Study guide: Origins of European Integration

📋 Course Outline

1. Interwar Visions of European Unity
2. Postwar Conditions for Cooperation
3. Intergovernmental Cooperation
4. Benelux Economic Cooperation
5. European Economic Recovery and OEEC
6. European Security Cooperation and NATO
7. Political Cooperation and Council of Europe
8. From Cooperation to Integration
9. Intergovernmental and Supranational Systems

📖 1. Interwar Visions of European Unity

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Protectionism: Government policies that restrict imports, for example through tariffs, to protect national industries and prioritize national economic interests over an integrated European market.

★ Must-know

• In 1923, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi launched the Pan-Europa project, a Christian and conservative proposal for European cooperation to preserve peace and European civilization.

• In 1923, Leon Trotsky proposed the United Soviet States of Europe, a communist union based on socialist revolution and international working-class solidarity.

• Interwar proposals for European unity lacked concrete implementation plans, including the institutions, legal mechanisms, and policies needed to make cooperation effective.

Further detail

• In 1927, Emile Borel supported Committees for European Cooperation, reflecting a social and liberal approach based on collaboration rather than radical political transformation.

💡 Memory Hook

Coudenhove-Kalergi’s conservative Christian unity contrasts with Trotsky’s communist revolution

📖 2. Postwar Conditions for Cooperation

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Keynesian interventionism: The view, inspired by John Maynard Keynes, that governments should actively intervene in the economy to support employment, investment, and demand, particularly during economic crises.
• Social democracy: Combines democratic political institutions with policies intended to reduce social inequalities and protect workers.

★ Must-know

• After the Second World War, Germany was defeated, the United States and the Soviet Union were the two major superpowers, and France and the United Kingdom were victorious but economically and militarily weakened.

• Postwar European cooperation was encouraged by the needs to rebuild economies, establish lasting peace, and reconsider the traditional balance of power between European states.

Further detail

• Postwar European states faced security concerns about the future of Germany and the growing influence of the Soviet Union, alongside a demand for new political approaches.

💡 Memory Hook

War destruction → reconstruction needs → stronger incentives to cooperate

📖 3. Intergovernmental Cooperation

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Intergovernmental cooperation: International collaboration in which national governments remain the main political actors, retain control of decisions, and can generally withdraw from the arrangements.
• Lowest common denominator: The least ambitious solution acceptable to all participating countries when decisions depend on agreement between governments.

★ Must-know

• Intergovernmental cooperation has three main characteristics:
  • government representation
  • decision-making generally by consensus
  • the possibility for governments to withdraw

Further detail

• Intergovernmental cooperation may progress only as quickly as its least willing member, like a convoy limited by its slowest ship.

💡 Memory Hook

A convoy advances only as fast as its slowest ship

📖 4. Benelux Economic Cooperation

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Customs union: Removes customs duties and other trade barriers between participating countries while applying a common external tariff to non-member countries.

★ Must-know

• The three Benelux countries agreed to establish a customs union in 1944, and it came into effect in 1948.

Further detail

• Benelux brought together:

  • Belgium
  • the Netherlands
  • Luxembourg

• Benelux relied primarily on the three national governments and did not initially depend on autonomous European institutions.

• Benelux demonstrated that neighbouring countries could reduce trade barriers and provided a small group capable of demonstrating the advantages of closer cooperation.

📖 5. European Economic Recovery and OEEC

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Marshall Plan: Provided approximately $13 billion in American economic assistance to European countries between 1948 and 1951 to support reconstruction, recovery, and political stability in Western Europe.
• Containment: The strategy of limiting the spread of Soviet influence during the Cold War and informed the American approach associated with the Truman Doctrine.

★ Must-know

• The Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) was created in 1948 to coordinate European economic recovery.

Further detail

• The United States promoted European government cooperation in managing and distributing American aid rather than having countries receive it individually.

• The OEEC developed into the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 1962, with a broader focus on international economic cooperation and policy coordination.

📖 6. European Security Cooperation and NATO

★ Must-know

• Britain and France signed the Dunkirk Treaty in 1947 to provide mutual assistance against potential security threats.

• Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg joined Britain and France through the Brussels Treaty in 1948, expanding their security cooperation.

• The North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington in 1949, creating NATO.

📌 Article V of NATO establishes that an armed attack against one member is considered an attack against all members, creating an obligation of collective assistance while leaving each member to determine the action it considers necessary.

Further detail

• NATO’s North Atlantic Council is its main political decision-making body, while the Military Committee provides military advice and direction within the organisation’s institutional framework.

📖 7. Political Cooperation and Council of Europe

★ Must-know

• The Council of Europe was founded in 1949.

• The Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers represents member-state governments, while its Parliamentary Assembly brings together parliamentary representatives.

📌 Council of Europe conventions become legally binding on states that ratify them, whereas recommendations are proposals or guidelines without the same binding legal force.

Further detail

• In a speech in Zurich in 1946, Winston Churchill called for a kind of “United States of Europe” to promote peace and cooperation.

• The Hague Congress of 1948 brought together European political figures and supporters of European unity and contributed to the development of the Council of Europe.

• The Council of Europe is distinct from the European Union and is a broader international organisation focused particularly on human rights, democracy, and the rule of law.

💡 Memory Hook

Binding conventions create legal obligations; recommendations do not

📖 8. From Cooperation to Integration

🔑 Key Concepts & Definitions

• Supranationalism: A system in which states transfer certain powers to institutions operating above the national level, which can make legally authoritative decisions within treaty-covered areas.
• Functionalism: Holds that cooperation is easiest to build in functional areas of activity and may develop almost automatically.
• Neo-functionalism: Holds that integration is not automatic and requires spillover and political leadership to drive the process.
• Federalism: Holds that integration must eventually move beyond functional cooperation to develop a constitutional and political system.

📝 Essential Points

• The European Parliament participates in adopting European legislation, while the Court of Justice of the European Union ensures that EU law is interpreted and applied consistently.

• Intergovernmentalism and supranationalism are not wholly opposed, because many European institutions combine elements of both and policies can occupy positions along a spectrum between them.

💡 Memory Hook

Intergovernmental control contrasts with supranational authority

📖 9. Intergovernmental and Supranational Systems

★ Must-know

📌 Under intergovernmentalism, national governments or their representatives are the primary actors and decisions are generally based on consensus; under supranationalism, independent institutions play a central role and decisions can follow legally established voting procedures.

📌 Intergovernmental cooperation is restricted by the least willing states and retains significant government control, whereas supranational integration can progress through autonomous institutions with binding legal powers in treaty-defined areas.

Further detail

• European integration developed through a combination of intergovernmental and supranational approaches, shaped by postwar demands for peace, reconstruction, and political stability and by the limitations of purely intergovernmental arrangements.

📊 Synthesis Tables

Intergovernmentalism and Supranationalism

Dimension	Intergovernmentalism	Supranationalism
Primary actors	National governments or representatives	Independent institutions
Decision-making	Generally consensus	Legally established voting procedures may apply
Authority	Governments retain significant control	Institutions have binding powers in treaty-defined areas
Progress	Limited by the least willing states	Can progress through autonomous institutions