2 The Idea of Europe

We live in a European world. It is a multicultural and multiracial world, to be sure,

and Asia is building new global influence, but thanks mainly to the heritage of
European imperialism, most people in the world today live in communities that are
either based on the European political and cultural tradition or influenced by the
norms and values of that tradition. The ‘world culture’ discussed by scholars such
as Lechner and Boli (2005) contains strongly European features, and the terms
Western and European are ultimately synonymous.
It is all the more ironic, then, that the idea of Europe remains hard to pin down.
Its political, social and cultural qualities are hard to define (beyond being an accu-
mulation of national identities), its geographical boundaries are debatable, and
there is little agreement on what ‘Europe’ represents. Europeans have had much to
unite them over the centuries, but they have also had much more to divide them.
They long knew little about each other, they struggled with religious and political
divisions, their views of their place in the world have often changed, wars have
broken out among them with depressing frequency, the map of Europe has fre-
quently been redrawn, they speak many different languages, and they have mixed
opinions about the merits, goals and meaning of European integration.
Although Europeans after the Second World War were too focused on rebuilding
their economies and systems of government to think much outside their own
states and communities, they could not ignore their perilous location astride the
divisions of the Cold War, or the ongoing threats they posed to one another. Partly
in response, the western part of the continent built ties through the European
Community (precursor to today’s EU), the east entering the equation with the end
of the Cold War. Through a complex process of trial and error, Europeans learned
more about each other, and discovered their common interests, goals and values.
Outsiders have also had to review their perception of Europe, which is now less a
collection of sovereign states and more a regional collective. While many questions
remain about how much the EU has achieved or failed to achieve, and its member
states still have a long list of problems to resolve as they consider the future path
of the EU, it remains hard for others in the world to ignore its political and eco-
nomic gravitational pull.
This chapter attempts to get to grips with the idea of Europe. It begins with a
brief review of the origins of Europe, providing the context for understanding the
challenges that the region has faced and continues to face. It then looks at some of
the early ideas about European unity, often proposed as a means of defending
Europe against itself and outsiders. The chapter then tackles the challenge of defin-
ing the geographical limits of Europe, and looks at the sometimes confused and
conflicting identities of Europeans. Who are the Europeans, how do they regard
one another, and what do they have in common? The chapter suggests that they

23
24 Understanding the European Union

have more in common than they often realize, and that there are distinctive sets of
political, economic and social values, described collectively as Europeanism.
Although Europeans have often gone to war with each other, and many doubts
continue to hang over the idea of regional integration (see the section on
Euroscepticism in Chapter 5), it is important first to understand the extent to
which the region is defined by its commonalities and its differences.

The origins of Europe

Defining Europe and European has never been simple, thanks to persistent disagree-
ments about the outer limits of the region and the inner personality of its resi-
dents. The rise of the EU has added a new dimension to the challenge, obliging us
to think of the inhabitants of the region not just as Greeks or Belgians or Poles or
Latvians, but also as a wider community of people engaged – with varying levels of
enthusiasm – in an exercise in regional integration. To add yet more spice to the
debate, macro-integration has been accompanied by a micro-level loosening of ties
as national minorities in several countries – such as the Scots in the UK, the
Catalans in Spain, the Flemings and Walloons in Belgium, and multiple national­
ities in the Balkans – express themselves more vocally, and remind us that European
identity is being re-formed not only from above but also from below.
In order to understand the significance of the EU today, it is important to appre-
ciate that Europe as a whole has never been united, and its long history has been
one of repeated fragmentation, conflict and the reordering of political boundaries.
Parts of Europe have been brought together at different times for different reasons –
beginning with the Romans and moving through the Franks to the Habsburgs,
Napoleon and Hitler – but while many have dreamed of regional unification, it has
only been since the Second World War that the idea of setting aside nationalism in
the interests of broader cooperation has been put into practice. For the first time in
its history, most of Europe is now engaged in a joint integrative exercise that has
encouraged its inhabitants to think collectively rather than as members of smaller
cultural or national groups that happen to inhabit the same land mass. This trend
is challenged by the recent rise of nationalist political parties and movements that
reassert the sovereignty of states, but their appeal has been based more on con-
cerns about globalization and immigration from outside the EU than on concerns
about the effects of internal integration.
The word Europe is thought to derive from Greek mythology: Europa was a
Phoenician princess who was seduced by Zeus disguised as a white bull, and was
taken from her homeland in what is now Lebanon to Crete, where she later married
the king of Crete. It is unclear when the term European was first applied to a specific
territory or its inhabitants, but it may have been when the expansion of the Persian
Empire led to war in the fifth century BCE. Greek authors such as Aristotle began
to make a distinction between the languages, customs and values of Greeks, the
inhabitants of Asia (as represented by the Persians), and the ‘barbarians’ of Europe,
an area vaguely defined as being to the north. Maps drawn up by classical scholars
 The Idea of Europe 25

subsequently showed the world divided into Asia, Europe and Africa, with the
boundary between Europe and Asia marked by the River Don and the Sea of Azov
(Delanty, 1995; den Boer, 1995).
The Roman Empire – at its peak from approximately 200 BCE to AD 400 –
brought much of Europe for the first time under what has been described as a ‘single
cultural complex’ (Cornell and Matthews, 1982). The Roman hegemony came with
a common language (Latin), a common legal and administrative system, and –
­following the adoption of Christianity in AD 391 – a common religion. However,
the Roman Empire included North Africa and parts of the Middle East, and because
the Romans presided over an empire, there was no prevailing sense that everyone
living under Roman rule was part of a region with a common identity. Roman hege-
mony ended in the last part of the fourth century AD, when Rome was invaded by
the northern ‘barbarians’ and Europe broke up into feuding kingdoms.
The birth of Europe is often dated to the Early Middle Ages (500–1050), which
saw the emergence of a common civilization with Christianity as its religion, Rome
as its spiritual capital and Latin as the language of education. The new sense of a
European identity was strengthened by a rift between the western and eastern
branches of Christianity, the expansion of Frankish power from the area of what
are now Belgium and the Netherlands, and the development of a stronger territor­
ial identity in the face of external threats, notably from the Middle East. The retreat
of Europeans in the face of Arab expansionism into Spain and southern France
ended only in 732 with the victory over the Arabs by Charles Martel near Poitiers,
in west central France.
The term European was used by contemporary chroniclers to describe the forces
under the command of Martel (Hay, 1957), but it would not become more widely
used until after 800, when his grandson Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the
Romans by Pope Leo III and hailed in poems as the king and father of Europe. His
Frankish Empire covered most of what are now France, Switzerland, Austria,
southern Germany and the Benelux countries (an area that supporters of European
unity in the 1950s liked to point out coincided with the territory of the six found-
ing member states of the EEC). Although the Frankish Empire helped promote the
spread of Christianity, and passed on to his son after Charlemagne’s death in 814,
it was later subdivided and ultimately evolved into the Holy Roman Empire.
It was not until the fifteenth century that it became more usual for scholars to
use the term Europe, which to outsiders was synonymous with Christendom. The
power of monarchs rose, and challenges to the authority of the papacy led to the
Reformation and the emergence of the modern state system. Religious divisions
strengthened as Protestant churches expressed their independence from the
Roman Catholic Church, and for much of the sixteenth and early seventeenth cen-
turies Europe was destabilized by religious warfare. This did not stop Europeans
from embarking on voyages of overseas discovery, however, and there was an
expansion of education based on the classical works of Greek and Latin authors,
and a revolution in science sparked by the findings of Copernicus, Newton and oth-
ers. These developments combined to give Europeans a new confidence and a new
sense of their place in the world.
26 Understanding the European Union

Early thoughts on European unity

The earliest proponents of European unity were motivated in part by their belief in
a united Christian Europe and by concern about Europe’s insecurity in the face of
gains by the Turks in Asia Minor. The Renaissance (roughly 1350–1550) saw loy-
alty shift away from the Church, with growing support for individualism and
republicanism, and the Church had become so divided by the end of the sixteenth
century that the idea of a united Christian Europe was abandoned. Those who still
championed the idea of regional unity (see Box 2.1 for examples) saw it as based
less on a common religion than on addressing the religious causes of conflict and
the growing threat of Habsburg power. However, the borders of European states
were achieving new permanence, and with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and
two treaties bringing an end to the Thirty Years War and the Eight Years War and
leaving many territorial adjustments in its wake, the grip of the state became
stronger.
The tumult of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars encouraged sev-
eral prominent thinkers and philosophers to explore the notion of European peace
through unity. Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote in favour of a European federation;
Jeremy Bentham, in A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace (1789), wrote of his
ideas for a European assembly and a common army; Immanuel Kant’s Thoughts on
Perpetual Peace (1795) included suggestions for the achievement of world peace;
and the Comte de Saint-Simon published a pamphlet in 1814 titled The
Reorganization of the European Community, in which he argued in support of a fed-
eral Europe with common institutions, but within which national independence
would be maintained and respected.
Those who attempted unity through conquest found themselves foiled by the
sheer size of the task and by resistance from key actors to changes in the balance of
power. The attempts by Charlemagne, Philip II of Spain and the Habsburgs to
establish a European hegemony all failed, argues Urwin (1995), because of the
‘complex fragmented mosaic of the continent … [and] the inadequate technical
resources of the would-be conquerors to establish and maintain effective control by
force over large areas of territory against the wishes of the local populations’.
Napoleon also failed. He saw himself as the ‘intermediary’ between the old order
and the new, and hoped for a European association with a common body of law, a
common court of appeal, a single currency and a uniform system of weights and
measures. While he was able to bring what are now France, Belgium, the
Netherlands, Luxembourg and parts of Germany and Italy under his direct rule, his
ambitions ended at Waterloo in 1815.
Despite rapid economic, social and technological change, nineteenth-century
Europe was driven by nationalism: the belief that nations have the right to deter-
mine their own destiny, to govern themselves, to have their own states, and to
place their interests above those of other nations. Boosted by the effects of the
1815 Congress of Vienna on great-power rivalry, the evolution of nationalism in
Europe can be traced through to the unification of Italy in the 1860s and of
 The Idea of Europe 27

Box 2.1 Early suggestions for European cooperation

The challenge of how best to encourage Europeans to set aside their differ-
ences has exercised the minds of many thinkers over the centuries:
• Pierre Dubois (1255–1312), a French lawyer, suggested that the princes
and cities of Europe form a confederal ‘Christian Republic’, overseen by a
permanent assembly of princes working to ensure peace through the appli-
cation of Christian principles. In the event of a dispute, a panel of nine
judges could be brought together to arbitrate, with the Pope acting as a
final court of appeal (Heater, 1992; Urwin, 1995).
• King George of Bohemia (1420–71) and his diplomatist Antoine Marini
proposed a European confederation in response to the threat posed by the
Turks in the mid-fifteenth century. Their plan involved an assembly meet-
ing regularly and moving its seat every five years, a college of permanent
members using a system of majoritarian decision making, a council of
kings and princes and a court to adjudicate disputes (de Rougemont, 1966).
• The Duc de Sully (1560–1641) proposed a redrawing of administrative
lines throughout Europe so as to achieve equilibrium of power, and the
creation of a European Senate with 66 members serving three-year terms
(Heater, 1992).
• William Penn (1644–1718) published in 1693 his Essay Towards the Present
Peace of Europe, proposing a European diet or parliament that could be used
for dispute resolution, and suggesting that quarrels might be settled by a
three-quarters majority vote, weighted according to the economic power of
the participating states: Germany would have 12 votes, France ten, England
six, and so on (Heater, 1992; Salmon and Nicoll, 1997).
• The Abbé de Saint-Pierre (1658–1743) published in 1717 his Project for
Settling an Everlasting Peace in Europe, arguing for free trade and a European
Senate. His ideas inspired the German poet Friedrich von Schiller to write his
‘Ode to Joy’ in 1785, which – sung to the main theme of Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony – is today the EU anthem: ‘Thy magic reunites those whom stern
custom has parted, All men will become brothers under thy gentle wing’.
While none of these ideas were implemented, some of them are remarkably
similar to elements of today’s EU, and remind us that European integration
has a long heritage.

