BESTLEC
The Origins and Development of European Integration
The European Union (EU) is governed by two treaties:
1. the Treaty on European Union (TEU)
2. the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. (TFEU)
The current text of these two treaties is the result of progressive amendments made to the original treaties,
most recently by the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009.
Today's EU, and the Treaties on which it is based, thus represent the culmination of a gradual process of
integration, which began after World War II.
A brief recollection of the historical, political and economic conditions in which this process began, and which have
accompanied it, may perhaps help to better understand the challenges currently facing European integration.
C
LE
The Ventotene Manifesto (1941)
ST
At the end of the Second World War, Europe was pervaded by federalist yearnings. These ideals were
rooted in the thought of men such as Mazzini, Rousseau, Kant, Proudhon and Saint-Simon, but they drew
BE
new life from some particular contemporary events, on the ideological boost of the Ventotene Manifesto,
drafted as early as 1941 by a group of antifascists then confined to the Pontine island, notably Ernesto Rossi
, BESTLEC
and Altiero Spinelli.
Such unitary ferments were fuelled by the perception that two needs, which Europeans had in common at
the time, would be better satisfied by a federated Europe, rather than by individual European states:
1. to rebuild economies prostrated by war;
2. to protect themselves against the emerging Soviet imperialism.
With regard to the first, it should be recalled that the United States had approved since 1947 the European
Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan (named after the then US Secretary of State).
↓
Obtaining economic aid under the plan was conditional on joint management of the aid itself by the
European states. This was not only for the purpose of their efficient use but also to strengthen the cohesion
of a geographical area destined, in the American geopolitical conception, to oppose the emerging Soviet
imperialism.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1948)
In response to the American push for cohesion, sixteen European states concluded a convention among
themselves on 16 April 1948, which provided for the establishment of the European Organisation for
Economic Cooperation (OECE), whose main task was to administer the Marshall Plan aid, encouraging its
effective distribution also through the progressive liberalization of trade between the member states.
This organisation, with revised tasks and an enlarged membership of other European and non-European
states, became the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1960.
In the second respect, Soviet expansionism showed all its danger for the first time in those years. The Berlin
C
blockade (to which the Allies reacted with an airlift) took place in 1948 and in the same year
Czechoslovakia forcibly entered the Soviet sphere. The 'Iron Curtain' now cut across Europe from Stettin on
LE
the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic.
North Atlantic Pact Organisation
ST
The North Atlantic Pact Organisation (NATO), set up by the Treaty of Washington of 4 April 1949, was
the Western world's response, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the challenge of communist imperialism.
BE
Instead, already since 1947, a common defence pact (essentially, however, in an anti-German function)
linked France and the United Kingdom. This pact, known as the Dunkirk pact, was extended by the Treaty
, BESTLEC
of Brussels of 17 March 1948* to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (which had just formed the
Benelux customs union).
It was later to become the Western European Union (WEU), with the accession in 1954 of Germany and
Italy and later other states.
During the Cold War, the Western Bloc included the WEU Member States, plus the United States and
Canada, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
*The Treaty of Brussels, also referred to as the Brussels Pact, was the founding treaty of the Western
Union (WU) . In 1954, when it was amended as the Modified Brussels Treaty (MTB), served as the
founding treaty of the Western European Union (WEU) until its termination in 2010
Western European Union (WEU)
The Cold War ended c. 1991, and at the turn of the 21st century, WEU tasks and institutions were gradually
transferred to the European Union (EU), providing central parts of the EU’s new military component, the
European Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
This process was completed in 2009 when a solidarity clause between the Member States of the European
Union, which was similar (but not identical) to the WEU’s mutual-defence clause, entered into force with
the Treaty of Lisbon.
The states party to the Modified Treaty of Brussels consequently decided to terminate that treaty on 31 March
2010,
with all the WEU’s remaining activities to cease within 15 months.
On 30 June 2011, the WEU officially ceased to exist; with the European Union taking over its activities.
Beyond the strictly economic and military field, the Council of Europe was established on 5 May 1949.
It is an international organisation with very broad tasks, open to all European states that felt united by ideals
C
of democracy and freedom, as opposed to the other states that gravitated in the communist orbit.
The Council of Europe's main instrument of action is the drafting of texts of international conventions to be
LE
concluded between the member states (often also open to accession by third states).
