history of the european integration, Sintesi del corso di Diritto dell'Unione Europea

Scarica history of the european integration e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Diritto dell'Unione Europea solo su Docsity! HISTORY OF EUROPEAN INTEGRATION The European context after the second world war: After six years of war, Europe was exhausted and divided: on one side the western power block under the influence of USA, on the other the eastern one, under the influence of Soviet Union.  Germany: its territory was between the two blocks, and in 1949 two distinct states were created: the DDR, Deutsche Demokratische Republik in the east, supported by USRR; and the BRD, Bundesrepublik Deutschland in the west, supported by USA.  Great Britain: although it was among the victors of the war, it was facing an important crisis because of the disintegration of the Commonwealth and its currency was weak too. In 1945 the Labour party, guided by Clement Attlee, won the elections and implemented a series of reforms inspired by socialism such as nationalization and the intervention of the State in the economy.  France: divided during the war between collaborationists and antifascists, it had to face the psychological, military and economic consequences caused by the dissolution of its colonial empire. In 1946 was born the fourth French Republic and it was approved a new Constitution.  Spain, Portugal and Greece: a third European area was represented by those countries where dictatorial regimes had survived such as Antònio de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, Francisco Franco in Spain and a military dictatorship in Greece since 1967. The first steps towards the European integration: In 1941, during the war, Altiero Spinelli, Ernesto Rossi and Eugenio Colorni, exiled in the island of Ventotene, conceived the so-called Ventotene Manifesto, a political action programme in order to give Europe after the war a federal structure, based on a democratic and supranational government; with only one currency and a common army. This programme was underwritten by many men all over Europe such as Jean Monnet and Robert Schuman in France; Alcide De Gasperi in Italy; Konrad Adenauer in west Germany. These men understood that was necessary to change the mechanism of relations between European states in order to obtain a protagonist role for the Continent. There were many different theories about domestic policy: somebody wanted to intensify multilateral relations and economic cooperation between states; whereas somebody else wanted to proceed to a real constituent process involving the creation of a Parliament and supranational institutions. As regards foreign policy, Churchill was of the idea that a united Europe would have been a wall against USRR, supported by USA; someone else was of the idea that a united Europe would have been a third power between the two superpowers. On the continent an example of economic cooperation and common market had already existed since 1948: Benelux. Besides still in 1948 it was set up the EOEC, the European Organization for Economic Cooperation in order to administer the aids provided by the ERP, the so-called Marshall plan. So a concrete perspective of inter-governamental cooperation was sketched out, based on agreements between sovereign states in order to create common bodies, where decisions, not binding, were taken by unanimity. So in 1949 the Council of Europe, an advisory body, was born. In this phase prevailed a functionalist approach: that is European integration would have been progressive, involving key sectors. The first field taken into consideration was that of coal and steel because of its economic and political importance. The re-born BRD would have exploited the rich coal deposits in the Ruhr area in order to obtain a dominant position compared to the other European nations but France could not permit this. Therefore the French economist proposed to take away from national control the production of coal and steel of all continental countries, entrusting it to a supranational authority. And the French foreign minister, Mr. Schuman transformed this idea into a political proposal, the so-called Schuman plan, contained in the Schuman Declaration. Hence in 1951 six countries signed the treaty instituting the ESCS, the European Society of Coal and Steel. French, west Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg gave origin to the first European economic community. The failure of ECD and of the project of a political community: In 1953 the ESCS Assembly proposed the creation of a European Community of Defence, that is the creation of a common army under the control of a European ministry of Defence operating within the NATO. This project was linked with the rearmament of west Germany because France did not agree with this policy. So in 1954 the ECD project collapsed because French parliament voted against it under the leadership of De Gaulle, who did not admit any cession of sovereignty from the national state to a supranational federalist body. The process of integration started again in 1955 with the idea of ECM, a European Common Market and the EAEC, European Atomic Energy Community. After two years of negotiations in 1957 in Rome, the treaties instituting EEC and Euratom were signed. Hence the Europe of Six was born. The main task of EEC was to abolish tariffs, rules and duties regarding commercial transactions between its partners in order to create a one big continental market where freedoms of circulation of goods, capitals and workers where guaranteed. The EEC statutes provided a Parliament as an advisory body composed by non-elected representatives, but nominated by national parliaments of member states; a Commission implementing the various provisions without any direct executive power; and a Council of ministries invested of all decisional power, composed by chiefs of government and foreign ministers of member states. European integration during 1960s: The several mediations in the agreements regarding the creation of the EEC and Euratom showed a strong tension between Europeanism and nationalism. On one side there were federalist and confederate supporters; on the other who was not disposed to give up his national prerogatives. This was the main reason why UK did not enter in the EEC. Besides in the Europeanism side there were very different positions. In west Germany the chancellor, Mr. Adenauer supported the reasons of a European integration in order to, on the one hand to overcome German popular distrust in the international community and in the public opinion; on the other against Soviet Union. Whereas the French Europeanism was completely opposite to this design. It was conceived in order to obtain full autonomy of Europe from American leadership. De Gaulle wanted to create a European coalition, with France as its leader, that could be a third power. In 1958 the fourth French Republic collapsed because of the Algerian crisis: general De Gaulle was called back to government and charged to write a new Constitution. This constitution, strongly presidentialist, was approved in 1958 and gave origin to the fifth French Republic, whose president was De Gaulle himself. In foreign policy he inspired his political action to the recovery for France of a protagonist role on the international scenario. For this reason in 1960 France obtained his first nuclear weapon; and in the same time the French president initiated relations with Soviet Union. As regards European policy the core idea of De Gaulle was to make France the fulcrum of European community. He was of the idea that the European community must not be based on elective institutions provided of decisional power binding for member states; but it had to remain an association of sovereignty nations, with a collegial direction under French aegis. According to these principles France proposed a project, the so-called Fouchet plan, in order to create a European political community guided by Paris, presenting it in 1961. The proposal experienced a strong opposition above all by Belgium and Netherlands because they did not want to get up a project of European community based on absolute parity among member states.