Germany in 1871, and to the rivalry among European states in the competition to
build colonial empires (see Hastings, 2018). Nationalism also fed into militariza-
tion and the outbreak in 1914 of the First World War, when all the competing ten-
sions within Europe finally boiled over in what was effectively a European civil war.
28 Understanding the European Union

One of the consequences was chaos in much of central Europe, and the vindictive
terms of the peace arranged under the 1919 Treaty of Versailles did little more
than fan the fires of nationalism, particularly in Germany.
At the same time, the horrors of the war helped create a new audience more
receptive to notions of European integration and unity, attracting not just intel-
lectuals but politicians as well. The strongest support came from the leaders of
smaller states that were tired of being caught up in big-power rivalry, and several
made practical moves towards economic cooperation. Thus Belgium and
Luxembourg created a limited economic union in 1922, including fixing the
exchange rates of their currencies relative to each other, and in 1930 joined several
Scandinavian states in an agreement to limit tariffs.
One of the champions of European unity was Count Richard Coudenhove-
Kalergi (1894–1972), the son of an Austrian diplomat and his Japanese wife, and
co-founder in 1922 of the Pan-European Union. In his 1923 manifesto Paneuropa,
Coudenhove-Kalergi argued in favour of large-scale cooperation within a network
of five ‘global power fields’: the Americas (excluding Canada), the Soviet Union,
eastern Asia (China and Japan), Paneuropa (including continental Europe’s colo-
nies in Africa and South East Asia) and Britain and its empire. He proposed a four-
stage process for the achievement of European union: a conference of representatives
from the 26 European states, the agreement of treaties for the settlement of
European disputes, the development of a customs union and the drafting of a fed-
eral European constitution. His ideas failed to generate a mass following, but they
impressed several contemporary or future political leaders, including Georges
Pompidou, Thomas Masaryk, Konrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill and two French
prime ministers, Edouard Herriot and Aristide Briand.
The prevailing view in France was that European cooperation was an impossible
dream, and that the best hope for peace lay in French strength and German weak-
ness (Bugge, 1995). Herriot disagreed, and in 1924 he called for the creation of a
United States of Europe, to grow out of the post-war cooperation promoted by the
League of Nations. For his part, Briand called for a European confederation work-
ing within the League of Nations, and in May 1930 distributed a memorandum to
governments outlining his ideas (Salmon and Nicoll, 1997). In it he wrote of the
need for ‘a permanent regime of solidarity based on international agreements for
the rational organization of Europe’. He used such terms as ‘common market’ and
‘European Union’, and even listed specific policy needs, such as the development of
trans-European transport networks, and anticipated what would later become the
regional and social policies of the EU. However, all thought of European cooper­
ation was now swept aside in the gathering storm of tensions sparked by the rise of
Nazism.
Adolf Hitler was obsessed with correcting the ‘wrongs’ of Versailles and creating
a German ‘living space’. He spoke of a ‘European house’, but only in terms of the
importance of German rule over the continent in the face of the perceived threat
from communists and ‘inferior elements’ within and outside Europe. The national-
ist tensions that had not been resolved by the First World War now boiled over into
another pan-European conflict. Almost every European state was dragged in, and
Hitler was able to expand his Reich to include Austria, Bohemia, Alsace-Lorraine
and most of Poland, and to occupy much of the rest of continental Europe.
 The Idea of Europe 29

With the end of the Second World War in 1945, the need to deal with the pre-
existing economic and social divisions of Europe was joined on the political agenda
by the question of how to deal with the ideological rift between a capitalist west
and a socialist east. Ironically, it was the very depth of the threats posed to Europe
by the Cold War dominance of the United States and the Soviet Union that was to
allow the dreamers of unity to begin taking the substantive actions needed to move
beyond theory and philosophy into the realms of practical political, economic and
social change. At no time in its history had Europe been so dangerously divided, or
had its future been so patently out of its control.
The dismay at the depths to which it had been reduced by centuries of conflict
now sparked a new interest in European cooperation and independence; the first
modest step was taken in 1952 with the creation of the European Coal and Steel
Community, and the second in 1958 by the creation of the European Economic
Community (see Chapter 3). Western Europeans continued to build ties among
themselves during the 1960s and 1970s, so that by the time the Cold War came to
an end in 1990–91, the foundations for the economic integration of the continent
were in place.
There are still many divisions: Eastern Europe (or central Europe, as some prefer
to call it) has not yet entirely rid itself of the heritage of state socialism, Germans
still distinguish between those from the east and those from the west, Italy is cul-
turally and economically divided into north and south, and the UK is an amalgam
of English, Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish influences. Cultural and economic
differences also continue to complicate European identity: the Mediterranean
states to the south are distinctive from the maritime states to the west or the
Scandinavian states to the north. And the rivalries, suspicions and stereotypes that
have their roots in centuries of conflict still surface periodically.
Compared with just a generation ago, however, what unites Europeans has
become more distinct and important than what divides them. More Europeans are
individually mobile, the communications revolution has made Europe a smaller
place, there has been a growth in intra-European trade, and there is a new aware-
ness of what Europeans have in common and of how their values and priorities
differ from those of the United States, China and Russia. To be sure, the EU has felt
the effects of rising Euroscepticism and the fallout from a string of crises, but at no
time in their history have Europeans been so connected or so aware of themselves
as living in a distinctive region as they do today. This is true even of states outside
the EU; post-Brexit Britain might think that it can now make more decisions inde-
pendently, but it will continue to find itself drawn into the shared interests of the
region, through trade and through the dynamics of the EU’s role as a global actor.

Where is Europe?

In spite of the dramatic changes in the meaning of the terms Europe and European,
differences remain. First, few European states are culturally homogeneous, and
there is no such thing as a European people or race. The repeated reordering of ter-
ritorial lines over the centuries has bequeathed to almost every European state a
multinational society, and has left several national groups – such as the Germans,
30 Understanding the European Union

the Poles, the Basques and the Irish – divided by national frontiers. Many states
have also seen large influxes of immigrants, including Algerians to France, Turks to
Germany, South Asians to Britain and Syrians to multiple countries. Not only is
there no dominant culture, but most Europeans rightly shudder at the thought of
their separate identities being subordinated to some kind of homogenized euro
culture; at least part of the resistance to integration is generated by concerns about
threats to national identity.
Second, the linguistic divisions of Europe are substantial: its natives speak more
than 40 languages, which are defended as symbols of national identity.
Multilingualism in Europe also means that all official EU documents are translated
into all the official languages of the member states (see Table 2.1), although the
work of EU institutions is increasingly carried out in English and French. Supported
by its rapid spread as the language of global commerce and diplomacy, the domin­
ance of English grows, and it is slowly becoming the language of Europe. This wor-
ries the French in particular and other Europeans to some extent, but it at least
gives Europeans a way of talking to each other, and to those outside Europe, and
helps reduce the cultural differences that divide them.
Third, while the histories of European states overlapped for centuries as they
colonized, went to war or formed alliances with each other, those overlaps often
emphasized their differences rather than giving them the sense of a shared past.
When it came, European integration grew in part out of the reactive idea of ending
the conflicts that arose from those differences. Historical divisions were further
emphasized by the external colonial interests of European powers, which encour-
aged them to develop competing sets of external priorities at the expense of cultiv­
ating closer ties with their immediate neighbours. Even now, Britain, France, Spain
and Portugal have close ties with their former colonies, while eastern European
states have still not entirely shrugged off the heritage of Soviet-style state
socialism.
Finally, it is not clear exactly where Europe physically begins and ends. It is often
described as a ‘continent’, but continents are defined by geographers as large,
unbroken and discrete land masses that are almost entirely surrounded by water.
Strictly speaking, Europe is no more than part of the Asian continent, even if

Table 2.1 Official languages of the EU

Bulgarian French Maltese
Croatian German Polish
Czech Greek Portuguese
Danish Hungarian Romanian
Dutch Irish Slovak
English Italian Slovene
Estonian Latvian Spanish
Finnish Lithuanian Swedish
 The Idea of Europe 31

Europeans are not Asians. The western, northern and southern boundaries of
Europe are conveniently demarcated by the Atlantic, the Arctic and the
Mediterranean, but there is no handy geographical feature to mark Europe’s east-
ern boundary. It is usually defined as running down the Ural Mountains, across the
Caspian Sea, along the southern edge of the Caucasus Mountains, across the Black
Sea and through the Bosporus Strait. However, these are no more than convenient
physical features that have been adopted despite political and social realities.
The Urals are considered a boundary of Europe only because they were nomin­
ated as such by an eighteenth-century Russian cartographer, Vasily Tatishchev, so
that Russia could claim to be an Asian as well as a European power (see Dukes,
2015). If we accept them as a boundary, then six former Soviet republics – Belarus,
Moldova, Ukraine and the three Baltic states (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) – are
part of Europe. The Baltic states offer no problems, because they have historically
been bound to Europe, and are now members of the EU and NATO. However, they –
along with Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine – are still caught in a residual struggle for
influence between Russia and Europe. Belarus is a political outlier, having resisted
the wave of democracy that has swept over most of its neighbours. Ukraine under-
went its famous Orange Revolution in 2004, but an interest in closer ties with the
EU has been met by belligerence from Russia. In Moldova, meanwhile, political
leaders have hinted at an interest in EU membership, but the country is poor and
has strong historical and cultural links with Russia.
The major problem with the Urals is that they are deep in the heart of Russia.
Russians are sometimes defined as European, and Russia west of the Urals was long
known as Eurasia because of the distinctions imposed on the region by Europeans,
but opinion on Russia’s identity remains mixed: some Russians see their country as
part of Europe and the West, others distrust the West and see Russia as distinctive
from both Europe and Asia, and yet others see it as a bridge between the two (Hopf,
2008). The most obvious problem with defining Russia as European is that three-
quarters of its land area is east of the Urals in Siberia, and most Siberians – includ-
ing Buryats, Yakuts and Siberian Tatars – are unquestionably non-European.
Further south, meanwhile, the Caucasus Mountains present similar problems as a
boundary; should Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia be considered European? They
are all members of the Council of Europe, after all, and there have been hints of EU
and NATO membership down the line, but they have strong political, cultural and
economic ties to Russia.
In central Europe, changes in the balance of power long meant that the Poles,
the Czechs and the Slovaks were caught in the crossfire of great-power competi-
tion, which is why this region was known as the ‘lands between’. The west looked
on the area as a buffer against Russia, a perception that was helped by the failure of
its people to form lasting states identified with dominant national groups. During
the Cold War the distinctiveness of eastern Europe was further emphasized by the
ideological divisions between east and west, despite historical ties that meant
Poland was actually closer to western Europe than to Russia. But the end of the
Cold War meant a reorientation of central Europe towards the west, and all states
in the region are now members of the EU and NATO.
32 Understanding the European Union

Ur
al
Mo
un
ta i
ns
ral
R. U

P E Caspian
O Sea

R Black Sea
U
Bosporus

EU states Non-EU European states Border states

Map 2.1 The borders of Europe

For their part, the Balkans occupy an ambiguous position between Europe and
Asia, being a geographical part of the former but historically drawn towards the
latter. They were long regarded as an extension of Asia Minor, and until relatively
recently were still described by Europeans as the Near East (Hobsbawm, 1991).
Frequent changes of authority – whether it was the Macedonians, the Romans, the
eastern Roman empire, Slavic tribes, Christianity, the Kingdom of Hungary, the
Venetians or the Ottoman Turks – have helped create what Delanty (1995)
describes as ‘frontier societies in the intermediary lands’ between great powers.
The Slavs in particular were split between those who accepted Catholicism, Greek
Orthodoxy or Islam, which resulted in cultural heterogeneity in spite of the greater
linguistic homogeneity that existed among Slavs than among the peoples of west-
ern Europe. Slavs continue to have affiliations with Russia, which is part of the
reason why NATO was wary of becoming too deeply involved in the conflicts in
Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s. Since the break-up of Yugoslavia there has been a
 The Idea of Europe 33

trend for Balkan national groups to look to the EU; the Slovenians were the first to
become members in 2004, Croatia followed in 2013, North Macedonia, Montenegro
and Serbia have been accepted as candidate countries, and other Balkan republics
have broached the prospect of eventual EU membership.
By far the most troubling question in the debate about the boundaries of Europe
relates to Turkey. The Bosporus is usually regarded as the border between Europe
and Asia, which means that about 4 per cent of the land area of Turkey lies inside
Europe. Turkey indicated its interest in joining the EEC as early as 1963, and is cur-
rently considered a candidate country, meaning that its application for member-
ship has been accepted and negotiations on the terms of membership are under
way. Numerous problems stand in the way, though, including its relative poverty,
its growing authoritarianism, its large size, and the fact that it is a Muslim state
(see Box 2.2.)
So where, then, is Europe? If its borders with Turkey, the Caucasus and Russia
are taken as its eastern limits, then it consists today of 40 countries: the 27 mem-
bers of the EU, four other western European states (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland
and the UK), six Balkan states, and three eastern European states. If a broader
defin­ition of Europe’s boundaries is accepted, then it includes four more countries:
Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey. Stretching the limits of credibility, some
have even suggested that Israel should be considered European, and might qualify
for EU membership, but this view has little support.
Whatever Europe’s external boundaries, its inner personality has been driven by
two key developments:
• The Cold War division of Europe has faded into the mists of history as the polit­
ical, economic and ideological differences between western and eastern
Europeans have diminished and the bonds among them have tightened and
strengthened. Political and economic investments have flowed from west to
east, and workers in search of new opportunities have moved from east to west.
• Enlargement of the EU has helped reduce the distinctions between ‘Europe’ and
the ‘European Union’. As recently as 2004, less than half the states of Europe
were members of the EU, which was home to only two-thirds of Europeans.
Today, and taking the 40-state definition of Europe, the EU includes two-thirds
of the states of Europe, covers 62 per cent of the land area of Europe, is home to
89 per cent of Europeans and (prior to the breaking of the Covid-19 pandemic)
accounted for 75 per cent of the economic wealth of Europe. We may still quib-
ble about the eastern borders of Europe, but the differences between the EU and
Europe are fast disappearing.
These changes have reordered the way in which Europeans regard one another
and approach their understanding of the division of policy interests. Even in spite
of the recent troubles of the EU, Europeans are slowly (and uniquely) transferring
their loyalty from individual states to a more broadly defined regional identity, and
are thinking of themselves not just as Germans or Belgians or Slovaks but also as
Europeans. Opinion polls reveal that about two-thirds of the residents of the EU
34 Understanding the European Union

