Europe Recast: A History of European Union

Dissent, 2005

International Review of Law and Economics, 1996

JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 2009

This volume serves as another addition to the plethora of introductory EU textbooks currently occupying the marketplace. Like most of its competitors, this book offers chapters concerning the historical evolution of the EU, its institutional infrastructure, the nature of EU policy-making and broader political attitudes towards integration processes. The strongest part of the book is that covering the machinery of governance where students are offered a succinct overview of the key governing institutions and their respective roles. Later chapters also provide useful coverage of decision-making and legislative processes and there is also discussion of a range of individual policy areas. A glossary of terms at the end of each chapter should provide a useful introductory key to the uninitiated and there is some reference to further reading at the end of the book. The latter is, however, relatively brief and its utility is compromised by the author's reference to earlier editions of standard texts which have subsequently been published in revised editions (for example, George and Bache's volume Politics in the European Union is referred to as being 'rather dated' but in its 2001 rather than updated 2006 edition!). Although the book offers much in the way of useful detail on specific issues it is unfortunate that a source published in 2008 should refer, on its back cover, to '25 member governments' when there have been 27 since January 2007. Although the actual content of the volume does offer coverage of the post-2007 enlargement, this initial blip does engender an air of caution in the reader. There are certainly areas of the substantive content which might have benefited from reappraisal. For example, the early chapters on historical evolution are somewhat uneven; whilst some detail is provided on the origins of the integration project, its progress through the 1960s and key developments from the 1980s onwards, coverage of the 1970s is rather scant. Similarly, whilst some introductory material on integration theory is included, this remains arguably underdeveloped (for example, no effective distinction is made between Hoffman's intergovernmentalism and Moravcsik's liberal variant). The chapters making up section 5 on 'Attitudes' are arguably the weakest in structural terms. Although these seek to examine Member State attitudes towards integration processes, the opening heading 'Eligibility for Membership' suggests a discussion on enlargement. The subsequent analysis does indeed consider national attitudes but framing this within the context of successive waves of membership expansion perhaps limits the scope for cross-comparative study of attitudes. It also leads to the

International Journal of Law and Public Administration, 2020

The study of the political history of European construction is particularly important to explain the context in which the first institutional nuclei of European integration appeared. This paper identifies the main contributions from the interwar period to the project of a united Europe and their role in defining the process of creating the future European Union. The paper analyzes two main federalist projects namely "Pan-Europe" and "Briand initiative", looking at the similarities between them and at the elements prefigured by the two Europeanists of the federalist movement which are found in the current political-institutional configuration of the European Union. I conclude that Coudenhove-Kalergi and Aristide Briand's proposals still represents, after 90 years since their drafting, core principles and values we recognise today in the European Union of 2020.

