Following the post-World War II carnage and violence, a new Europe arose from the ashes. This new Europe was decimated from the intermittent fighting between the Allied and Axis powers during the second great war and the nations of Europe sought to devise a plan that to avoid further war-time conflicts within the region. The European Coal and Steel Committee was the first advent of assembling nations together in political and economic interest. The ECSC was formed in 1950 with the signing of the Treaty of Paris whose signatories included West Germany , Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, France and The Netherlands.
These “Inner Six” nations thus laid the framework for further integration of other nations within the region and its supranational principles were what led to the creation of the European Economic Community in 1957, further assimilating the European countries’ economies. The creations of these communities for economic purposes were meant to promote cooperation amongst European nations to prevent the further outbreak of violence which had subsided with the end of WWII. Through these general agreements of economic importance came further integration through the creation of more agreements throughout the 1960s, such as the abolishment of customs duties amongst their borders, creating free trade and border trade tax pacts among the Inner Six and across their borders to other signatory nations.
The first period of enlargement occurred following the adoption of several agreements and norms amongst the nations of Denmark, Ireland, and the United Kingdom in January of 1973 followed by Greece in January of 1981. The Inner Six nations had proliferated their agreements amongst each other to 4 other nations, bringing the total number ...
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Europa.eu. (n.d.). History of the European Union. Retrieved October 27, 2013, from http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/index_en.htm
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The coalitions brought by the Versailles Treaty contributed greatly to starting WWII. The Treaty was responsible for the formation of the Allies. However, when made, these alliances were based on promises from the superpowers, particularly France. This ensured that Germany would not have support from the smaller countries in Europe (Document B). Belgium had aligned itself with France previously, and it continued to do so, but Czechoslovakia and Poland...
The treaty extends the competences of the EU, and has some major governmental changes. From 2014 through 2017, a redistribution of voting weights between the member states will take place. The chairmanship of the European Coun...
Based on the Treaty of Rom of 1957 the European Community was founded by six nations. Belgium, France, Italy, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands agreed in 1968 to create a free trade area; that ended up eliminating all their tariffs. Just 2 years later, they formed a Custom Union by adjusting common external tariffs. In 1973 United Kingdom, Ireland and Denmark joined the trade bloc and Greece became a member in 1981. Six years later Spain and Portugal were accepted and in 1992 the 12 members established a common market without any trade restrictions. Its name changed in 1993 when the Contract for the European Union was signed. In 1995 Sweden, Finland and Austria were admitted and helped to build the European Monetary Union with one single currency in 2002 which was necessary to fulfil all 4 criterias of the convergence criterias.
The European Union (EU) was originally made up of 3 different countries which was assembled in 1951. At first France and Germany had came together so they could share their coal and steel resources. A short while later Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg had also joined with France and Germany. In 1973 another 3 countries had also joined which were Denmark, UK, and the republic of Ireland. The next country to join was Greece in 1981. Fast forward five years and in 1986 Spain and Portugal also joined. In 1990 East Germany and West Germany reunified and Eastern Germany joined the EU. In 1992 new powers were given to the different countries and was given the name European Union. This mean that the countries were going to work together and increase co-operation between the different countries.
The European Union (EU) represents one of the most successful experiments in regional integration in the history of international relations. There is no doubt about that European Union is the most institutionalized international organization in the world. It shows up an effort at promoting the political and economic integration of its member states in Europe. As the neo-functionalism theory emphasizes to regional integration and mutual cooperation, so the aim of this paper is to examine the application of neo-functionalism theory in European integration process since the very beginning of what is called today the European Union.
In this essay, I will be discussing the reasons behind the creation of the European Union. I will be going into detail on the condition of Europe post World War Two and the division between the East and West which was caused by ongoing tension between the United States of America and USSR. I will state the advantages and disadvantages of being a member of the European Union and whether the European Union has been a success or not. As the dust settled post World War Two, European governments faced a number of social and economic challenges in attempting to rebuild Europe. Following the aftermath of the war, there was a notion within Europe that the destruction which the war caused could bring about political, social, economic and cultural integration within Europe.