Box 2.2 The Turkish question

When it comes to defining the borders of Europe, and deciding the limits of
EU enlargement, the Turkish question has a special place in the debate. The
EEC agreed as long ago as 1963 that Turkish membership was possible, and it
became an associate member of the Community that same year. It applied for
full membership in 1987, a customs union between the EU and Turkey came
into force in December 1995, Turkey was formally recognized as an applicant
country in 1999 and negotiations on EU membership opened in 2006.
However, a string of difficult questions continues to muddy the waters, not
least being the matter of whether or not Turkey is a European country. If EU
member Cyprus is European, then presumably so is Turkey, in geographical
terms at least.
The problems with Turkey, though, are less geographical than they are
political, economic and religious. The EU has agreed three criteria for aspiring
members, known as the Copenhagen conditions: an applicant must be demo-
cratic, free market and willing to adopt the existing body of EU laws. Turkey is
clearly a free market system, and has made efforts to meet the third of these
requirements, most notably abolishing the death penalty in 2004. However,
Turkey is poor, with a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) about a quarter
of that of the EU (although greater than that of EU member Bulgaria). Current
EU members fear not only that billions of euros in subsidies and investments
will be diverted to Turkey if it joins the EU, but that large numbers of Turks
will move to wealthier parts of the EU in search of jobs. As for Turkish democ-
racy, its record on human rights has been poor, with concerns about the
authoritarianism of the administration of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,
the role of the military in politics, the treatment of the Kurdish minority, and
weak women’s rights. There is also the unresolved question of the division of
Cyprus into Turkish and Greek sectors.
Another telling – if usually unspoken – concern about prospective Turkish
membership of the EU is religious. Turkey is a Muslim state, and even though
its brand of Islam is mainly secular and western-oriented, the potential diffi-
culties of integrating more than 82 million Turkish Muslims into a club that
often emphasizes its Christian credentials, and that has been struggling with
accommodating its own existing Muslim minorities, are substantial. If Turkey
were small, poor and Muslim (like Albania) it might face fewer problems, but
its size means that it would become the largest member state of the EU by
population with Germany. The resulting doubts have divided European public
and political opinion, which tends to focus on the challenges rather than the
opportunities offered by Turkish membership. Among the latter are a large
new market and labour pool, and the importance of Turkey in helping Europe
strengthen its geopolitical relationship with the Middle East and the Muslim
world. (For further discussion, see Aydin-Düzgit and Tocci, 2015.)
 The Idea of Europe 35

feel as though they are citizens of the EU, although the levels of association vary
across countries, from a high of 88 per cent in Luxembourg to a low of 50 per cent
in Greece, Bulgaria and Cyprus (see Figure 2.1).
Critics of integration have long argued that one of the greatest dangers posed by
integration is the homogenization that comes as member states lose their individ-
uality in the move towards EU-wide standards and regulations. They argue that
authority is shifting from national governments mandated by the people towards
a European superstate that lacks such a mandate. However, this depends upon how
the EU is understood; if it is a European federation, then many problems remain.
If, on the other hand, it is a confederation, in which citizens have the closest ties to
their home states, and national governments set the pace of regional integration,
then there is less to be concerned about. And rather than leading to a homogenized
Europe, integration has actually helped promote a reassertion of cultural differ-
ences as Europeans have grown to better understand and appreciate the variety of
the regions in which they live.
Indeed, it is sometimes argued that a Europe of the regions may come to rival or
even replace a Europe of the states (see discussion in Scully and Jones, 2010, for
example). In the interests of correcting economic imbalances, and prompted by
growing demands for greater decentralization, European states began to regional-
ize their administrative systems in the 1960s, and as a result, regions have emerged
as important actors in politics and policy (Mathias and Stevens, 2012). They have
come to see the EU as an important source of investment and of support for minor-
ity cultures, and in some cases this has given more confidence to nationalist move-
ments (such as those in Scotland and Catalonia), as they feel less dependent on the
support of the state governments. It has also reduced the overall importance of
interstate relations within the EU, and drawn new attention to interregional

70
Percentage feeling they are

60
citizens of the EU

50

40

30

20

10

0
g

k
nd

en

ry

nd

28

ce

ia

ly
an

ar
ur

ai

ec
U

Ita
ar
iu
ga

an
la

ed

la

EU
Sp

m
bo

lg

re
lg
Ire

Po
un

Fr
en

Sw

Be
er

Bu

G
m

H
G

D
xe
Lu

Definitely To some extent

Figure 2.1 Citizenship of the EU

Source: European Commission (2019a)
36 Understanding the European Union

relations. The logical conclusion is that forces of this kind will lead to Europe cen-
tralizing and decentralizing at the same time, with the member states as we know
them today squeezed in the middle.

Who are the Europeans?

There is an old and well-worn joke that heaven is where the police are British, the
cooks are French, the mechanics are German, the lovers are Italian and everything
is organized by the Swiss. Meanwhile, hell is where the police are German, the
cooks are British, the mechanics are French, the lovers are Swiss and everything is
organized by the Italians. National stereotypes such as these abound in Europe (as
they do everywhere), some based on a modicum of truth, some with no redeeming
qualities, and most nonetheless perpetuated by the media and popular culture (see
Connelly, 2014). Even if such stereotypes are typically wrong (or wrong-headed),
what they tell us is that Europe is a region of diversity, with every European state
claiming to have a distinctive personality arising out of a combination of history,
culture, norms and values, while also often having strong opinions about their
neighbours.
The effects of this were reflected in a 2013 poll carried out by the Pew Research
Centre (see Table 2.2), which asked the residents of eight European countries
which of their neighbouring states they found most and least trustworthy, arro-
gant and compassionate. The dominance of Germany is noteworthy, particularly
the extent to which it is regarded as the most trustworthy by all except Greece

Table 2.2 Stereotyping in Europe

Most Least Most Least
trust­ trust­ Most Least compas­ compas­
Views in: worthy worthy arrogant arrogant sionate sionate
Britain Germany France France Britain Britain Germany

France Germany Greece France France France Britain

Germany Germany Greece/ France Germany Germany Britain

Italy
Italy Germany Italy Germany Spain Italy Germany

Spain Germany Italy Germany Spain Spain Germany

Greece Greece Germany Germany Greece Greece Germany

Poland Germany Germany Germany Poland Poland Germany

Czech Germany Greece Germany Slovakia Czech Germany

Republic Republic
Source: Pew Research Centre Global Attitudes Survey (2013)
 The Idea of Europe 37

(unsurprisingly, given tensions over addressing the euro zone crisis – see Chapter
3). Opinion was divided on who was the least trustworthy, but – interestingly –
Poles regarded Germans as both most and least trustworthy. The Germans and the
French were regarded as the most arrogant, with even the French regarding them-
selves as arrogant, while there was a tendency for each country to consider itself
both the least arrogant and the most compassionate, and Germany won the stakes
for being least compassionate. Britain, meanwhile, barely registered in the poll,
reflecting the psychological distance that exists between it and its European
neighbours.
How is it possible, out of this melange of competing identities and opinions, to
pin down what it means to be European? Surely the histories, cultures and social
structures of European states are too deeply ingrained to make such an exercise
credible? Those who doubt the wisdom and effects of European integration are
more than ready to point to the many instances where EU member states still
squabble and disagree. The famous disagreement over the US-led invasion of Iraq
in 2003 is a prime example, often touted as evidence of the underlying weaknesses
of the European experiment, notably in the area of foreign policy. What almost all
the analysts and observers failed to mention, however, was that the disagreement
was primarily between European governments, and not between Europeans them-
selves. Indeed, opinion polls found a near-uniformity of opinion across Europe,
with 70–90 per cent of those polled expressing opposition to the war, even in coun-
tries whose governments supported the war, including Denmark, Italy, the
Netherlands, Spain and the UK. It is telling that peace tops the list of most polls of
the values with which Europeans identify most closely – see Figure 2.2.
At the same time, a growing body of comparative research indicates that there
are many common values and opinions across the EU on a broad array of issues,
ranging from welfarism to capital punishment, immigration, international

Peace
Human rights
Respect for human life
Democracy
Individual freedom
Equality
Rule of law
Tolerance
Solidarity, support for others
Respect for other cultures
Self-fulfilment
Religion

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Percentage identifying a value as personally most important

Figure 2.2 The values of Europeans

Source: European Commission (2019a)
38 Understanding the European Union

relations, environmental protection and the relationship between Church and

State. Much remains to be done to better understand and clarify the commonal­
ities, and to move the analysis beyond the fascination with what divides rather
than unites Europe, but the outlines have achieved a new clarity in recent years,
particularly since the end of the Cold War finally allowed Europeans from east and
west to begin expressing and exerting themselves without being limited by the
constraints of rivalry between the Americans and the Soviets. (For more details on
the arguments that follow, see McCormick, 2010.)
The term Europeanism is usually understood to mean support for the process of
European integration, but it is also used to signify the collective values and princi-
ples associated with Europe and Europeans. These go beyond the European Union,
and are the result of the broader European experience, arising – in the west – out
of the changes the region has seen since 1945, and more broadly out of changes in
the wake of the end of the Cold War. An initial attempt was made to pin down these
values in 2003, when – inspired by the massive demonstrations against the impend-
ing invasion of Iraq that were held in every major European city on 15 February –
the German and French philosophers Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida
optimistically hailed the birth of a ‘European public sphere’, noted that there had
been a reaction to nationalism that had helped give contemporary Europe ‘its own
face’, and argued that a ‘core Europe’ (excluding Britain and eastern Europe) should
be built as a counterweight to US influence in the world. They listed several features
of what they described as a common European ‘political mentality’, including secu-
larization, support for the welfare state, a low threshold of tolerance for the use of
force and support for multilateralism (Habermas and Derrida, 2003 [2005]).
During the Cold War, the outlines of a distinctive European identity had been
hard to find, divided as the subcontinent was by the lines of the conflict, and sub-
ject as most European states were to the political lead of the United States (in the
west) or of the Soviet Union (in the east). Since then, however, and encouraged by
the effects of European integration, worries about the threats posed by a newly
assertive Russia and China, and concerns about the abrogation of leadership by a
Trumpian United States, there has been an emerging sense that Europeans have
much in common, and a set of values that gives them a distinctive identity upon
which they could build in order to provide an alternative to the global influence of
China and the United States. The key elements of Europeanism can be found in
four major areas: political values, economic values, social values and attitudes
towards international relations (see Table 2.3).
On the political front, most Europeans – even those outside the EU – are clearly
champions of democracy, human rights and the rule of law (as are citizens of other
democracies), but they also have a distinctively European view of the nature and
purposes of democracy. Institutionally, the structure and distribution of power is
driven by the principles of parliamentary government, which – while not peculiar
to Europe – were born in Europe and today form the basis of all national European
political systems, albeit with local variations. One effect of the system is that polit­
ical parties play a more central role in European politics than they do in much of
the rest of the world (even in the face of the changes that have come to European
party systems in the wake of recent crises), the distribution of seats in national
 The Idea of Europe 39

