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Western Europe’s
‘golden age’ of economic growth came to an end during the 1970s
for a number of reasons. Increased global competition from the
Far East cut into Western Europe’s share of world exports. The
‘oil shocks’ – substantial increases in the price of oil in 1973
and 1981 distorted non-oil producers’ balance of payments,
forcing states to reduce imports and hindering global trade.
Economic stagnation and higher unemployment were coupled with
the inflationary rise in oil prices to produce the new
phenomenon of ‘staglflation’.
Meanwhile, the slower birth rates
of these years led to pessimistic projections of social welfare
costs. Under these strains the Western European political
consensus began to break. The application of monetarist
economic theory, in which unemployment could be tolerated as a
weapon to contain inflation, was pursued with particular
enthusiasm in Britain. To politicians on the Right, such as
Britain’s Margaret Thatcher, it was the interventionist state
itself which disrupted the natural efficiency of free markets
and impeded economic growth.
Economic
polarisation – a widening gap between the richest and the
poorest – was experienced in many countries including Britain,
though not Germany. Heavy industry declined in relative size and
importance to other (technological, service) sectors of the
economy and accelerated the fragmentation of the traditional
unionised working class. |
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At the same time, greater social and
geographical mobility broke traditional ‘tribal’ political
allegiances and challenged political parties to seek new methods
of attracting support. European states had welcomed mass
immigration during the boom years to make up the labour
shortage, but as jobs became scarce there was an increase in
racial tension and indeed violence, encouraged by overtly racist
political parties. The role of women continued to develop as the
greater numbers of women in employment asserted demands for
equality. The legalisation of abortion was achieved in Germany
in 1975 and Spain in 1985. Growing evidence of man-made
environmental degradation led to the emergence of Green
politics, with the Green Party in Germany achieving electoral
successes in the 1980s.
Western European
states faced the challenges of violent terrorist organisations
during these decades. ETA in
Spain carried out a campaign of murder and bombing in the name
of Basque nationalism. In West Germany, the extreme left
Red Army Faction/Baader-Meinhof Gang attacked the state
through ideological motives. Western Europe remained dependent
on the USA for its defence and it was through NATO that military
security was maintained. The 1970s saw a relaxation of Cold War
tensions. The German version of detente was to pursue the
Ostpolitik strategy of Willy Brandt and establish relations with
the GDR. The superpowers reached agreements on arms reduction,
and through the Helsinki Agreements of 1975 accepted each
other’s spheres of influence, recognised borders, and
established international standards of human rights – on paper
at least.
European
Integration
The project of
European integration has advanced unevenly, with periods of
great activism in broadening (accepting new members) and
deepening (increasing the co-ordination of policies, laws, and
economies) interspersed with periods when progress has stalled.
Supporters of ever closer union have likened the project to a
bicycle; it must keep moving forward or it will fall. However,
it can only progress by maintaining the support of the member
governments, each of which in turn must maintain the support of
their voters. The European Community has sought to develop a
clearer democratic mandate for its institutions through the
introduction of direct voting to the European Parliament from
1979. This assembly has only gradually assumed powers from the
unelected European Commission, and elections are notable for low
voter participation and the narrow national lines on which they
are contested. The blocks of like-minded parties that constitute
the European Parliament are a long way from forming any
genuinely Europe-wide political parties. The size of the
project, which at an economic level allows great economies of
scale, at a political level has often led to unsatisfactory
complexity. However, whatever weaknesses this system has, it
should be remembered that it has helped Europe achieve an
extended period of peace in which conflict between members is
resolved by negotiation rather than violence.
The Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP) has been representative of some
defining aspects of European integration. The CAP established a
system of subsidies and protection for food producers. It
guaranteed minimum prices for farmers, funded investment, and
encouraged increases in production. However, the policy has been
expensive, sometimes corrupt, with funds being transferred from
European taxpayers to farmers in member states with large
agricultural sectors, mainly France. Consumers also endure
higher food prices while producers in developing countries face
trade barriers and the ‘dumping’ of surplus production on their
domestic markets.