Currently, the European Union (1992-Present) is an international organization that is comprised of twenty eight European countries. It was created upon numerous treaties, the first being the Maastricht Treaty which was established on November 1, 1993. The purpose of the treaty was to strengthen political and economic integration throughout Europe by creating: an uniform currency, consolidated foreign policy, common citizenship rights, and enforcing cooperation in issues of immigration, asylum, and judicial affairs. (Britannica, European Union). Later in 1995, the Schengen Agreement
The European Union (EU) has ever expanded since its initial origin phases/stages of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 and the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958 by the Inner Six countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and Netherlands). Since its origins, the EU has integrated a substantial number of member-states to twenty-eight and are currently under the accession process some other countries eagerly waiting to join the European Union’s already large family. Through the years of the EU’s origins until its current state, many theories were developed regarding the European Integration, with the notion and objective to explicate and realize the direction of EU’s “character”, through the European Integration process while also theorizing the estimation of state-relationships of future candidate member-states and the impact on governments under a unilateral joint government –the EU. Theories regarding the European/Regional Integration have often been criticized and/or dismissed due to the EU’s former origin characteristic of Neofunctionalism (Haas 1958; Lindberg 1963) which befitted it at the time, but was later dismissed to the Intergovernmentalist theory (Hoffmann 1964; 1966) as various events unfolded. Time unfolds and many events ensue, which demand change or dismissiveness of theories which were previously considered valid and then outdated; this is why theories about the “character” of the European Integration are still a subject under scrutiny by scholars, as there is no one finite theory to explicate the precise character of EU.
Brent F. The European Union: readings on the theory and practices of European Integration (Boulder Colo, L. Rienna, 1994).
Imagine having to conform oneself to a particular way of thinking because someone told you to. Now imagine being governed upon by a certain entity that knows nothing about your country 's struggles and only focuses on the larger picture at hand. Many would point to this example as an empire establishing control over a colony, such as the British empire that once ruled upon the thirteen colonies. However, this is not an example of the past oppression of sovereign nations; this is a case of the current oppression of twenty-eight sovereign nations. While individual countries reap the benefit of being part of this oppressive union known as the European Union, other suffer the consequence of not having a voice in discussions. In turn with particular nations voices being heard over other nations the balance of equality in this union is lost completely. Being a member of the European Union no longer benefits a nation in any substantial way, however, it does,
Europe is a continent with arguably ambiguous geographic boundaries. Europe has a long history of population, language and culture exchange and as a result the boundaries between countries are largely socially constructed and porous. Europe itself represents a large, continuous market in which the unrestricted flow of goods, services, capital and population further deteriorates national boundaries in the interest of free trade and open markets. The European Union has its origins in nascent European integration of the 19th century and first World War and protectionist policy following the second World War, however over time developed into a bureaucratic entity operating a large world economic market. Protectionism gave way to the belief that economic prosperity was the best prevention against renewed conflict. The European Union developed into a co-operative based bureaucratic entity in order to achieve the goals of economic prosperity and ultimately peace on the European continent. While the European Union as a political and economic body is far from perfect, the high level of institutional oversight ensures equal say in institutional and regulatory matters for all members large and small. Moreover, the institutions of the European Union changed over time to reflect growing membership and regulatory oversight for that very purpose and as a result the E.U. Is able to respond to crisis and political unrest as a single representative body instead of a fragmented network of nation states.
A major stage of defining the most essential factors that led to the birth the nowadays European Union is to analyze every step that was carefully planned, therefore shaping this construction as a modern powerful alliance. “From the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC) in the 1950s, European integration has been one of the most central phenomena in the contemporary history of (western) Europe” (cited from Wolfram Kaiser and Antonio Varsori, 2010). Hence, this construction firstly began in 1952 known as the ECSC with six members, mainly as an economic alliance between France and Germany, that would cooperate in the production of coal and steel and it would further develop into a political shape that had to toughen Franco-German solidarity, by removing the memories of the freshly ended war and to find a new way to integrate Europe as a social, economic and political community that would vastly change, improve and influence the present world.
The European Union, which was established in 1993, is currently consisting of 28 states. Its origin was taken back after the World War II when the six founder including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands aim to end the wars between neighbors. The six countries agrees to merge the Organization European Economic Cooperation (OEEC), European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and Euratom into a European community (EC), which then fully transformed into the European Community in 1993(Boyd A., 2007). Meanwhile, from 2000-2009 is a period that the EU is on the big expansion which 10 more countries joined the Union in 2004 (Boyd A., 2007).
Much of the political case for regional economic integration stems from national security. Another case study provided by Hill is the European Union. The nation states of Western Europe bonded together in an effort to deal with the political giants of the USSR to the east and the USA to the west. Further, regional economic integration can facilitate political harmony between nations due to their increased level of