Table 2.3 Shared European values

Democracy Cosmopolitanism Welfarism

Human rights Multiculturalism Secularism

The rule of law Communitarianism Multilateralism

Declining state identity Positive rights Smart power

Declining patriotism Capitalism Civilian power

Source: Based on McCormick (2010)

legislatures determining the make-up of governments, and the variety and ideo-
logical spread of parties reflecting and driving the diversity of voter opinion (Lisi,
2019). The arithmetic of elections tends to produce coalition governments, which
in turn means that Europeans are familiar with the pressures and demands of
political compromise.
In terms of how they identify themselves politically, Europeans live in the part
of the world where the modern state system first emerged and where many now
argue that it is most rapidly changing. At least before the Covid-19 pandemic, state
borders were becoming more porous and Europeans were moving and travelling in
greater numbers to neighbouring states. Partly as a result, identification with
states declined, as did patriotism (love of country), to be replaced to some extent
by a belief in democratic ideas, otherwise known as constitutional patriotism (see
Müller, 2007). Europeans have become more aware of their national and European
identities, and this has encouraged more of them to adopt global worldviews driven
more by two core ideas: cosmopolitanism and multiculturalism.
The first of these suggests that humans can associate themselves more with
universal ideas and that they belong to a single moral community that exists
above the level of states and nations (for background, see Rumford, 2007, and
Beck and Grande, 2007). The second idea suggests that most Europeans have
become more used to contacts and integration with other cultures and that most
of them – the more ardent nationalists and opponents of immigration aside – no
longer see the world exclusively from their own national or cultural perspective.
Migration has not only moved to the core of political debates in the EU, but it has
also – in the view of Gatrell (2019) – reshaped the continent. The history of
Europe, he argues, has always been one of people on the move, whether it was the
widespread statelessness that unsettled Europe after the Second World War, or
the influx of new immigrants from former European colonies in the 1950s and
1960s, or the changes that followed in the wake of the opening of the European
single market and the collapse of communism. To be sure, not everyone has wel-
comed these changes; while most Europeans see the new diversity and opportuni-
ties it offers as positive, many others see multiculturalism as a core threat to their
identity (see Chapter 8).
In terms of how they conceive political rights, comparative studies show that
Europeans stand in particular distinction to Americans; while the latter emphasize
individual rights and place an emphasis on self-reliance, Europeans tend to be
40 Understanding the European Union

more communitarian in their approach: they support more of a balance between

individual and community interests, and are more supportive of the argument that
in some cases society may be a better judge of what is best for individuals than vice
versa. At the heart of this idea of communitarianism (for more details, see Etzioni,
1998) are positive rights, meaning those which permit or oblige action, perhaps
making way for the offering of services by the state, and which stand in contrast to
negative rights, which prevent actions by others (in areas such as freedom of
speech and religion, for example). Hutton (2003) argues that while the American
liberal definition of rights does not extend beyond the political to the economic
and social, the European conception of rights is broader, including free health care,
free education, the right to employment insurance, and so on.
On the economic front, most Europeans are committed supporters of the free
market, but they place a premium on the redistribution of wealth and opportunity,
and on the responsibility of government to help maintain a level playing field. As
Prestowitz (2003) puts it, a key difference between the American and European
economic models is that ‘Americans emphasize equality of opportunity, [while]
Europeans focus more on equality of results’. Many Europeans prefer the collective
society: the idea that key services (such as education and health care) should be
managed and offered by the government and paid for out of taxes. Europeans have
not yet been able to address the problems of persistent poverty and unemploy-
ment (just as no one has), but their welfarist approach places an emphasis on self-
reliance and on the private delivery of key services.
On the social front, there may not yet be a distinctive European society, and
regional integration has not been able to overcome the barriers posed by language
differences, by the absence of pan-European media, and by cultural differences (see
Box 2.3), and yet there are many trends which suggest substantial agreement
among Europeans on a variety of issues. For example, they are mainly willing to
concede that government has a role to play in making moral decisions or defining
the social choices of individuals; this can be seen in relation to issues such as abor-
tion, capital punishment, gun control, censorship, doctor-assisted suicide and
same-sex civil unions and marriage.
In few social areas is there a more distinctive European identity than in religion;
the comparative evidence suggests that in no part of the world is the sense of
belonging to a religion more rapidly on the decline, and much of the explanation
for this can be found in history: despite the central role that the Church has played
in European public and political life over the centuries, it has never been a uniting
force (Dunkerley et al., 2002). First there was the division between the Latin and
Orthodox Churches, then the division between the Catholic and Protestant
Churches, and more recently there has been the rise of religious diversity as new
immigrants have brought Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and other religions
into the equation. During the discussions over the European constitutional treaty,
it was suggested that the preamble should include reference to the Christian heri-
tage of Europe, but this was turned down on the grounds that it would not reflect
the religious diversity of the new Europe, and would send a particularly worrying
message to Muslims and Jews (see discussion in Foret, 2015).
 The Idea of Europe 41

Box 2.3 Promoting European culture

The stability of a state is usually predicated upon a high degree of legitimacy
(public acceptance), which is in turn predicated upon a strong sense of national
identity, in which a sense of a common culture plays a critical role. Conversely,
the instability of states often arises out of social and cultural divisions, which
weaken the sense of a common national identity. France is an example of a
state with a high level of cultural unity, while Belgian national identity is
weakened by divisions between its Flemish and Wallonian communities.
Despite their history of exploration, migration and empire-building,
Europeans have long known surprisingly little about the history or culture of
even their closest neighbours. The EU has tried to address this problem by
promoting the idea of a common European culture (even though such promo-
tion may be anathema to some; how can culture be legislated or ‘promoted’ as
a policy goal?). Despite the results of Eurobarometer polls showing a majority
in favour of cultural policy being left to the member states, since the early
1990s the EU has been committed to contributing to ‘the flowering of the
cultures of the Member States’ with a view to improving knowledge about the
culture and history of Europe, conserving European cultural heritage, and
supporting and supplementing non-commercial cultural exchanges and ‘artis-
tic and literary creation’.
What this has so far meant in practice has been support for the restoration of
historic buildings, training schemes in conservation and restoration, preserving
regional and minority languages, subsidizing the translation of works by European
authors (particularly into less widely spoken languages), awarding prizes in archi-
tecture, literature and music and supporting cultural events. For example, the EU
has funded a Youth Orchestra and a Baroque Orchestra to bring young musicians
together, and since 1985 has declared European ‘Capitals of Culture’ (including
Galway in Ireland, Plovdiv in Bulgaria, and Valletta in Malta).
While the sentiments behind these projects are laudable, it is difficult to see
how cultural exchanges and the development of a European cultural identity
can work unless they are driven by Europeans themselves. It is easy to argue
that Shakespeare, Michelangelo, Voltaire, Goethe, Picasso and Mozart are all
part of the heritage of Europe, but the notion of a modern pan-European pop-
ular culture is a beast of an entirely different stripe. Even the most mobile of
art forms – film and pop music – come up against the barrier of national pref-
erences, and little that is not produced in English has had commercial success
outside its home market.

European society is also distinguished by important demographic changes that

are routinely quoted as sources of concern and as indicating weaknesses in the
future success of Europe, and yet which are part of the common experience of most
Europeans. Prime among these is a declining birth rate (see Figure 2.3), which has
42 Understanding the European Union

5
Births per woman

0
1960 1965 1970 1975 1980 1985 1990 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015

World USA European Union Central Europe

Figure 2.3 Birth rates compared

Central Europe = Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania,
Slovakia and Slovenia.
Source: World Bank (2020)

helped bring about a redefinition of the family: fewer Europeans are marrying (or,
at least, more are delaying marriage), divorce rates are growing, fewer Europeans
are having children, and one-parent or childless households are common. At the
same time, Europeans are working fewer hours and are taking more time off
(a 40-hour week and five weeks of paid holiday are now the norm), which is changing
their attitudes towards both work and leisure. But how far they can continue to
sustain an ageing population while working fewer hours is currently the topic of
much debate.
As regards the way they see the world, most Europeans take a distinctively
global view of matters. In international relations, they prefer multilateralism, the
use of smart power (a balance between encouragement and coercion and force; see
Chapter 9) and the use of civilian means for dealing with conflict. In contrast to the
self-interested realist view discussed in Chapter 1, most Europeans take the liberal
view of the international order, arguing that states can and must cooperate and
work together on matters of shared interest, and placing an emphasis on the
importance of international organizations and international law. The European
view once again stands in particular contrast to that of the United States, which
has a modern reputation for realism, the promotion of national interests, an
emphasis on military solutions to problems, and a distrust of international organ­
izations. Where many Europeans see themselves as members of an international
community (hence their preference to act multilaterally), there are still many
Americans for whom there are only two realistic options: American leadership, or
isolationism.
 The Idea of Europe 43

These four sets of features can help us pin down the nature of Europeanism, and
of what it means to be a European, but – just as with Europe’s eastern borders – it
is not easy to draw firm lines around those features, many of which are shared with
other parts of the world. It is also important to emphasize that these features are
not absolutes, but are only tendencies, which may be upset by the longer-term fall-
out over the Covid-19 pandemic. In geographical, political, economic and social
terms it has never been easy to pin down Europe, particularly given its enormous
internal diversity. One of the effects of integration, however, has been to encour-
age more efforts to understand what Europeans have in common. There is still
much resistance among political leaders, scholars and Europeans themselves to the
idea that generalizations can be drawn across national borders, but the common
themes in both the meaning of Europe and in the values and norms that are repre-
sented by Europe are easier to identify today than ever before.

Conclusions

The idea of European unity is nothing new. The conflicts that brought war, instabil-
ity, death and changes to the balance of power in Europe over the centuries
prompted many to propose unification – or at least the development of a common
system of government – as a means to the achievement of peace. The rise of the
state system undermined these proposals, but interstate conflict ultimately
reached a level at which it became clear that only cooperation could offer a path to
peace. The two world wars of the twentieth century – which in many ways began as
European civil wars – underlined the dangers of nationalism and of the continued
promotion of state interests at the expense of regional interests.
New thinking has changed the idea of Europe over the past two generations, and
the nature of the internal relationship among the states that make up Europe has
been transformed. Not everyone is a supporter of European integration, and the
criticisms of the directions it has been taking have grown, but there has been a
generational shift since 1945, as memories of the horrors of the Second World War
fade into history, and the idea of Europe is one associated with peace and progress.
Where intellectuals and philosophers once argued in isolation that the surest path
to peace in Europe was cooperation, or even integration, the costs of nationalism
are now more broadly appreciated, ensuring a wider and deeper consideration of
the idea of regional unity.
Europeans still have much that divides them, and those differences are obvious
to anyone who travels across the region. There are different languages, cultural
trad­itions, legal structures, education and health-care systems, social priorities,
cuisines, modes of entertainment, patterns of etiquette, styles of dress, approaches
to planning and building cities, ways of spending leisure time, attitudes towards
the countryside and even sides of the road on which to drive (the British, Irish,
Cypriots and Maltese drive on the left; everyone else on the right). Europeans also
have differences in the way they govern themselves, and in what they have been
able to achieve with their economies and social welfare systems. And nationalism
44 Understanding the European Union

has not gone away, as reflected in the recent rise of right-wing anti-immigrant and
anti-EU political parties, and the English nationalist sentiments that were at the
core of Britain’s decision to leave the EU.
Increasingly, however, more Europeans realize how much they have in common.
The economic and social integration that has taken place under the auspices of the
EU and its precursors since the early 1950s has brought the needs and priorities of
Europeans closer into alignment. It has also encouraged the rest of the world to see
Europeans less as citizens of separate states and more as citizens of the same eco-
nomic bloc, if not yet the same political bloc. Not only has there been integration
from the Mediterranean to the Arctic Circle, but the ‘lands between’ – which spent
the Cold War as part of the Soviet bloc and part of the buffer created by the Soviet
Union to protect its western frontier – are now becoming part of greater Europe for
the first time in their history. The result has been a redefinition of the idea of
Europe. In the next chapter we will look at the key steps in the evolution of the EU,
the underlying motives of integration and the debates involved in the process.