The policy
represented a compromise between German industry which was
allowed access to French markets in return for German financial
support for French farmers. The higher ideal of Franco-German
partnership could be served and at the same time France could
use its leading role to shape policy in the French national
interest. Given Europe’s troubled history, no reasonable
observer could oppose the reconciliation of France and Germany
but the process has at times exposed divisions between European
states. For UK politicians, having missed the chance to
participate from the start, there was a sense of frustration as
European integration developed without British influence. The
finalisation of the CAP and the equally controversial Common
Fisheries Policy (CFP) immediately prior to UK entry
significantly raised the price of membership. The short term
financial benefit which France could squeeze from the outcast
British demandeurs must be balanced against the negative
effect the resulting longer term discord had on the loftier
notions of the European project.
UK entry to the
EEC was achieved at the third attempt in 1973, by which time De
Gaulle had died and Britain was led by a committed pro-European
Prime Minister, Edward Heath. Heath’s election defeat in 1974
brought the more sceptical Harold Wilson to power at the head of
a Labour Party that remained divided on the issue of Europe. The
following year, in a referendum on the question, “Do you
think that the United Kingdom should stay in the European
Community?” British voters responded 2:1 in favour. However,
this did not bring an end to the European argument within
British politics. The particular problem with the European issue
is that the argument cut across party lines with pros and antis
on both sides. Margaret Thatcher (UK Prime Minister 1979-1990)
took reluctant steps towards ‘Europe’, signing the Single
European Act in 1985 but indulged in increasingly anti-Europe
rhetoric culminating in her Bruges speech of 1988 at which she
declared that her Government had “not successfully rolled
back the frontiers of the state in Britain only to see them
reimposed at a European level.” This association of ‘Europe’
with socialist themes such as state intervention contrasts with
earlier Labour Governments which mistrusted ‘Europe’ as
intrinsically capitalist. UK inconsistency continued. For
Margaret Thatcher, her hostility towards the pro-European wing
of the Conservative Party was a factor in her downfall in 1990.
John Major
(UK Prime Minister 1990-97) pursued a moderately pro-European
policy but faced opposition from ‘Eurosceptics’ within the
Conservative Party, a group which he was moved to describe as
‘bastards’. The Major Government ratified the Treaty of
Maastricht in 1992 which introduced the rebranded “European
Union”, established European citizenship, increased the powers
of the European Parliament, and created a European Central Bank.
The Social Chapter guaranteed workers’ rights including minimum
holiday entitlements, right to free association in trade unions,
health and safety standards. John Major negotiated an opt out of
this clause. German participation was more wholehearted;
according to Helmut Kohl, “At Maastricht we laid the
foundation stone for the completion of the European
Union....which within a few years will lead to the creation of
what the founding fathers of modern Europe dreamed of after the
last war: the United States of Europe.” Quoted in This
Blessed Plot, H. Young. P. 389
A prominent
pillar of integration throughout this period has been European
Monetary Union (EMU). The stability of the Bretton Woods system
of exchange rates fixed against the dollar which had lasted
until 1971, had contributed to the successful growth of European
economies. The collapse of that system and the ensuing
disruptive fluctuations of Europe’s currencies encouraged EC
member states to establish co-coordinated monetary policies. The
Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) fixed exchange rates between
European currencies but devaluations continued caused by
governments seeking to redress trade imbalances and boost
employment, and by speculators wary of artificially over-priced
currencies. The final expression of EMU, the introduction of the
single currency (the Euro) in 1999 has provided stability and
simplicity to member states’ economies. On the other hand, not
all members’ economies were judged ready to join the ‘Eurozone’,
and others, such as the UK, preferred to retain national control
over their currencies. The different speeds at which member
states have adopted such new projects has led to a situation
tolerated as the ‘variable geometry’ of Europe.