The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR),
signed in Rome on 4 November 1950, is especially worth mentioning in this regard. As we shall see, it is
ST
also of particular relevance from the perspective of the protection of fundamental rights within the
framework of EU law.
BE
, BESTLEC
The Council of Europe is the continent’s leading human rights organisation. Since its foundation in 1949,
the organisation has created a common legal space, centred on the European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR), across its 46 member states. This represents a death penalty-free zone for more than 700 million
people.
European Court of Human Rights: rules on individual complaints against member states.
Its first task is to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law across Europe and beyond.
Following the decision taken by the Committee of Ministers on 16 March 2022, the Russian Federation is no
longer a member of the Council of Europe.
In this context characterised by the division of Europe into two opposing ideological blocks, the other side
responded to Western initiatives with its international organisations, both economically and militarily.
The establishment of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon or CMEA), an organisation for
economic cooperation between Eastern European countries, dates back to 1949; while the Warsaw Pact was
established in 1955 as a response to NATO.
Both of these organisations were dissolved following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet
empire.
The idea of European integration is as old as the European idea of the sovereign State: yet the spectacular
rise of the latter overshadowed the idea of European union for centuries.
In the twentieth century, two ruinous world wars have increasingly discredited the idea of the sovereign
State: the decline of the nation State has found expression in the spread of interstate cooperation.
The various efforts at European cooperation after the Second World War originally formed part of a general
transition from an international law of coexistence to an international law of cooperation.
Sovereign State → International cooperation → European integration
C
This development began with three international organizations:
o First, the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (1948), which had been created
LE
after the Second World War by 16 European States to administer the international aid offered by
the United States for European reconstruction (today, Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development - OECD).
ST
o Second, the Western European Union (1954) that is the international organisation and military
alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 Treaty of
Brussels.
BE
o Third, the Council of Europe (1949), which had inter alia been founded to protect human
rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe.
The Origins and Development of European Integration
The European Union (EU) is governed by two treaties:
1. the Treaty on European Union (TEU)
2. the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. (TFEU)
The current text of these two treaties is the result of progressive amendments made to the original treaties,
most recently by the Treaty of Lisbon, which entered into force on 1 December 2009.
Today's EU, and the Treaties on which it is based, thus represent the culmination of a gradual process of
integration, which began after World War II.
A brief recollection of the historical, political and economic conditions in which this process began, and which have
accompanied it, may perhaps help to better understand the challenges currently facing European integration.
C
LE
The Ventotene Manifesto (1941)
ST
At the end of the Second World War, Europe was pervaded by federalist yearnings. These ideals were
rooted in the thought of men such as Mazzini, Rousseau, Kant, Proudhon and Saint-Simon, but they drew
BE
new life from some particular contemporary events, on the ideological boost of the Ventotene Manifesto,
drafted as early as 1941 by a group of antifascists then confined to the Pontine island, notably Ernesto Rossi
, BESTLEC
and Altiero Spinelli.
Such unitary ferments were fuelled by the perception that two needs, which Europeans had in common at
the time, would be better satisfied by a federated Europe, rather than by individual European states:
1. to rebuild economies prostrated by war;
2. to protect themselves against the emerging Soviet imperialism.
With regard to the first, it should be recalled that the United States had approved since 1947 the European
Recovery Program, better known as the Marshall Plan (named after the then US Secretary of State).
↓
Obtaining economic aid under the plan was conditional on joint management of the aid itself by the
European states. This was not only for the purpose of their efficient use but also to strengthen the cohesion
of a geographical area destined, in the American geopolitical conception, to oppose the emerging Soviet
imperialism.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD, 1948)
In response to the American push for cohesion, sixteen European states concluded a convention among
themselves on 16 April 1948, which provided for the establishment of the European Organisation for
Economic Cooperation (OECE), whose main task was to administer the Marshall Plan aid, encouraging its
effective distribution also through the progressive liberalization of trade between the member states.
This organisation, with revised tasks and an enlarged membership of other European and non-European
states, became the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 1960.
In the second respect, Soviet expansionism showed all its danger for the first time in those years. The Berlin
C
blockade (to which the Allies reacted with an airlift) took place in 1948 and in the same year
Czechoslovakia forcibly entered the Soviet sphere. The 'Iron Curtain' now cut across Europe from Stettin on
LE
the Baltic to Trieste on the Adriatic.