Further Reading
Checkel, Jeffrey T., and Peter J. Katzenstein (eds) (2009) European Identity (Cambridge
University Press).
Gatrell, Peter (2019) The Unsettling of Europe: How Migration Reshaped a Continent (Basic
Books).
Hastings, Derek (2018) Nationalism in Modern Europe: Politics, Identity, and Belonging
since the French Revolution (Bloomsbury).
Kaina, Viktoria, Ireneusz Pawel Karolewski and Sebastian Kuhn (eds) (2016) European
Identity Revisited: New Approaches and Recent Empirical Evidence (Routledge).
Keulman, Kenneth, and Agnes Katalin Koós (2014) European Identity: Its Feasibility and
Desirability (Lexington Books).
3 The Evolution of the EU

While the idea of ‘Europe’ has been evolving for centuries, practical efforts to encour­
age regional integration date back only to the end of the Second World War, when
three critical needs came to the fore: economic reconstruction, security in the face of
Cold War tensions, and efforts to prevent European nationalism spilling over once
again into conflict. At the core of political calculations was concern about the trad­
itional hostility between France and Germany, and the belief that if these two states
could cooperate it might provide the foundations for broader European integration.
This chapter traces the key events in the resulting story. A modest early step was
taken in 1949 with the creation of the Council of Europe, but this did not go far
enough for committed integrationists, who sought instead the creation of new
institutions with supranational powers. The first move in this direction was taken
in 1952 when the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) was founded, bring­
ing the coal and steel industries of its six member states (Belgium, France, Italy,
Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany) under a joint authority. The
next step was the creation in 1958 of the European Economic Community (EEC),
with the same six member states but a more ambitious set of goals, including the
development of a single market within which there would be free movement of
people, money and services, and common policies on agriculture, competition,
trade and transport.
Other countries now became interested and applied for full or associate mem­
bership. The first enlargement came in 1973 with the accession of Denmark,
Ireland and the UK followed in the 1980s by Greece, Portugal and Spain, and in
1995 by Austria, Finland and Sweden. The single market was given a boost in 1986
with agreement of the Single European Act (SEA), setting a five-year deadline for
the removal of remaining barriers. After some false starts, there was progress, too,
on monetary union, with the launch in 1999 of the euro, which fully replaced 12
national currencies in 2002. The focus of enlargement then shifted eastwards; 13
new mainly eastern European countries joined the EU in 2004–13, bringing mem­
bership to 28 and the population of the EU to just over 500 million. Along the way,
common policies were developed on a wide range of issues, with varying results
and levels of success.
Since the early 1990s, however, the trajectory of European integration has been
more uneven. Along with progress and growth there has been a reaction against
integration, exacerbated by concerns about immigration and the rising threat of
Islamic extremist terrorism. National votes against new EU treaties in Denmark
and Ireland set alarm bells ringing, and talk of the collapse of the European project
reached new levels of concern with the rejection of a proposed constitutional treaty
in 2005 after negative public votes in France and the Netherlands. Agreement was
instead reached on a new Treaty of Lisbon, but the manner in which it was adopted
was widely criticized.

45
46 Understanding the European Union

The global financial crisis of 2007–10 added new challenges to the mix, the
remaining economic weaknesses and vulnerabilities of Europe being emphasized
by deep problems that wracked the euro zone after 2009. Political concerns then
emerged with a rule of law crisis in Hungary and Poland, coinciding with a crisis of
both a political and humanitarian nature as the EU struggled in 2015 to absorb
refugees displaced by the civil war in Syria. Then came the political and economic
earthquake set off by Brexit: the decision by British voters in June 2016 to take
their country out of the EU. While still trying to absorb this shocking development,
the EU – like the rest of the world – was assailed in 2020 with the breaking of the
Covid-19 pandemic, against which many of its previous trials and tribulations
paled by comparison.

Post-war Europe

The EU was born out of the ruins of the Second World War. Before the war, Europe
had dominated global trade, banking and finance, its empires had stretched across
the world and its military superiority had been unquestioned. However, Europeans
had often disagreed, their conflicts undermining the prosperity that cooperation
might have brought. Pacifists hoped that the war of 1914–18 would have offered
final proof of the futility and brutality of armed conflict, but it would take the
Second World War to convey this message to a wider audience: the war left many
millions dead and widespread devastation in its wake; cities lay in ruins, agricul­
tural production was halved, food was rationed, and communications were dis­
rupted. The war also dealt a near-fatal blow to Europe’s global influence, heralding
the beginning of the end of the imperial era and clearing the way for the emergence
of the United States and the Soviet Union as superpowers.
The western post-war economic agenda had been set at a meeting held in July
1944 at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, and attended by representatives from 44
countries. There was agreement on an Anglo-American proposal to promote free
trade, non-discrimination and stable exchange rates, and support for the view that
Europe’s economies should be rebuilt and placed on a more stable footing. However,
it soon became clear that reconstruction needed substantial capital investment,
the readiest source of which was the United States, which saw Europe’s progress as
essential to its own economic and security interests, and made a large investment
in the form of the European Recovery Programme, otherwise known as the
Marshall Plan.
This provided just over $12.5 billion in aid to Europe between 1948 and 1951
(Holm, 2017) (about $132 billion in 2020 terms, adjusted for inflation).
Disbursement was coordinated by the Organisation for European Economic
Cooperation (OEEC), a new body set up in April 1948 with headquarters in Paris.
The Marshall Plan helped underpin economic and political recovery in Europe, and
helped bind more closely the economic and political interests of the United States
and western Europe. It was not only a profitable investment for the United States,
in both political and economic terms, but it also had critical influence on the idea
of European integration: the Marshall Plan encouraged European governments to
 The Evolution of the EU 47

work together, highlighted the interdependence of their economies (Urwin, 1995),

and helped liberalize trade within western Europe.
Security was also a priority, and once again the United States was to play a crit­
ical role. Winston Churchill had warned in his famous 1946 speech of an iron cur­
tain descending on Europe, a reality whose implications were illustrated by events
in 1948. In June that year, the three western occupying powers in Germany agreed
to combine their zones into a new West German state, to which the Soviets
responded with a blockade around West Berlin, prompting a massive western air­
lift to supply the beleaguered city. In 1949 the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) was created, by which the United States agreed to help its western
European allies ‘restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area’;
NATO members agreed that an attack on one of them would be considered an
attack on all of them, although each agreed only to respond with ‘such actions as it
deems necessary’.
The western Europeans now overreached themselves with a 1950 proposal for
the creation of a European Defence Community (EDC), and a coincidental European
Political Community (EPC) that would offer a fast-track to a European federation.
The EDC lacked the essential support of Britain, and many in France were nervous
about the idea of German rearmament so soon after the war. A critical blow came
in May 1954 with the humiliating defeat of French troops at Dien Bien Phu in
French Indochina. Reeling from the effects of wounded national pride, the French
National Assembly voted down the EDC treaty in August, which also meant an end
to plans for the EPC. Within days of the May 1955 admission of West Germany
into NATO, the Soviet bloc created the Warsaw Pact. The lines of Cold-War Europe
were now clearly drawn, and its implications illustrated by the Suez crisis.
In July 1956, seeking funds to help him build a dam on the Nile, Egyptian presi­
dent Gamal Abdel Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, still owned and operated by
Britain and France. Their governments conspired with that of Israel to launch an
invasion of the canal. Coincidentally, the Hungarian government announced the
end of one-party rule, the evacuation of Russian troops, and withdrawal from the
Warsaw Pact. Just as Britain and France were invading Egypt, the Soviets were
sending tanks into Hungary. The United States wanted to criticize the Soviet use of
force, but could not do so while British and French paratroopers were storming the
Suez Canal. In the face of US hostility, Britain and France were ostracized in the UN
Security Council and the attempt to regain the canal was abandoned. The effects
were profound (see von Tunzelman, 2016): Britain and France finally recognized
that they were no longer world powers capable of significant independent action;
Britain began to look to Europe for its economic and security interests; and it was
now clear that the United States was the dominant partner in the Atlantic Alliance.

First steps towards integration (1948–55)

For many Europeans, the major obstacles to peace had long been nationalism and
the nation state, both of which had been discredited by the war. Although eco­
nomic reconstruction and military security were critical to the future of the region,
48 Understanding the European Union

Europeans also needed a greater sense of common purpose than they had been able
to achieve before. The spotlight fell on Britain, which had taken the lead in fighting
Nazism and was still the dominant European power. In 1942–43, Winston Churchill
had suggested the development of ‘a United States of Europe’ operating under ‘a
Council of Europe’ with reduced trade barriers, free movement of people, a com­
mon military and a High Court to adjudicate disputes (quoted in Palmer, 1968). He
made the same suggestion in a speech in Zurich in 1946, but it was clear that
Churchill felt this new entity should be based around France and Germany and
would not necessarily include Britain.
Inspired by Churchill, national pro-European groups organized the Congress of
Europe, held in The Hague in May 1948. They agreed the creation of the Council of
Europe, which was founded with the signing in London in May 1949 of a statute by
ten western European states (see Box 3.1). Despite this important step, the Council
would never be more than a loose intergovernmental organization, and was not the
kind of body that European federalists wanted. Among those looking for some­
thing more substantial were the French entrepreneur and bureaucrat Jean Monnet
(1888–1979) and French foreign minister Robert Schuman (1886–1963). Both felt
that practical steps needed to be taken that went beyond the broad statements of
organizations such as the Council of Europe, and agreed that the logical starting
point should be the resolution of the perennial problem of Franco-German
relations.
By 1950 it was clear to many that West Germany had to be allowed to rebuild,
but that this would best be done under the auspices of a supranational organiza­
tion that would tie it into the wider process of European reconstruction. Looking
for a starting point that would be meaningful but not too ambitious, Monnet opted
for the coal and steel industries on the grounds that they were the building blocks
of industry; the heavy industries of the Ruhr had long been the foundation of
Germany’s power, and integrating coal and steel would make sure that West
Germany became reliant on trade with the rest of Europe, underpinning its eco­
nomic reconstruction while helping the French overcome their fear of German
industrial domination (Monnet, 1978). He proposed a new institution independ­
ent of national governments, which would be supranational rather than intergov­
ernmental in nature.
The plan was announced by Robert Schuman at a press conference in Paris on
9 May 1950 (now celebrated each year as Europe Day). In what later became
known as the Schuman Declaration, he argued that Europe would not be united
at once or according to a single plan, but step by step through concrete achieve­
ments. This would require the elimination of Franco-German hostility, and
Schuman proposed that French and German coal and steel production be placed
‘under a common High Authority, within the framework of an organization open
to the participation of the other countries of Europe’. This would be ‘a first step
in the federation of Europe’, and would make war between France and Germany
‘not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible’ (Schuman, quoted in Stirk
and Weigall, 1999).
 The Evolution of the EU 49

Box 3.1 The Council of Europe

The debates about European integration tend to focus almost exclusively on
the EU, and yet much of the impetus for change has come from other sources
and institutions. A quick online search during the writing of this book, for
example, found European associations for archaeology, cancer research, cardi­
ology, cooperative banking, health law, institutions of higher education, gen­
der research, geochemistry, the mining industry, nuclear medicine,
universities, and urology, to name just a few. So while the EU clearly domin­
ates the story of European integration, it is far from the only actor involved.
One key institution, which is both older than the EU and which has made
important contributions in critical areas, is the Council of Europe.
Headquartered in Strasbourg, France, the Council is the most truly European
of international organizations in the sense that every European state except
Belarus is a member, along with Russia. Its interests lie in the fields of human
rights, democracy and culture, and it structurally fits more closely with the
standard features of an international organization than does the EU: it is over­
seen by a secretary general, has a committee of ministers made up of the for­
eign ministers of the member states (or their representatives) which meets
twice annually, and has a 324-member Parliamentary Assembly which meets
quarterly to discuss topical issues and ask the governments of the member
states to take action or report.
The Council’s most substantial work is undertaken by its European Court of
Human Rights, whose job is to protect the 1950 European Convention on
Human Rights, which covers issues such as the right to life, the right to a fair
trial, freedom of thought and expression, freedom of religion, the prohibition
of discrimination, the protection of property, and abolition of the death pen­
alty. The Court did not attract much attention until 1998, when it became a
permanent body to which all citizens of the 47 member states had access,
opening a floodgate of applications that sometimes threatened to overwhelm
the Court (Leach, 2017). Turkey and Russia were top the list of violators of
human rights. Nearly half the judgements for the former related to the right
to a fair trial and the length of proceedings, and most for the latter related to
the right to liberty and security (European Court of Human Rights, 2020).

Although membership of the new body was open to all European states, only
four (Italy and the three Benelux countries: Belgium, the Netherlands and
Luxembourg) were interested, while the rest kept away for a variety of reasons.
Britain still had extensive interests outside Europe, for example, while the memo­
ries of German occupation were too fresh for Denmark and Norway, Portugal and
Spain were dictatorships with little interest in international cooperation, and par­
ticipation by Soviet-dominated eastern Europe was out of the question.
50 Understanding the European Union

The lines of thinking now established, the governments of the Six opened nego­
tiations and on 18 April 1951 signed the Treaty of Paris, creating the European
Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). The new organization began work in August
1952, managed by an appointed High Authority under the presidency of Jean
Monnet, with decisions taken by a Special Council of Ministers, an appointed
Common Assembly helping allay the fears of national governments regarding the
surrender of powers, and disputes between states to be settled by a Court of
Justice.
While modest in its goals and powers, the ECSC was notable for being the first
supranational organization to which European governments had transferred sig­
nificant powers. It was allowed to reduce tariff barriers, abolish subsidies, fix prices,
and raise money by imposing levies on steel and coal production. Although it failed
to achieve the creation of a single market for coal and steel (Gillingham, 1991), it
had ultimately been created to prove a point about the feasibility of integration.
However, it did not go far enough for Monnet, who resigned the presidency of the
High Authority in 1955, disillusioned by the political resistance to its work and
impatient to further the process of integration (Monnet, 1978).

