.
Quellen und Essays zur modernen europäischen Geschichte. Festschrift für Hartmut Kaelble, Stuttgart 2005, pp. 237-249.
Diese Rezension wurde redaktionell betreut von:
Jan-Holger Kirsch
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Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi war für die Aufnahme der Türkei
Knapp 150 Seiten zur Geschichte der europäischen Integration - das ist nicht eben viel, vor allem dann nicht, wenn fast ein Viertel des Buches auch noch der Vorgeschichte der europäischen Einigung gewidmet ist. Jürgen Elvert informiert über die vielfältigen Europabegriffe und Europabilder seit der Antike und stellt die Europapläne seit dem Zeitalter Napoleons vor, bevor er sich der Entstehung des Europarats und der Montanunion zuwendet. Gerade die Einbeziehung der Vorgeschichte der heutigen EU macht aber den besonderen Wert des schmalen Bandes aus.
Der Verfasser erinnert daran, dass die Epoche der Nationalstaatsbildung von einer breiten Diskussion über die europäische Einbindung demokratisch verfasster Nationalstaaten begleitet wurde. Der "Europäismus" der nationalen Bewegungen in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahrhunderts verlor erst infolge der pragmatischen Zweckbündnisse mit den etablierten Monarchien seine konzeptionelle Kraft. Was dann folgte, die Etablierung eines Systems souveräner Nationalstaaten, war weder ohne Alternative, noch darf es, so die implizite Botschaft der Darstellung, als das Ende der Geschichte betrachtet werden. Überzeugte Europäer wie Victor Hugo oder Ernest Renan, die Elvert zitiert, erscheinen vielmehr als hellsichtige Mahner in einer Zeit nationalen Machtstaatsdenkens. Die auf den ersten Blick erstaunliche Fülle europäischer Einigungsinitiativen nach dem Ersten wie nach dem Beginn des Zweiten Weltkriegs wird als naheliegende Reaktion auf die Defizite des Nationalstaatensystems verständlich.
Zu den weiteren Vorzügen des Bandes zählt, dass Elvert von vornherein mehr als das "Europa der Sechs" im Blick hat, aus dem die heutige EU hervorgegangen ist. Im Kontext der Römischen Verträge schildert er die britischen Pläne für eine Europäische Freihandelszone und erläutert, warum Griechenland, Finnland und Spanien der Efta fernblieben. Die Diskussionen in den Ländern, die den sechs Gründungsmitgliedern früher oder später folgten, werden für jede Erweiterungsrunde differenziert wiedergegeben. Der Verhandlungsprozess, der vom "Europa der 15" zum "Europa der 25" führte, wird prägnant geschildert. So wird deutlich, dass die Gründe für den Beitritt zur europäischen Gemeinschaft immer sehr spezifisch waren, auch schon bei den Gründungsmitgliedern. Der Ausrichtung auf die Gemeinschaftsziele hat das aber nicht geschadet. Wichtig hierfür waren die Verpflichtung auf den Acquis communautaire, auf der die etablierten Mitglieder gegenüber allen Neuankömmlingen beharrten, und der gemeinsame Wertehorizont der europäischen Demokratien. Keineswegs zufällig wurde er nach der Erweiterung des "Europa der Sechs" zum "Europa der Neun" auf dem Kopenhagener Gipfel im Dezember 1973 zum ersten Mal formuliert.
Elvert gliedert seine Darstellung der Integrationsgeschichte in drei Zeitabschnitte: die Gründungsphase, die er mit dem Vollzug der ersten Erweiterung 1973 enden lässt; dann eine Konsolidierungsphase, die an beiden Enden überlappend von 1970 bis 1992 reichen soll; und schließlich die Phase der "Europäisierung der Europäischen Union", die 1989/90 beginnt und gegenwärtig noch andauert. Das ist auf den ersten Blick ungewöhnlich, wenn man aus der Tradition der Sechser-Gemeinschaft kommt. Bei näherem Hinsehen spricht aber viel für eine solche Gliederung. Schon bei der Gründung des "Europa der Sechs" war die Mehrheit der politischen Kräfte, die sie trugen, davon überzeugt, dass Großbritannien eigentlich dazugehören müsse. Ende der sechziger Jahre wurde die französische Zustimmung zur Erweiterung geradezu zur Vorraussetzung zur Vertiefung der Gemeinschaft. Unter "Europäisierung" versteht Elvert die zunehmende Durchdringung nationaler Politiken durch europäische Vorgaben und die damit einhergehende Ausprägung der supranationalen Struktur der Gemeinschaft. Beide Prozesse haben zweifellos mit dem Maastricht-Vertrag und seiner Implementierung an Intensität gewonnen, so dass die EU - was oft übersehen wird - mit ihrer Ausweitung nach dem Ende des Kalten Krieges auch erheblich an Relevanz im täglichen Leben gewonnen hat.
