Part Three Steps Toward Union

PART THREE Steps Toward Union AN THE spheres of politics and economy, the endeavors to achieve European unification seem to have made some headway. As can be readily seen in the chart on page 141, all Western European governments have negotiated treaties and have created several institutions for the promotion of unity. Their insignificant achievements or total failures have caused widespread disappointment. The success of each institution apparently depends on the unification achieved by all others. Without political unity, economic unity—i.e., true freedom of migration for men, capital, and goods—seems to be unattainable. But political unity appears to be unattainable because economic unity is wanting. Problems of defense seem to be entwined with both economic and political problems whose solution, in turn, seems to depend on the solution of defense problems. The actual unification process thus moves in circles.

Through Aristide Briand, a French politician and statesman, a European government for the first time posed the problem of European Union and attempted to achieve the basic steps toward its realization. Briand's plan of a "European Union/' presented to the world in 1930, provided for a regional union within the League of Nations. It failed because of the ideological unpreparedness which characterizes all nations of today. They prefer government interventionism and economic nationalism over international cooperation and peace. Attempts at integration in 1930 failed just as all successive attempts based on principles of government welfare and economic nationalism must fail. In October 1943 the governments-in-exile of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg, whose countries were still under German occupation, signed an agreement on monetary cooperation. This 137 138 STEPS TOWARD UNION agreement was the first step towards the Benelux Customs Convention which was signed September 5, 1944 in London. It provided for the abolition of interstate tariffs and established a uniform tariff on goods imported from other countries. The member states, however, remained free to resort to a system of import licenses and quotas. The member states' power to tax also remained unimpaired.

It was hoped that ultimately a full economic union would develop from this Customs Convention. The Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), which was set up in March 1947, is a permanent organization of the UN Economic and Social Council with its seat in Geneva, Switzerland. It is the only European organization which the communist states of Eastern Europe have joined, although they play no active role. The Commission works and cooperates with nearly all organizations that are occupied with unifying Europe. It has established a series of permanent committees dealing with Electric Power, Industry and Materials, Inland Transportation, Timber, Coal, Steel, Agriculture, Trade, and Manpower. The United States too, is a member of ECE. In April 1948 in Paris, representatives of 16 nations signed a convention that created the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC). This institution, which has its permanent seat in Paris, was the outcome of Secretary of State Marshall's invitation to European nations to join in detailing their common needs, which were then to be considered by the Congress of the United States.

When Congress approved the Foreign Assistance Act in April 1948, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation served as the receiving and distributing agent for American aid. The supplying side of Marshall's vast "European Recovery Program" was handled by the American "Economic Cooperation Administration" which approved and financed the supply of goods. The objective of the Organization for European Economic Cooperation is to make the best collective use of the member states' individual capacities and potentialities and to execute a joint recovery program. The Council of Europe, which was established in May 1949, is an assembly composed of parliamentary representatives from all European countries that wished to join. The aim of the Council is "to achieve greater unity between its Members for the purpose of safeguarding and realizing the ideals and principles which are their common heritage and facilitating their economic and social progress.

. . . This aim shall be pursued through the organs of the Council by discussion of questions of common concern and by agreements and STEPS TOWARD UNION 139 common action in economic, social, cultural, scientific, legal and administrative matters." The European Payments Union, which was set up in September 1950, constitutes the second step toward European monetary cooperation and integration. It is an institution whose provisions on the full and automatic settlement of bilaterial balances are based on the "International Monetary Fund Agreement" of July 1944. Trade balances are reported monthly to an agent—the Bank for International Settlements—which determines the balance position of each country toward the Union. Settlements take place between each country and the Union only. Furthermore, net monthly surpluses and deficits of each member state are offset against one another to establish a cumulative position of each member state.

Debtor states receive credit by the Union; creditor states grant credit to the Union. Thus a clearing of interstate accounts is facilitated with the smallest possible transfer of media of foreign exchange. With Great Britain as a member of the Payments Union the whole sterling area participates in the Union. The European Coal and Steel Community, which was established in April 1951 for a period of fifty years, is the only supranational authority with independent power to act. The Community combines the coal and steel industries of the member states and purports to establish a common market for coal and steel. This common market is also supposed to promote economic expansion and full employment, and to improve the standard of living in the participating countries. The Coal and Steel Community has become a model for other plans projecting similar pools in other economic sectors, such as the Green Pool to coordinate European agriculture and the Transport Pool to coordinate the European transport system under a High Authority. The Coal and Steel Community, as well as the plans for similar communities, constitutes the "functional approach" toward European integration.

The Brussels Treaty of March 1948 was concluded by the governments of Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom for a duration of fifty years. In October 1954, Italy and West Germany were invited to join. It established a military alliance as well as collaboration in economic, social and cultural matters and provided for permanent organs and commissions designed to facilitate consultation and cooperation. While the military purpose of the Brussels Treaty Organization, commonly called Western Union, was later assumed by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, its other objectives were assumed on a much broader basis 140 STEPS TOWARD UNION by the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (OEEC) and by the Council of Europe. The 'North Atlantic Pact of April 1949 is designed to preserve the "peace, security and freedom" of the member nations through collective defense. It is based on a common pledge to consider an armed attack against one or more of the signatories as "an attack against them all." The North Atlantic agreement is an alliance for defense and its articles deal with armed attack on and with threat to one or more member states.

In all these institutions for unification the cabinets of the member states play the deciding role. Parliaments only take active part in one organization—the Council of Europe. With the exception of the Coal and Steel Community, decisions in all these organizations are made through unanimous agreement by all member governments involved. They are not supranational but international institutions. In the following chapters these important steps toward union are analyzed as to the purposes and achievements. Their shortcomings are traced back to their ideological foundations which are examined in the light of their compatibility with the objectives of the institutions. Where the ideological foundation is found to be incompatible with the objectives proclaimed, failure is believed to be inevitable.

r S * O o$ *! W 8cu gs u .2 s S i ° fi-> O5 O'& g 8 S w I w if 13 5 .2 2 .a 1 r PS0 13 CD O o 13o ^ ^0 1 C/3 I 1 I PQ rH •1« T3 S I Arigtide Briand and the Initiative of the French Government for a European Union, Prior to World War II J\.BISTLDE BRIAND was a French politician and statesman who, between 1909 and 1930, was Premier of France eleven times and Minister of Foreign Affairs twelve times. At other times he was Minister of Justice or held other cabinet posts. He was humanitarian, i.e., broadly philanthropic and humane, antichauvinist, and anti-militarist; throughout his life he hated and opposed war. This fundamental characteristic was chiefly responsible for Briand's joining the political group that condemned militant nationalism and finally led him to champion the idea of European unification. Because the socialist parties advocated peace and unity among the working classes of all nations, he became a socialist, and he remained one all his life. Another factor that induced him to join socialism was that he happened to be the son of poor parents, and socialism was commonly believed to be the true political and economic ideology of the worker. Briand, who for longer than a quarter of a century was one of the most eminent socialist leaders in Europe, never studied the doctrinal side of his ideology. During his whole life Briand wrote as little as he read, but he was a brilliant speaker with an unexcelled ability for compromise and conciliation.