North Atlantic Pact Organisation
ST
The North Atlantic Pact Organisation (NATO), set up by the Treaty of Washington of 4 April 1949, was
the Western world's response, on both sides of the Atlantic, to the challenge of communist imperialism.
BE
Instead, already since 1947, a common defence pact (essentially, however, in an anti-German function)
linked France and the United Kingdom. This pact, known as the Dunkirk pact, was extended by the Treaty
, BESTLEC
of Brussels of 17 March 1948* to Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (which had just formed the
Benelux customs union).
It was later to become the Western European Union (WEU), with the accession in 1954 of Germany and
Italy and later other states.
During the Cold War, the Western Bloc included the WEU Member States, plus the United States and
Canada, as part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
*The Treaty of Brussels, also referred to as the Brussels Pact, was the founding treaty of the Western
Union (WU) . In 1954, when it was amended as the Modified Brussels Treaty (MTB), served as the
founding treaty of the Western European Union (WEU) until its termination in 2010
Western European Union (WEU)
The Cold War ended c. 1991, and at the turn of the 21st century, WEU tasks and institutions were gradually
transferred to the European Union (EU), providing central parts of the EU’s new military component, the
European Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP).
This process was completed in 2009 when a solidarity clause between the Member States of the European
Union, which was similar (but not identical) to the WEU’s mutual-defence clause, entered into force with
the Treaty of Lisbon.
The states party to the Modified Treaty of Brussels consequently decided to terminate that treaty on 31 March
2010,
with all the WEU’s remaining activities to cease within 15 months.
On 30 June 2011, the WEU officially ceased to exist; with the European Union taking over its activities.
Beyond the strictly economic and military field, the Council of Europe was established on 5 May 1949.
It is an international organisation with very broad tasks, open to all European states that felt united by ideals
C
of democracy and freedom, as opposed to the other states that gravitated in the communist orbit.
The Council of Europe's main instrument of action is the drafting of texts of international conventions to be
LE
concluded between the member states (often also open to accession by third states).
The European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR),
signed in Rome on 4 November 1950, is especially worth mentioning in this regard. As we shall see, it is
ST
also of particular relevance from the perspective of the protection of fundamental rights within the
framework of EU law.
BE
, BESTLEC
The Council of Europe is the continent’s leading human rights organisation. Since its foundation in 1949,
the organisation has created a common legal space, centred on the European Convention on Human Rights
(ECHR), across its 46 member states. This represents a death penalty-free zone for more than 700 million
people.
European Court of Human Rights: rules on individual complaints against member states.
Its first task is to promote democracy, human rights and the rule of law across Europe and beyond.
Following the decision taken by the Committee of Ministers on 16 March 2022, the Russian Federation is no
longer a member of the Council of Europe.
In this context characterised by the division of Europe into two opposing ideological blocks, the other side
responded to Western initiatives with its international organisations, both economically and militarily.
The establishment of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (Comecon or CMEA), an organisation for
economic cooperation between Eastern European countries, dates back to 1949; while the Warsaw Pact was
established in 1955 as a response to NATO.
Both of these organisations were dissolved following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Soviet
empire.
The idea of European integration is as old as the European idea of the sovereign State: yet the spectacular
rise of the latter overshadowed the idea of European union for centuries.
In the twentieth century, two ruinous world wars have increasingly discredited the idea of the sovereign
State: the decline of the nation State has found expression in the spread of interstate cooperation.
The various efforts at European cooperation after the Second World War originally formed part of a general
transition from an international law of coexistence to an international law of cooperation.
Sovereign State → International cooperation → European integration
C
This development began with three international organizations:
o First, the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (1948), which had been created
LE
after the Second World War by 16 European States to administer the international aid offered by
the United States for European reconstruction (today, Organisation for Economic Co-operation
and Development - OECD).
ST
o Second, the Western European Union (1954) that is the international organisation and military
alliance that succeeded the Western Union (WU) after the 1954 amendment of the 1948 Treaty of
Brussels.
BE
o Third, the Council of Europe (1949), which had inter alia been founded to protect human
rights and fundamental freedoms in Europe.