Despite
these difficulties, the European Community expanded to include
Greece in 1981, and Spain and Portugal in 1986. Moves to deepen
political integration were more problematic, but the European
Community endured as a force of stability while the opposing
Eastern Bloc crumbled. It was this collapse of the Soviet Empire
from 1989 that ended Europe’s division; bringing East and West
back together and facilitating German reunification in 1990. The
historical fears aroused by this were given expression by
Margaret Thatcher who reportedly told a former German ambassador
it would be “at least another 40 years before the British
could trust the Germans again.” Quoted in H. Young, This
Blessed Plot; P. 359 This characteristically British invocation
of the War ignored the Community’s achievement in preventing the
development of ‘a German Europe’ by nurturing ‘a European
Germany’. For the newly free countries of Eastern Europe, the
European Union became something to aspire to, a guarantor of
stability in a turbulent era. Moreover, the expansion to include
these countries created new alignments and diluted the ability
of any one member to dominate. In the final decade of the
century, the EU faced a series of challenges. The end of the
Cold War removed one of the external reasons for the EU’s
existence, reducing the grand vision to a narrower pursuit of
commercial advantage. The war in Yugoslavia exposed the EU’s
inability to pursue an effective, coordinated foreign policy.
Difficulties
remain for the EU in its efforts to retain the consent of EU
citizens. Well-intentioned critics of the EU are often
marginalised by a political correctness which categorises them
with the less reasonable nationalist groups throughout Europe
opposed to any form of international cooperation. A persistent
criticism remains that the EU has removed power from nation
states to a remote, centralised and undemocratic centre,
diminishing national sovereignty. However, this argument ignores
the multiple ways in which national sovereignty is compromised
in a globalised world of overlapping alliances, multi-national
companies and mass communications, in which markets hold sway
over government policy. Others argue that Europe’s nations are
being forced to conform to a bland Europe–wide culture, imposed
from above. However, at a cultural level, France remains as
distinctly ‘French’ as it ever was – the EU has not eroded the
essential characteristics of Bordeaux and Blackpool. Where
culture has been internationalised it has been as much a result
of an enthusiastic consumption of America’s cultural output as
anything emitting from Brussels.
Key dates in
European integration
1973
– The UK, Denmark and Ireland join the European Community
1979
– The European Monetary System (EMS) is established. A step
towards a common currency in which member states (not including
the UK) agreed to maintain the value of national currencies
against a notional European Currency Unit (ECU).
1979
– The first direct elections to the European Parliament.
1981
– Greece
becomes the tenth EC member.
1985
– The Single European Act moves towards the completion of a
Common Market. The Schengen Agreement abolishes passport
controls and opens borders between France, Germany, Belgium, the
Netherlands and Luxemburg. Other European countries have since
joined the Schengen group – though not the UK.
1986
– Spain and
Portugal join the EC.
1991
– The Treaty
of Maastricht. The EC becomes the European Union (EU). The
Treaty sets out a timetable towards monetary union. European
citizens gain freedoms to live and work throughout the EU.
1995
– Austria,
Finland and Sweden join the EU.
1999
– Introduction of the Euro.
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Have the aims
of the European Union changed since its establishment?
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What are the
advantages and disadvantages of EU membership?
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Explain the
differences in French, British and German attitudes
regarding European integration.
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Helmut Kohl
described the creation of a United States of Europe as an
entirely positive ambition. Do you agree?
Verdicts on the
EU
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“Sometimes
I like to compare the EU as a creation to the organisation
of empires. We have the dimension of Empire but there is a
great difference. Empires were usually made with force with
a centre imposing diktat, a will on the others. Now what we
have is the first non-imperial empire.”
Commission President J-M Barroso, The
Brussels Journal, 11 July 2007
To what extent is the EU a
“non-Imperial Empire”?
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“The European Community was a heroic
endeavour, undertaken against great odds, which built a
record of assisting peace and prosperity among European
nations that has not been surpassed.” H. Young, This
Blessed Plot, P. 510
To what extent do
you agree? |
