European Union: Copyright Jill Margerison 2003

Convergence and Divergence in the EUby Jill Margerison

• What key factors are reviving European unity?

• Are these forces relatively constant or will they wax and wane?

• Who wants European unity? • Why is it so difficult to move from negative

integration to positive integration to political unity?

• Will these obstacles persist in the future?

Historical Legacy of Divergence

• Today- Europe is recognised as a region of unity and identity, but this is a recent phenomena. Europe has experienced much more division, tensions and conflict than it has experienced any common purpose or harmony of sprit.

• Western Europe- the peoples and nation states have long differed and been divided from one another in many ways.

5 Key Features of Divergence

Language - perhaps the obvious divisive force.

Religion - northern countries (except Ireland ) being mainly Protestant and the southern countries (including France, but excluding Orthodox Greece) being predominantly Catholic.

Contrasting cultural traditions and historical experience - distinct identification and feelings of ‘us’ and ‘them’ across the map of Europe.  

5 Key Divergences contd.

Political divisions - varying systems of government and competing ideological orientations. 19th and 20th centuries autocracies existed alongside emerging and more liberal parliamentary democracies. Then - two world wars parliamentary democracy - under attack and in some cases was overthrown.  

Economic divisions was no less marked. From the beginning of the Industrial Revolution until the middle of the 19th century Britain was industrially and commercially dominant. Gradually, it was challenged- particularly by Germany, but also by Belgium, France and others so that by the early 20th competition for overseas markets by these countries was intense.

Factors influencing Europe’s need for convergence

1. The post-World War II environment = utter devastation - called for urgent and dramatic steps.

2. Growing threat of Soviet Communist -encroachment on Western European democracy - prompted an acceleration of reconstruction and stabilization efforts.

3. Regional, rather than a national approach was required

Benelux Arrangement

• Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg had already created a common market and customs union among themselves.

• This was know as the Benelux arrangement and served as the model for what was later to become the European Economic Community

Importance of regionalism• Regionalism - depicts state led efforts to create a

region… it is a top down (generally ) state led attempt to define a functional regional identity or regional body in a formal manner…

• Beyond Europe - we do not find the same kind of transformation taking place.

• (The one exception to this argument can be noted as ASEAN but even this arrangement cannot be compared with the fixed closed regionalism of the EU.)

Why did regionalism in Europe take off?

Countries joined the EEC for a variety of reasons.   Germany - membership = vehicle for international

acceptance   France hoped to use the EEC to dominate European

politics diplomatically   Italy hoped that the EEC could provide economic and

diplomatic rehabilitation  Benelux countries were eager to lower continental trade

barriers which they felt discriminated against their own more efficient industries

•  

EURO currency convergence

• Key manifestation of the European economic dimension is the EU currency

• Some observers regard the introduction of the euro as a significant event – Euro has prompted many leaders in Asia to further advance their own visions of regional economic integration and in this way provides a potential model or country model for them to use

• Not all countries accepted Euro as currency

Divergence

Some problems with EU regionalism• Membership - When and which countries to

admit into EU• Nationalism – Eastern Europe is

rediscovering nationalism after the containment under Soviet Communism .. not only is it operating at that state level but also a the level of minority nationalities

Maastricht Treaty - 1991

• Importance of Maastricht - led to strengthening of EU

• Move away from the absolute sovereign control of states over their territory - towards reassertion of authority by supranational institutions…

• The Maastricht treaty set the stage for enlargement of the EU

Maastricht

• EU = umbrella organization for the European Community’s diverse institutions

• The treaty established a timetable for completing in 1999 a single market Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) that created the single ‘euro’ currency - potent symbol of Europe’s new dynamism

Security Communities

• What the Europeans have effectively done in converging on key political and economic policies is to have constructed what Karl Deutsch termed a ‘security community’

• This is a community in which the expectation of war between states has vanished from – and in particular this expectation has vanished from one of the historically most violence-prone regions of the world

Security Communities contd.

• Despite convergence and divergence- Armed conflict between the EU’s democracies is highly unlikely

• The EU as a security community can then be argued is one in which the spread of trans-national values, the development of shared understandings and the generation of mutual trust has contributed to the development of long term peaceful interaction - ruling out this use of force in settling disputes with other members of the group.

European Security Arrangements

• The EU - High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the Union who will help form a consensus on foreign policy positions, but as yet he has not become a significant voice.. .the EU has also established an intelligence and policy planning unit.

• In 1997 the European Council signed the Treaty of Amsterdam deigned to given more weight and urgency to common union policies in the hope that states will choose to constructively abstain rather than block union polices… …..

What causes war –what makes peace?

• Identifying the conditions under which states avoid the recurrence of war and establish durable peace is one of the most difficult challenges today for practitioners, or policy makers and theorists of international relations.

• Karl Deutsch’s concept security communities - twofold significance :States can manage anarchy and escape the security dilemma + provides theoretical and analytical framework for studying impact of international institutions in promoting peaceful change in international relations.

Distinguishing Features – Security Community

• Distinct from an alliance –alliance is usually conceived and directed from - collective defence

• Security communities identify no such threat or may have no function of organising a joint defense against them

• Security communities = absence of a competitive military build- up or arms race involving their members…

• The key aim of a security community is to develop the common interests of actors in peace and stability rather than to deter or balance a common threat.

Divergence - dealing with the ‘other Europe’

• Security community is the antithesis of a ‘security complex’… = an interdependence of rivalry among given group of states

• 2 Europe’s - one rich and stable - and the other poor and unstable… this could create future conflicts, not unlike those of the past unless the threat of failed states on the EU’s periphery

Convergence over security arrangements

• EU – fast becoming an international security actor• Treaty of Nice in 2001 – permanent structure

modeled on NATO to organize and train the European Rapid Reaction Force…(ERRF)

• Not termed - ‘European army’• European Union not taking on collective defence –

job of NATO• More questions than answers?

Divergence over security arrangements

• European governments have long been heavily involved in European security arrangements although the arrangements have tended to be disconnected and relatively weak…

• European actions –failed to take unified position on Bosnia in the early 1990’s 

• Similarly – problems in dealing with issue of Iraq in 2003 

EU Enlargement

• EU membership - considerable enlargement since its original conception.

• This has posed many problems for member states • In 1963, Britain’s application for membership was

blocked by the French (de Gaulle) • What really caused disagreements and tensions in

the community was the additions of Greece in 1981 and Spain and Portugal in 1986.

Case study - Sangatte

• British government and railway executives accused France of inadequate policing of their side of the tunnel

• France has pleaded - unable to cope with the numbers of refugees crossing its borders ---

• EU countries have attempted to clamp down refugees… however this has only served to contribute to a more efficient infrastructure for people smuggling gangs

Convergence - Divergence re. Refugees

• EU’s policy to refugees…. • Firstly, there needs to be a uniform refugee status

and common procedure for deciding who qualifies• Secondly, there should be a more liberal

immigration regime established • Thirdly, that the EU should devise a system for

sharing the burden of refugee movements

Conclusion

• European Union = most dramatic, far-reaching and successful example of international integration in history.

• Critics in the 1970’s predicted the withering away of the EEC in the face of divergence, in particular the French and British sovereign demands.

• Currently, however, most international scholars see the European Union as a new standard for international cooperation.