The European Economic Community (1955–86)

Efforts to promote European integration now moved on to a more ambitious

plane. A meeting of the ECSC foreign ministers at Messina in Italy in June 1955
resulted in agreement to adopt a Benelux proposal ‘to work for the establishment
of a united Europe by the development of common institutions, the progressive
fusion of national economies, the creation of a common market, and the progres­
sive harmonization of their social policies’ (Messina Resolution, in Weigall and
Stirk, 1992). A new round of negotiations led to the signing in March 1957 of the
two Treaties of Rome, one creating the EEC and the other creating the European
Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), both of which came into existence in
January 1958. The EEC had a similar administrative structure to the ECSC, with
a quasi-executive appointed Commission, a Council of Ministers with powers
over decision making, and a Court of Justice. A joint Parliamentary Assembly
was also created for the EEC, ECSC and Euratom, and in 1962 was renamed the
European Parliament.
The EEC Treaty committed the Six to the creation of a common market within
12 years by removing all restrictions on the internal movement of people, money
and services; the setting of a common external tariff for goods coming into the
EEC; and the development of common agricultural, trade and transport policies
(see Box 3.2 for more details). Action would be taken in areas where there was
agreement, and disagreements could be set aside for future discussion. The
Euratom Treaty, meanwhile, was aimed at creating a common market for atomic
energy, but was of real interest only to France, and Euratom was to remain a junior
actor in the process of integration, focused primarily on research.
The birth and early years of the EEC must be seen in the light of international
developments. The threats posed by the Soviets were clear, as was the extent to
 The Evolution of the EU 51

Box 3.2 Early steps on the road of integration

The early years of integration were a combination of achievements, failures
and crises, setting a pattern still found in the EU today:
• Although the 12-year deadline for the creation of a common market was
not met, internal tariffs fell quickly enough to allow the Six to agree a com­
mon external tariff in July 1968, and to declare an industrial customs
union.
• Decision-making was streamlined in April 1965 with the Merger treaty,
which created a single institutional structure for all three communities.
However, a dispute in 1965 over the powers of the Commission, voting in
the Council of Ministers, and the Community budget led to a boycott of
Council meetings by France (the empty-chair crisis), resolved when the
right of national veto was affirmed.
• Integration meant the removal of the quota restrictions that member
states had used to protect their domestic industries from competition
from imported products, contributing to accelerated economic growth and
a rapid increase in intra-EEC trade.
• Limited progress was made during the 1960s and 1970s on lifting restric­
tions on the free movement of workers.
• There was agreement in 1968 on a Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), cre­
ating a single market for agricultural products, and assuring EEC farmers
of guaranteed prices for their produce. Although CAP initially encouraged
both production and productivity, it became increasingly controversial,
not least because of its cost (see Chapter 8).
• The Six worked more closely together on international trade negotiations,
achieving a joint influence that would have been missing if they had worked
independently. The EEC acted as one, for example, in negotiations under
the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), precursor to today’s
World Trade Organization (see Chapter 9).
• Institutional change came in 1975 when summit meetings of EEC leaders
were formalized with the creation of the European Council, and in 1979
when the EEC was made more democratic with the introduction of direct
elections to the European Parliament.

which western Europe had to rely on the United States for security. Less often con­
sidered in the story of European integration were the effects of differences of opin­
ion within the Atlantic Alliance. Western Europeans had wondered about American
priorities and perceptions as early as the Korean War (1950–53), which had sparked
worries about a wider conflict being set off by American plans to invade the north.
Then came the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, during which the two superpowers briefly
stood on the brink of nuclear war while the Americans conferred little with their
European allies. Later, the 1960s would see the escalation of the conflict in
52 Understanding the European Union

Vietnam, for which no European government offered open support, and which
generated widespread public criticism of US policy.
Amidst these wider changes in international affairs, it became clear that the EEC
needed to be more than an exclusive club of six. Although any European state was
allowed to join under the terms of the Treaty of Rome, non-members continued to
have mixed feelings about the Community. Most obvious by its absence was Britain,
whose doubts about the EEC encouraged it to champion the looser European Free
Trade Association (EFTA), founded in January 1960 with the signing of the
Stockholm Convention by Austria, Britain, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden
and Switzerland. It had already become clear to many in Britain, though, that influ­
ence in Europe lay with the EEC, and that it risked isolation if it stayed out.
In August 1961, barely 15 months after the creation of EFTA, Britain applied for
EEC membership, along with Denmark and Ireland, and later Norway. However,
President Charles de Gaulle of France saw Britain as a rival to French influence in
the Community, resented Britain’s lack of enthusiasm for integration, and felt that
British membership of the EEC would give the United States too much influence in
Europe. In January 1963 de Gaulle unilaterally vetoed the British application.

Barents Founder Members of ECSC/EEC

Sea
First enlargement 1973

Second enlargement 1981–86

Iceland

Finland Ural Mountains

al
R. Ur
Norway Sweden
Atlantic
Ocean USSR

North Baltic
Sea Denmark Sea
Ireland
United
Kingdom Poland
Netherlands East
Germany Caspian
Belgium West Sea
Lux.
Germany Czechoslovakia
Lux.
Crimea
France Austria Hungary
Switz. Romania
Black Sea
Yugoslavia
Bulgaria
Italy
l
ga

Albania Turkey
rtu

Spain
Po

Greece

Cyprus
Malta
Mediterranean Sea

Map 3.1 Evolution of the European Community, 1952–86

 The Evolution of the EU 53

Since it was part of a package with Denmark, Ireland and Norway, they too were
rejected. Britain reapplied in 1967 and was again vetoed by de Gaulle. Following his
resignation as president in 1969 Britain applied for a third time, and this time its
application was accepted. Britain, Denmark and Ireland finally joined the EEC in
January 1973, but without Norway, where a public referendum narrowly went
against membership.
More enlargement followed in the 1980s, to three countries that had seen a return
to democracy in 1974–75: Greece, Portugal, and Spain. Negotiations opened first
with Greece, which joined in January 1981, and then with Portugal and Spain, which
joined in January 1986. The doubling of membership increased the global influence
of the EEC, changed the dynamic of Community decision-making, reduced the over­
all influence of France and Germany, altered the Community’s relations with the
United States and with developing countries, and – by bringing in the poorer
Mediterranean states – altered the internal economic balance of the EEC.

Focus on the single market (1986–92)

By 1986 the EEC had become known simply as the European Community (EC). Its
12 member states had a combined population of 322 million and accounted for just
over one-fifth of all world trade. The EC had its own administrative structure and
an independent body of law, and its citizens had direct (but limited) representation
through the European Parliament. However, progress towards integration
remained uneven: completion of the common market was handicapped by barriers
to the free movement of people and capital, by different national technical and
quality standards, and by varying levels of indirect taxation. It was also clear that
there could not be a true single market without a common European currency, a
controversial idea because it would mean a reduction of national sovereignty and a
significant move towards political union.
An effort had been made by Community leaders in 1969–70 to pave the way to
economic and monetary union (EMU) by controlling fluctuations in the value of
their currencies, but this collapsed when the United States – wrestling with national
debt problems arising in part from the costs of the war in Vietnam – signalled the
end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates by ending the convert­
ibility of the US dollar with gold, and placing a surcharge on imports. This led to
international monetary turbulence, made worse in 1973 by the Arab-Israeli war
and the attendant global energy crisis.
In 1979, a new initiative was launched in the form of the European Monetary
System (EMS), based on an Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) that was again
designed to control fluctuations in exchange rates. European Commission presi­
dent Jacques Delors took EMU a step further in 1989 with the elaboration of a
three-stage plan aimed at fixing exchange rates in preparation for a single currency.
Matters were complicated, however, by speculation on the world’s money markets
which caused Britain and Italy to pull out of the ERM in 1992, and Ireland, Portugal
and Spain to devalue their currencies, knocking EMU off track until 1994.
54 Understanding the European Union

Meanwhile there was concern about growing economic competition from the
United States and Japan. In response, Community leaders decided to refocus on
the original core goal of creating a single market, the result being the signature in
Luxembourg in February 1986 of the Single European Act (SEA). The first major
treaty change since the Treaty of Rome, it came into force in July 1987 with the
goal of completing all requirements for the single market by 31 December 1992.
This would be achieved by removing all remaining barriers to the free movement of
people, money, goods and services, including customs and passport controls at
internal borders, different levels of indirect taxation, and conflicting standards,
laws and qualifications (see Table 3.1).
Despite the signing of the SEA, progress on opening up borders was variable,
and there was no common Community policy on immigration, visas and asy­
lum. Impatient to move ahead, the governments of France, Germany and the
Benelux states in 1985 signed the Schengen Agreement, under which all border
controls were to be removed among signatory countries. Most EU member
states have since joined the Schengen area, along with non-EU states Iceland,
Norway and Switzerland (see Chapter 7 for more details), but not all have intro­
duced truly passport-free travel, and the terms of the agreement allow the sig­
natories to implement special controls at any time (as they did during the
Covid-19 pandemic).

Table 3.1 The Single European Act

The changes brought by the SEA were many and substantial:

• Many internal passport and customs controls were eased or lifted, banks and com­
panies could do business throughout the Community, and there was little to prevent
qualified EC residents living, working, opening bank accounts and drawing their pen­
sions anywhere in the Community.
• EC competition policy was given new prominence, and monopolies on everything
from electricity supply to telecommunications were broken down.
• Community institutions were given responsibility over new policy areas such as the
environment, research and development, and regional policy.
• It gave new powers to the European Court of Justice, and created a Court of First
Instance to hear certain kinds of cases and ease the workload of the Court of
Justice.
• Legal status was given to meetings of heads of government under the European
Council, and new powers to the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament.
• It gave legal status to European Political Cooperation (foreign policy coordination)
so that member states could work more closely on foreign, defence and security
issues.
• It made economic and monetary union an EC objective and promoted ‘cohesion’,
meaning the reduction of the gap between the richer and poorer parts of the EC.
 The Evolution of the EU 55

From Community to Union (1992–2003)

As work on building the Community evolved, remarkable changes were taking

place on the wider international stage: reforms instituted by the Gorbachev admin­
istration in the Soviet Union after 1985 led to demands for political change in East
Germany, the dismantling of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the reunification of Germany
in 1990, the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, the break-up of
Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, and the end of the Cold War. Life was changed for
all Europeans, but the violence in the former Yugoslavia posed an immediate secur­
ity problem that the Community tried and failed to resolve, falling back on the
Americans (who brokered the 1995 Dayton peace accords) and proving to itself and
to the rest of the world just how much work remained to be done if European for­
eign policy cooperation was to have any real meaning.
In an effort to accelerate the process of integration, a decision was taken in 1990
to draw up what became the Treaty on European Union, agreed at the European
Council summit in Maastricht in December 1991 (hence it is also known as the
Maastricht treaty) and signed in February 1992. The treaty was less than its name
implied, and had to be ratified by the 12 member states before it could come into
force. A shock came in June 1992 when it was rejected by Danish voters in a refer­
endum, and when it was only narrowly accepted by a referendum in France in
September. Following agreement that the Danes could opt out of the single cur­
rency, common defence arrangements, European citizenship, and cooperation on
justice and home affairs, a second Danish referendum was held in May 1993 and
the treaty was accepted, coming into force the following November (see Table 3.2).
The Danish and French referendum results were to prove significant, indicating
as they did that – for the first time – ordinary Europeans were asking hard ques­
tions about what was being done in their name. The old ‘permissive consensus’,
when few Europeans took much interest in the work of the Community and key
decisions were left to government leaders, was now being challenged. As the reach
of integration expanded and more Europeans felt its effects, so the debate about its
pros and cons expanded. Unfortunately, much of that debate took place against a
background of public confusion and misinformation, driven by the media, interest
groups, and political parties with strong positions on integration (see Chapter 5 for
more details). A new element now entered the debate about Europe: Euroscepticism,
or resistance to European integration.
Meanwhile enlargement was still on the agenda, the prospects of expansion to
the east being made more real in October 1990 when East Germany became part
of the Community as a result of German reunification. With new talk of a more
formalized way of considering applications for membership, the European
Council – at its June 1993 meeting in Copenhagen – agreed a formal set of
requirements for membership of the EU. Known as the Copenhagen conditions,
they required that an applicant state should (a) be democratic, with respect for
human rights and the rule of law; (b) have a viable free market economy and the
ability to respond to market forces within the EU; and (c) be able to take on the
56 Understanding the European Union

