European Community:  a regional, multipurpose IGO

     Jean Monnet

     Schuman Plan of 1950

*European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) 1952 six original members:  France, W. Germany, Italy and Benelux countries:  Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

European Defense Community (EDC) Treaty signed by ECSC members in May 1952 for a common military for the six.

European Political Community Treaty proposed in March 1953

French Parliament refused to ratify EDC Treaty in          August 1954; Pierre Mendes-France.

Treaty of Rome, 1957, proposed a common customs union by January 1970; task was achieved by July 1968; a common agricultural policy (CAP) has been more difficult to achieve.  EC has huge agricultural surpluses like US.

European Atomic Energy Commission (Euratom) 1958

European Economic Community (EEC) or Common Market 1958

Three institutions (*) were merged into EC in 1967

EC organs

     EC Commission:  initiates policy and seeks to advance

          community interests;  12 EC commissioners plus

          thousands of Eurocrats

     EC Council of Ministers:  rotating presidency;

          ministers sent by member states; council must

          approve policy recommendations of EC commission;

          voting still requires unanimity (Treaty of Rome

          had envisioned majority vote after 1966);

          Three times yearly, the heads of the member states

          meet in the EC Council to make major decisions.

          Ultimate sovereignty remains in member states.

     EC Parliament created in 1962; replaced Common Assembly

          established as part of ECSC; since 1979, members

          of EC Parliament are popularly elected;  still,

          secondary body, controls only about 5% of EC

          budget, although it can reject the total budget.

     EC Court of Justice:  jurisdiction over member states

          and individuals; all EC organs.

EC Membership

     Originally six ECSC members (Benelux, Italy, France,           Germany)

     Great Britain, Denmark, Ireland, & Norway applied

       during 1961 to 1962 for membership

     Charles De Gaulle vetoed British membership in 1963

     de Gaulle blocked majority voting in Council of

       Ministers in 1965

     de Gaulle vetoed British admission to EC 2nd time in 67

     de Gaulle quits in 1968

     Britain, Denmark, & Ireland are admitted into EC in 73

     Referendum in Norway rejects EC membership

     Greece gained membership in 1981

     Spain and Portugal entered in 1986

     Twelve members in 1991

     Turkey has applied for membership; has been postponed

       till after 1992

     Hungary has a trade pact with EC; would like membership

The Lome Convention has committed the EC to provide

       assistance and trade preferences for a group of LDCs

       that grew in 1990 to 66 African, Caribbean, and

       Pacific states

The EC in 1992

     "In 1985 member states agreed through the Single European Act, an amendment to the 1957 Treaty of Rome, to remove remaining restrictions on trade (primarily non-tariff barriers, such as the quality requirements that keep almost all foreign beer out of Germany), barriers to the movement of labor (such as country-specific professional requirements for doctors and lawyers), and obstacles facing capital movement.  The goal is a true common market by 1992, and the EC should largely achieve it." (p. 235)

     "The Common Market has achieved clearer success in other areas" than agriculture.  "For instance, workers can move freely among member states, and most restrictions to capital movement have disappeared.  Many joint taxation, transport, energy, and monetary policies have emerged.  The monetary sector is of special significance because separate currencies and control over them are of great symbolic and real significance to economic sovereignty.  In 1979 the European Monetary System (EMS) came into existence linking nine European currencies to each other in what is called a "snake".  The wiggles of the snake are fairly narrow bands within which the relative values are allowed to vary.  A European Currency Unit (ECU) now serves as a unit of account for many EC transactions.  An agreement in 1989 established July 1990 as the date to begin movement toward full monetary union, by eliminating all controls on transfers of currencies among member states.  There is even a European Monetary Cooperation Fund (EMCF) that might evolve into a European central bank."  (p. 234)

"Fortress Europe?"

     "Economic gains from improved efficiency could be substantial.  Non-European states, including Japan and the United States, fear that in the process of eliminating remaining internal barriers, external ones will rise, creating a "Fortress Europe."  Skirmishing over that prospect began already in 1988 when the U.S. retaliated against exclusion from the EC of U.S. beef from cattle that had been fed hormones (Europeans claimed that the hormones posed a hman health hazard)." (p. 235)

EC Common High Politics

     1973, the EC developed joint trade policies for Eastern Europe.

     Lome Convention to help Third World, particularly former French colonies

     Lord Carrington mediating civil war in Yugoslavia in Nov. 1991

     Joint Brigade between France and Germany created late 80s.