Manchmal fällt die Darstellung allzu gedrängt und damit irreführend aus. Führende Politiker der europäischen Gründerjahre wie Winston Churchill, Robert Schuman oder Konrad Adenauer sollte man nicht pauschal als "Führungsmitglieder" der Föderalisten und Unionisten präsentieren. Der "Luxemburger Kompromiss" vom Januar 1966 bestand nicht darin, dass man sich auf die Fortführung der Diskussion "bis zur Erzielung von Einstimmigkeit" einigte; festgehalten wurde vielmehr, dass man in dieser Frage nicht übereinstimmte. Gleichzeitig wartet Elvert aber immer wieder mit überraschenden Details auf. So berichtet er, dass der "Paneuropa"-Gründer Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi durchaus für die Aufnahme der Türkei in ein föderales Europa plädierte. Für manche Föderalisten dürfte das eine Information sein, die nicht eben leicht zu verdauen ist.
WILFRIED LOTH
Jürgen Elvert: Die europäische Integration. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 2006. 152 S., 14,90 [Euro].
Alle Rechte vorbehalten. © F.A.Z. GmbH, Frankfurt am Main
Perlentaucher-Notiz zur F.A.Z.-Rezension
Klein, aber oho. So der Tenor von Wilfried Loths Einschätzung des Buches von Jürgen Elvert. Was Elvert auf gerade mal 150 Seiten über die europäische Integration aufschreibt, gefällt dem Rezensenten so gut, weil der Autor die Vorgeschichte der EU gebührend zu würdigen weiß und die Offenheit der europäischen Konzeption mit ihren vielfältigen Eigeninitiativen betont. Elverts Blick auf Europa als eines Vielvölkerbundes beeindruckt den Rezensenten durch seine Differenziertheit und Prägnanz, durch die auch die spezifischen Beitrittsgründe der Mitglieder deutlich werden. Die zunächst ungewöhnlich erscheinende Dreiteilung des Bandes in eine Gründungsphase, eine Konsolidierungsphase und eine Phase der "Europäisierung der EU" erscheint Loth sinnvoll in einer Darstellung, die mehr als das "Europa der Sechs" im Blick hat. Die ein oder andere Pauschalisierung im Text lastet Loth der Knappheit der Ausführung an. Um so erstaunlicher erscheinen ihm die "überraschenden Details".
© Perlentaucher Medien GmbH
© Perlentaucher Medien GmbH
»Knapp 150 Seiten zur Geschichte der europäischen Integration - das ist nicht gerade viel, vor allem dann nicht, wenn fast ein Viertel des Buches auch noch der Vorgeschichte der europäischen Einigung gewidmet ist. Gerade aber die Einbeziehung der Vorgeschichte der heutigen EU macht aber den besonderen Wert des schmalen Bandes aus.« Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung »Jürgen Elvert hat es sich nun in einem der Bände zur Aufgabe gemacht, die europäische Integration kompakt darzustellen. Dieses Vorhaben ist ihm bemerkenswert gut gelungen. Ein Buch, dem große Verbreitung und eine große Leserschaft zu wünschen ist.« Historische Mitteilungen »Elvert gelingt es, auf knappem Raum souverän einen Überblick über die komplexe Geschichte des Europabegriffs und der Europavorstellungen seit der Antike, sowie vor allem die Entwicklung des Integrationsprozesses nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg bis zur Ablehnung des Verfassungsvertrages durch Frankreich und die Niederlande im Jahre 2005 zu liefern.« Das Historisch-Politische Buch »Zusammenfassend handelt es sich um eine gut lesbare und leicht handhabbare allgemeinverständliche Beschreibung des Integrationsprozesses. Der Verfasser hat mit leichter Feder 50 Jahre Integrationsgeschichte durchschritten, dabei die wesentlichen Akzente richtig gesetzt und damit eine packende Lektüre vorgelegt, die auch denjenigen, die sich erstmals mit der Materie befassen möchten, sehr gute Orientierung gibt. Ein Buch, dem große Verbreitung und eine große Leserschaft zu wünschen ist.« Historische Mitteilungen »Notwendige Grundlage für das Verständnis der EU-Politik zwischen 'Erweiterung' und 'Vertiefung'.« Praxis Politik »Insgesamt betrachtet, bietet Elverts kompakte Einführung einen sehr gut lesbaren und hilfreichen Wegweiser durch den verzweigten Dschungel der europäischen Integrationsgeschichte.« Neue Politische Literatur