Table 3.2 The Treaty on European Union

The changes brought by the Maastricht treaty were significant:

• As part of a political compromise, three ‘pillars’ were created under a structure given
the new label ‘European Union’. The first pillar was the renamed European Community,
while the second and third pillars consisted of areas in which there was to be more
formal intergovernmental cooperation: a Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP),
and justice and home affairs. The pillar arrangement was abolished under the terms of
the 2007 Treaty of Lisbon.
• The Delors three-stage plan for monetary union was confirmed.
• EU responsibility was extended into new policy areas such as consumer protection,
public health policy, transport, education and social policy.
• There was to be greater intergovernmental cooperation on immigration and asylum, a
European police intelligence agency (Europol) was to be created to combat organized
crime and drug trafficking, and regional funds for poorer EU states were increased.
• New rights were provided for European citizens and an ambiguous EU ‘citizenship’
was created which meant, for example, the right of citizens to live wherever they liked
in the EU, and to stand or vote in local and European elections.
• New powers were given to the European Parliament, including a codecision procedure
under which certain kinds of legislation were subject to a third reading in the European
Parliament before they could be adopted by the Council of Ministers.

obligations of the acquis communautaire (the body of laws and policies already
adopted by the EU).
Discussions about enlargement during the 1980s continued to centre on other
western European states, if only because they came closest to meeting the criteria
for membership. In order ostensibly to prepare prospective members, negotiations
began in 1990 on the creation of a European Economic Area (EEA), under which
the terms of the SEA would be extended to the seven EFTA members, in return for
which they would accept the rules of the single market. The EEA came into force in
January 1994, but quickly lost relevance because Austria, Finland, Norway and
Sweden had applied for EC membership. Negotiations with these four applicants
were soon completed, and all but Norway (where a referendum again went against
membership) joined the EU in January 1995.
Their accession left just three western European countries outside the EU:
Iceland, Norway and Switzerland. Iceland kept its distance from the EU until the
2007–10 global financial crisis set off a collapse of its banking industry, prompting
it to lodge and then withdraw a hurried membership application. Meanwhile,
Norwegian opinion on membership remained divided, hardening when Norway
emerged relatively unscathed from the global financial crisis. Demands for the
Swiss to open their highways to EU trucks and intra-EU trade increased the pres­
sure for EU membership, but further discussion ended in March 2001 when a
national referendum went heavily against EU membership.
Partly in preparation for anticipated eastern enlargement, but also to account
for the progress of European integration and perhaps move the EU closer to polit­
ical union, two new treaties were now signed:
 The Evolution of the EU 57

Barents Existing Members

Sea
East Germany 1990
Third Enlargement 1995
1 Armenia
Iceland 2 Azerbaijan
3 Albania
4 Bosnia and Herzegovina
Finland 5 Macedonia
6 Montenegro

ral
R. U
Norway Sweden
Atlantic Estonia
Ocean Russia
Latvia
North Baltic Lithuania
Sea Denmark Sea
Belarus
Ireland
United
Kingdom Poland
Netherlands East
Germany Ukraine Caspian
BelgiumWest Sea
Germany Czech
Lux. Republic Slovakia
Moldova
Crimea Georgia
France Austria Hungary
Switz. Romania 1
Slovenia
Croatia Black Sea
Serbia 2
4
Bulgaria
Italy 6 Bosporus
l
ga

5
rtu

Spain 3 Turkey
Po

Greece

Cyprus
Malta
Mediterranean Sea

Map 3.2 Evolution of the EU, 1990–95

• The Treaty of Amsterdam (signed October 1997, came into force May 1999)
confirmed plans for eastern enlargement and the launch of the single currency,
confirmed plans for the CFSP, extended EU policy responsibilities to health and
consumer protection, incorporated the Schengen Agreement into the treaties,
and expanded the powers of the European Parliament.
• The Treaty of Nice (signed February 2001) made a few more changes to the
structure of the EU institutions, including increasing the size of the European
Commission and the European Parliament. EU leaders were taken by surprise in
June 2001 when Irish voters rejected the terms of the treaty, its opponents
arguing that it involved the surrender of too much control, and being particu­
larly concerned about the implications for Irish neutrality. Following assurances
that Ireland’s neutrality on security issues would be respected, a second referen­
dum in October 2002 saw the treaty accepted by a large majority, and it came
into force in February 2003.
58 Understanding the European Union

Meanwhile, more progress was made in the 1990s on the single currency (see
Chapter 7 for details). A decision had been taken in 1995 to call it the euro, and the
timetable agreed under Maastricht required participating states to fix their
exchange rates in January 1999. Several ‘convergence criteria’ were established as
prerequisites for membership: these included limits on national budget deficits,
public debt, consumer inflation, and long-term interest rates. At a special EU sum­
mit in May 1998 it was decided that all but Greece met the conditions, but public
and political opinion in the member states was divided on which should or would
fix their exchange rates. There was also public resistance to the idea of the single
currency in several countries, notably Germany and the UK. In the event, all but
Denmark, Sweden, and the UK adopted the euro when it came into being as an
electronic currency in January 1999, the participating national currencies being
finally abolished in March 2002.

The EU looks east (2003–13)

As long ago as the 1980s, the difficulties faced by the European marketplace in
improving its rates of productivity and creating enough new jobs to meet demand
had sparked the coining of the term Eurosclerosis by Herbert Giersch (1985) to
describe the problem. There was little sign of improvement in the late 1990s,
prompting a decision by the EU in 2000 to launch the Lisbon Strategy. This set the
goal of making the EU – by 2010 – the most dynamic economy in the world by cre­
ating more jobs, bringing more women into the workplace, liberalizing the tele­
communications and energy markets, improving transport, and opening up labour
markets. In the event, the targets proved too ambitious, and Lisbon was super­
seded in 2010 by the Europe 2020 Strategy, focusing on innovation, education,
sustainable growth, a low-carbon economy, and job creation (see Chapter 7 for
more details).
These debates took place against a background of the most serious rift in trans­
atlantic relations in decades. Following the September 2001 terrorist attacks in the
United States, the administration of George W. Bush had orchestrated a multina­
tional attack on Afghanistan, accused of being a harbour for terrorists. Then it
turned its attention to Iraq, claiming that the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction and thus posed a substantial security threat. EU pub­
lic opinion was strongly against the proposed invasion of Iraq, but EU governments
were split, with France and Germany leading the opposition while Britain and
Spain offered support. It seemed that all the mounting questions about American
leadership of the Atlantic Alliance had now come to a head, as well as all the ques­
tions about the EU’s struggle to make a mark on the global stage (see Chapter 9 for
more details).
In May 2004, the EU began its most significant round of enlargements when ten
eastern European and Mediterranean states joined: Cyprus, the Czech Republic,
Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia. The sig­
nificance of this event lay less in numbers (their combined economies were smaller
in size than that of the Netherlands) than in the changing membership of the EU.
 The Evolution of the EU 59

Existing Members
Barents Eastern Enlargement
Sea
Candidates
UK departure
1 Armenia
Iceland 2 Azerbaijan
3 Albania
Finland 4 Bosnia and Herzegovina
5 Kosovo
6 North Macedonia
7 Montenegro
al
[Link]
Norway Sweden
Atlantic Estonia
Ocean Russia
Latvia
North Baltic Lithuania
Sea Denmark Sea
Belarus
Ireland
United
Kingdom Poland
Netherlands
Ukraine Caspian
Belgium Germany Czech Sea
Lux. Republic
Slovakia Moldova
Crimea Georgia
France Austria Hungary
Switz. Romania 1
Slovenia
Croatia
Black Sea
Serbia 2
4
Bulgaria
Italy 7 5 Bosporus
l
ga

6
rtu

Spain 3 Turkey
Po

Greece

Cyprus
Malta
Mediterranean Sea

Map 3.3 Evolution of the EU, 2004–20

As well as providing an important symbolic confirmation of the end of the Cold

War division of Europe, the enlargement promised to accelerate the process of
transforming the economies and democratic structures of eastern European coun­
tries. Enlargement continued in 2007 when Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU,
and in 2013 when Croatia became the 28th member state of the EU. Albania,
Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia and Turkey have also been accepted as ‘can­
didate countries’, meaning that membership has been agreed in principle and
negotiations have begun on the terms (see Figure 3.1).
With the changes in policy and membership, the need to rewrite the rules of the
EU became increasingly pressing, as did the need to make the EU more democratic
and to bring it closer to its citizens. It was decided in late 2001 to establish a
Convention on the Future of the European Union to draw up a treaty containing a
constitution designed to simplify and replace all the other treaties. The convention
met between February 2002 and July 2003, bringing together representatives
60 Understanding the European Union

Candidates Application made Status and challenges

Albania 2009 Candidate since 2014. Corruption, organized

crime, reform of judicial system.
Montenegro 2008 Candidate since 2010. Environment.
North Macedonia 2004 Candidate since 2005. Dispute with Greece
over its name settled in 2019.
Serbia 2009 Candidate since 2012. Progress on terms
being made.
Turkey 1987 Candidate since 1997. Size, poverty, political
record, human rights.
Potential candidates
Bosnia & 2016 Ethnic division, political instability,
Herzegovina corruption, organized crime.
Kosovo Unresolved legal status.

Others
Armenia Poverty, territorial disputes.
Azerbaijan Authoritarianism, corruption, links with
Russia.
Belarus Authoritarianism, links with Russia.
Georgia Civil unrest, links with Russia.
Iceland 2009 Negotiations suspended by Iceland 2013.
Moldova Poverty, links with Russia.
Norway 1962, 1970, 1992 Internal divisions over joining EU.
Switzerland 1992 referendum rejected EU membership.
Ukraine Divided opinion on EU membership.

Figure 3.1 Potential members of the EU

Note: Indicates status as of mid-2020

from the 15 EU member states, 13 applicant eastern European and Mediterranean

countries, and the European Parliament. It considered numerous proposals for
institutional and policy change, which were combined into a treaty agreed in 2004.
Unusually, it would have to be agreed by every member state before it could come
into force, with even one rejection being enough to stop it in its tracks.
Lithuania was the first country to ratify with a parliamentary vote in November
2004, and Spain the first to ratify with a national referendum in February 2005.
However, there were already signs of political and public resistance in several coun­
tries, but while Britain was expected to be the spoiler, it was left to the French and
the Dutch – both founding members of the EU – to kill the treaty with negative
referendum votes in May and June 2005, respectively. Urgent discussions were
now held about what to do next, and EU leaders agreed to integrate as many
 The Evolution of the EU 61

Table 3.3 The Treaty of Lisbon

The changes made by the Lisbon treaty focused mainly on institutions and policies:
• A new president for the European Council, whose job was to help steer the discussion
of the leaders of the member states.
• A High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, charged
with conducting the CFSP, and backed up by a new European External Action Service.
• Abolition of the pillar system introduced by Maastricht.
• Equal powers for the European Parliament and the Council of the EU over proposals
for almost all EU legislation.
• Recognition of the rights laid out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights, and accession
to the European Convention on Human Rights.
• More powers for the EU in the areas of energy policy, public health, climate change, crime
and terrorism, commercial policy, humanitarian aid, sport, tourism, research and space.
• Expansion of the use of qualified majority voting, but the national veto to be retained
for foreign and defence policy and taxation.
• A single legal personality for the EU, designed to strengthen its negotiating powers on
the international stage.
• Formal recognition, for the first time, of the freedom of a member state to leave the EU.

elements as possible of the failed constitutional treaty into a new Treaty of Lisbon
designed mainly to adjust the institutional structure of the EU to account for
enlargement. Ireland was required by law to hold a national referendum on the
treaty, and caused much consternation in June 2008 when it rejected Lisbon. A
protocol was negotiated that addressed Irish concerns about neutrality and tax
issues, and Lisbon was approved in a second Irish referendum in October 2009,
clearing the way for Lisbon to go into force in late 2009 (see Table 3.3).

Through all the treaty changes, the identity of the EU on the global stage had
undergone something of a transformation. European leaders had been embar­
rassed by their failure to provide leadership in responding to the violent break-up
of Yugoslavia in the mid-1990s, but the story was more encouraging in eastern
Europe, where the EU took the lead on post-Cold War reconstruction, helping for­
mer Soviet-bloc states to make the transition to democracy and free markets.
Meanwhile, the role of the United States in EU affairs was declining, as reflected in
the fallout from the 2003 crisis over Iraq, when US leaders were taken aback by the
openness with which their policy was criticized by hostile EU governments.