This study sets out to explain why historically, continental and southern Europe has been significantly more favourable to post-1945 European integration than the north. I argue that this is an important problem for two reasons. First, the fact that there are more and less Europeanist member states has been and remains the most basic political constraint on European integration. Second, I believe that by exploring this issue, I am able to present an innovative, comparative-historical analysis that not only advances our theoretical understanding of European integration, but also sheds new light on the evolution of nationalism and the nation-state. In line with broad trends in political and social theory over the last twenty to thirty years, notably social constructivism, in the introductory discussion in Part 1 I assume that a search for the sources of Europeanism – territorial and other – requires an appropriate consideration of the role of ideas. I argue that the attitudes of individuals and collectivities to political issues like European integration reflect their ideological preferences as well as their material interests, both of which are in turn products of, and may be modified by, learning. Key concepts in the study are thus ‘interest,’ ‘ideology,’ and ‘learning.’ I assume that territorial-historical background fundamentally structures how agents are influenced by these variables. Inspired by the Norwegian comparativist Stein Rokkan, I interpret European integration as a case of polity-building comparable to other instances of state- and nation-building in history. This approach suggests that integration is a fundamentally political process with the issue of sovereignty at its core. Hence, regionally differentiated patterns of attitudes to European union may reflect territorially distinct, historically evolved ideas of sovereignty. On this assumption, I construct a 2x2 table defining four basic ideas of soverereignty – polity-ideas, or normative ideas about a legitimate political order – that structures the study’s comparative-historical analysis: universalist-descending; particularist-descending; particularist-ascending; and universalist-ascending. I argue that each polity-idea is associated with a particular discourse, ideology, and even an ontological and epistemological paradigm. The main controversy in the post-1945 European debate has been between what I term the national-liberal and the Christian-democratic paradigms of integration. The former is basically particularist and intergovernmentalist and is based in northern, Lutheran or Anglican Europe. The second is inspired by Christian universalism, favours a federal or unitary Europe, and has its mainstay in continental and southern, Catholic Europe. In Part 2, I examine existing integration and international relations as well as general political science theory in order to identify theoretically possible sources of Europeanist attitudes. This discussion concludes with a working hypothesis based on Rokkan’s notion of the European city-belt. Could, as Rokkan himself explicitly suggested, the city-belt, stretching roughly from Central Italy to the North Sea and representing the historical core territory of the Catholic church and the Holy Roman Empire, be the home base or ‘primary territory’ of a European ‘nation’? Could it in this sense play a similar historical polity-building role as that assigned by Karl W. Deutsch to the Île de France as the hub of the French nation-state, to Leon-Castille in Spain, Savoy-Piemonte in Italy, Prussia in Germany, England in Britain etc.? If so, it is indeed worthwhile comparing contemporary European union-building to historical nation-building, Europeanism (pro-union ideology) to nationalism and Europeanness (European identity) to national identity. While conceding that his perspective is indeed valuable and relevant, the historical discussion in Part 3 criticises Rokkan’s notion of the city-belt for national-liberal reductionism. The Rokkanian-Deutschian thesis neglects the ancient and medieval tradition for unity and universalism espoused by the Roman Church and the Holy Roman/Habsburg Empire and underrates the continued influence of these institutions even after the Peace of Westphalia. Moreover, the thesis is too structuralist, implying that the European Union emerged more or less by default. Like intergovernmentalist and neofunctionalist integration theory, it underestimates the role of ideologically aware and reasoning human agency. Hence it is argued that Rome, represented by the Roman Church as well as by successive Roman empires, is a more important territorial and historical source of Europeanism than city-studded Central Europe. Part 3 narrates how the ascendancy of particularist (or nationalist), discourse resulted from the fragmentation of unitary medieval Christendom into a modern Europe dominated by autonomous states. State-builders propagated the notion of territorial sovereignty, which eventually turned into the hegemonial, particularist-ascending idea of national sovereignty. Here France and the Protestant states of north-western Europe were the pioneers, their kings’ control of national churches being an important factor. Anglican and Lutheran Protestantism was particularly conducive to particularism, which notably in the German context turned exclusivist and eventually racist. The particularist paradigm survived two World Wars in its more benign North Atlantic, liberal form. I submit that this paradigm has been a major source of British and Scandinavian ideological reluctance to post-war European integration. But the Holy See as well as the Holy Roman/Habsburg Empires continued to represent a strong counterweight to particularist discourse even after the Reformation and the religious wars. The Papacy criticised nationalism as a political religion, and came to terms with the modern, secular nation-state and national mass politics only with difficulty. Still, in the late nineteenth century Catholic parties were allowed to emerge and enabled Catholics to participate in secular, national politics. But they continued to look beyond the nation-state. The final Part 4 of the study narrates how transnationally networked, Christian democratic parties of Western Continental Europe jointly formulated a Europeanist-ascending programme for European union after World War II. The European Union was launched on its supranational path when these parties, led mainly by statesmen from Carolingian-Lotharingian Europe, dominated the governments of the six founding states from about 1945 to 1965. Their discourse in this regard was heavily informed by ideology rooted in the universalist European legacy, whose mainstay remains Catholic, continental and southern Europe.

2023

The first textbook on the history of the European Union since 1945 which includes chapters on innovative topics (Eastern Europe, Euroscepticism, UK and European up to the Brexit, historiography, environmental policy, migration), as well as on the classics (chronology, the Franco-German couple, the European Commission, the Court of Justice, the Common agricultural policy). With a comprehensive bibliography and many figures.

Law and Philosophy, 1997

The aftermath of Second World War offered a prospect of utter misery and desolation. Europeans felt hopeless and exhausted. The objective of peace went hand in hand with desire to ensure that Europe was able to get back on its feet economically after 1945. The proponents of European integration advanced theories for integration that involved gradual surrendering of sovereignty to a supranational entity. The ECSC was the first step towards European Union. The post 1945, regionalism emerged out of gradual process of integration from a six member organization to today 27 members European Union; from an intergovernmental organization to a supranational entity.The paper looks at the theoretical framework of European integration.

2012

FONDATION ROBERT SCHUMAN / EUROPEAN ISSUES N°252 / 24TH SEPTEMBER 2012 Policies Thierry Chopin Studies Director for the Robert Schuman Foundation, Associate Professor at the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (CNAM). Jean-François Jamet Spokesperson for EuropaNova, lecturer on European economic policy at Sciences Po. François-Xavier Priollaud Administrator at the National Assembly Along with the crisis fundamental questions about the future of European integration have been raised. In order to recover their sovereignty vis-à-vis the markets and thereby the ability to decide about their future, the States of Europe – notably the euro zone members – have understood that they have to form a more coherent union. As a result the idea to form a banking union has progressed rapidly over the last few months. The debate continues on points of disagreement in terms of budgetary union (notably the timeliness of pooling part of the debt), but stricter, common rules have already been ado...