The era of crisis

The process of European integration has never been problem-free, which is hardly
surprising given the challenge of bringing together multiple states with long
histor­ies of conflict behind the goal of building lasting peace and cooperation.
Inevitably, there were problems, which grew in tandem with the reach and the
62 Understanding the European Union

ambitions of European integration. The difficulties date back to the early years of
the EEC (see Box 6.1), but have recently become so common that the term crisis
now features prominently in analyses of the EU (see, for example, Dinan et al.,
2017, and Cross, 2017). In a 2016 speech, European Commission president Jean-
Claude Juncker spoke of a polycrisis, consisting of multiple problems that had not
only arrived at about the same time, but had also fed off one another, creating a
widespread sense of doubt and uncertainty (Juncker, 2016). In this book, the most
recent spate of problems is described as the Seven Crises.
The first of the seven – the failure in 2005 of the constitutional treaty – was fol­
lowed in 2007 by the global financial crisis. This had its origins in the United States,
where too little regulation had allowed the extension of credit to low-income
home-buyers, and much of that debt had been bought by European banks and
financial institutions. When the US housing bubble burst in 2007, many of these
institutions either went bankrupt or turned to the government for help, stock
prices plummeted, and many people lost their jobs and their homes. Recession
came to most advanced economies in 2008–10, challenging the ability of the gov­
ernments of EU states to work together on broad economic problems.
The global financial crisis fed into a home-grown euro zone crisis that first cap­
tured the headlines in late 2009 with the breaking of news about debt problems in
Greece. The country had been on a spending spree fuelled by lowered interest rates,
manipulated statistics to exaggerate its levels of economic growth, suffered the
effects of widespread tax evasion, ran a budget deficit that – at nearly 13 per cent
– was far above the 3 per cent euro zone limit, and had a national (that is, sover­
eign) debt that was almost twice the euro zone limit of 60 per cent of gross domes­
tic product (GDP). Although Greece dominated the headlines, Germany and France
had also broken the euro zone rules, and there were worries also about the effects
of indebtedness in Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Spain.
Euro zone leaders at first avoided offering Greece a bailout, but then – in concert
with the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank – agreed a
rescue package on condition that Greece introduce austerity measures by cutting
public spending and boosting tax revenue. This sparked riots in the streets of
Athens and did little to improve investor confidence. Portugal, Ireland, Italy and
Spain were also asking for help, and even non-euro states such as Britain were hav­
ing problems. Speculation grew of a ‘Grexit’ – Greece leaving the euro – and of the
possible collapse of the euro, followed by the break-up of the EU.
Pinning down the causes of the euro zone crisis is not easy, as reflected in the
confused actions of government leaders who should have known better: they did
not fully understand how best to design the euro from the start, and when its prob­
lems began to emerge, they differed over how to explain them, and over what
action to take in response. In the end, it was decided to bail out the at-risk euro
zone states while demanding, in return, austerity measures aimed at cutting
spending and reducing debt. Such policies were to feed into the rise of populism
and a temptation to blame many domestic woes on the European Union, typically
with little hard confirming evidence. By early 2013, much of the earlier fuss and
speculation surrounding the health of the euro had died down, but this did not
mean that its problems had gone away.
 The Evolution of the EU 63

As if these economic woes were not enough, there were signs of declining faith
in the EU, as well as in national government in most EU states. Euroscepticism won
new adherents, with anti-EU parties winning new support at elections in several
EU states, including Austria, Denmark, Finland and Germany. For Treib (2014),
the electoral success of such parties could not be dismissed as merely a protest vote
against unpopular governments, but had to be seen as a reflection of worries about
the effects of EU policies and dissatisfaction with mainstream politics. The most
troubling consequences were found in the fourth of the Seven Crises, the chal­
lenges posed to democracy and the rule of law in Hungary and Poland. Emerging
gradually from about 2010, it centred on assaults by the ruling Law and Justice
party on the Polish judiciary, and the growing authoritarianism of the government
of Viktor Orbán in Hungary. In the wake of a March 2020 vote in the Hungarian
parliament in favour of declaring an unlimited state of emergency, suspending par­
liament with no elections, and giving Orbán the ability to rule by decree, the think
tank Freedom House declared that Hungary could no longer be considered a
democracy. It also argued that the EU was largely to blame for developments, since
it had failed to impose repercussions on either country (Freedom House, 2020).
There was a brief moment of brightness when the EU won the Nobel Peace
Prize in 2012, but a fifth crisis was already brewing: the influx of refugees in the
wake of the escalation of the civil war that had broken out in Syria in 2011.
Citizens of countries suffering war or economic difficulties in the Middle East
and North Africa had long made their way to the EU, which had adopted new pol­
icies on asylum and immigration in response. Numbers increased dramatically in
2014–15, however, overwhelming the ability of EU states to respond, prompting
divisions between western and eastern EU states over how to proceed, and spark­
ing a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions: just over 5,000 refugees died in
2016 alone, many as the result of their boats capsizing in the Mediterranean
(United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2020). The EU failed to agree
a common policy in response, western and eastern EU states were divided over
how to proceed, and the EU ultimately outsourced much of the problem by reach­
ing an agreement with Turkey to take back many refugees in exchange for finan­
cial support.
The refugee crisis was the latest and most visible dimension of the challenges
posed to the EU by immigration. Its wealth and its proximity to parts of the
world facing deep economic, political and social problems has long made the EU
a magnet for immigrants, both documented and undocumented (see Chapter 8
for more details). While documented migration is welcomed by most Europeans,
it is regarded with varying degrees of doubt and hostility by those who see immi­
grants as threats to jobs and culture, who have in turn provided support to anti-
immigrant and anti-EU political parties. Concerns grew in the wake of a series of
terrorist attacks – in Paris in 2015, in Brussels and Nice in 2016, and in
Manchester in 2017 – which, because they were perpetrated by Muslim extrem­
ists, heightened concerns about the wisdom of open borders within the EU. Many
of the accumulating pressures of trends at the national, regional and global level
now coalesced to produce the sixth of the Seven Crises, the British departure
from the EU (see Box 3.3).
64 Understanding the European Union

Box 3.3 The Brexit crisis

In a national referendum in June 2016, voters in the UK – by a margin of 52
per cent to 48 per cent, on the basis of 72 per cent turnout – voted in favour
of their country leaving the European Union. Britain had long been a reluc­
tant member of the EU, but while polls in the lead-up to the referendum had
shown an electorate almost evenly split between leaving and staying, the
result still came as a shock to many. It resulted in the resignation of two
prime ministers (David Cameron and Theresa May), a fall in global shares
and in the value of the British pound, and concerns about the future of the
United Kingdom (Scotland and Northern Ireland had voted in favour of
remaining, as had London, but much of small-town and rural England had
voted in favour of leaving). A constitutional crisis was also sparked as mul­
tiple efforts to achieve agreement on the terms of exit failed to win enough
support, and governments used questionable means to try and work around
the impasse.
It will take time before the causes and effects of Brexit can be fully under­
stood within their historical context, but several points were immediately
clear. First, support for leaving tended to be highest among older and less
educated voters, and lowest among younger and better educated voters.
Second, the result must be seen against the low levels of knowledge of the
EU in Britain (see Chapter 5), which were exploited by media and political
leaders in the Leave campaign, who made many verifiably false claims about
the costs of British membership of the EU, and about the powers of EU insti­
tutions. Finally, the result must also be seen within the context of broader
pressures: a declining faith in government, concerns that many Britons had
been left out of the economic benefits of European integration, worries
about the effects of immigration and the threats of terrorism, and a rejec­
tion of the effects of globalization.
In the event, Britain did not leave the EU until January 2020, but – even
then – the terms of the future UK-EU relationship remained to be settled.
Questions also remain about what Brexit means for the wider process of
European integration. On the one hand, it represents a warning of the
potential costs of giving up on the EU, and of the dangers of nationalism in
a rapidly globalizing international system. In negotiating with China or the
United States, Britain will be much weaker outside the EU than in. It also
suggests that the EU, minus the often-awkward partner of Britain, might
now be able to achieve deeper integration in areas such as foreign and
defence policy. On the other hand, some see Brexit as representing the ter­
minal decline of the EU, with Bellamy and Castiglione (2019), for example,
gloomily suggesting that the euro zone and Brexit crises have ‘raised the
spectre of fragmentation and political disintegration’ and left ‘the promise
of the EU as a possible model for legitimate governance beyond the nation
state … somewhat in tatters’.
 The Evolution of the EU 65

The most recent crisis (at least, the most recent as this book went into produc­
tion) was the breaking of the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. Although it was the
first of the Seven Crises to have no basis in the political, economic or social circum­
stances of the EU, its effects on all three was both deep and dramatic. Apparently
originating in China, it quickly took hold all over the world, with several EU coun­
tries – notably France, Italy and Spain – feeling the worst effects. Millions of people
were infected globally, hundreds of thousands died, and – in order to control its
spread – social distancing became the new norm, leading to the closure of busi­
nesses and a dramatic economic downturn. Once again, the capacity of EU leaders
to agree a united response was tested and found wanting, and once again questions
were asked about the health and stability of the exercise of European integration
(see Box 8.2 for more details).
The early decades of integration had not been trouble-free, but the questions
raised about European integration in recent years have been both louder and more
searching, and have been directed at the very heart of the purpose and the future
of the European Union. Somewhat ironically, one of the effects of the Covid-19
pandemic was to delay the launch of the Conference on the Future of Europe, an
initiative of the new leadership of the European Commission which had taken
office in mid-December 2019. The conference – originally scheduled to begin on
Europe Day (9 May), 2020 – was designed to ask ordinary Europeans what they
thought about the EU, its goals and its institutional structure. These were ques­
tions that were urgently in need of being asked, although the answers – and the
extent to which they help, or are even applied – remain to be seen.

Conclusions

Europe has travelled a long and winding road since the end of the Second World
War. Most European states in 1945 were physically devastated, the suspicions and
hostilities that had led to two world wars in the space of a generation still lingered,
western Europe found itself being pulled into a military and economic vacuum as
power and influence moved outwards to the United States, and eastern Europe
came under the political and economic control of the Soviet Union. The balance of
power in the west changed as an exhausted Britain and France dismantled their
empires and reduced their militaries, while West Germany rebuilt and eventually
became a dominant force in continental politics. Intent on avoiding future wars,
and concerned about being caught in big-power rivalry, western European leaders
began considering new levels of regional cooperation, pooling the interests of their
states, and helping give the region new confidence and influence.
Beginning with the limited experiment of integrating their coal and steel indus­
tries, and building on an economic foundation and security shield underwritten by
the United States, six European states quickly agreed a common agricultural policy,
a customs union, and the beginnings of a common market. The accession of new
members in the 1970s and 1980s increased the size of the Community’s popula­
tion and market, pushing its borders to the edge of Russia and the Middle East. The
global economic instability that followed the end of the Bretton Woods system and
66 Understanding the European Union

the energy crises of the 1970s served to emphasize the need for western European
countries to cooperate if they were to have more control over their own future
rather than simply to respond to external events.
After several years of relative lethargy, the European experiment was given new
impetus by completion of the single market, and then by the controversial deci­
sion to stabilize exchange rates as a prelude to the abolition of national currencies
and the adoption of a single European currency. At the same time, the EU showed
a new face to the rest of the world, with more cooperation on foreign and trade
policy (along with some embarrassing disagreements along the way). The effects
of integration were felt in a growing number of policy areas, including agriculture,
competition, transport, the environment, energy, telecommunications, research
and development, working conditions, culture, consumer affairs, education and
employment.
Along the way, ordinary Europeans have been increasingly in two minds about
the merits of integration, the criticisms growing since the passage of the Maastricht
treaty in the early 1990s. The 2003 controversy over Iraq drew new attention to the
place of the EU in the international system, while the post-2004 eastern enlarge­
ment had an important impact on the personality of the EU, making it more truly
an exercise in European integration. Then, however, came the Seven Crises: the
failure of the European constitutional treaty, the global financial crisis, the sover­
eign debt crisis, the rule of law crisis, the refugee crisis, the British departure from
the EU, and the Covid-19 crisis. This combination of domestic and foreign chal­
lenges sparked an animated debate about the future of the EU.

Further Reading
Cross, Mai’a Davis (2017) The Politics of Crisis in Europe (Cambridge University Press).
Dinan, Desmond (2014) Europe Recast: A History of European Union, 2nd edn (Red Globe
Press).
Dosenrode, Søren (ed.) (2016) The European Union after Lisbon: Polity, Politics, Policy
(Routledge).
Gilbert, Mark (2012) European Integration: A Concise History (Rowman and Littlefield).
Oliver, Tim (2018) Understanding Brexit: A Concise Introduction (Bristol University
Press).