Introduction: Germany and European Integration

Abstract

Introduction: Germany and European Integration Germany has played a pivotal role in the process of European integration.1 The “European construction” was begun after 1945 as a response to the catastrophic human and material losses and moral disaster of World Wars I and II. The role of Germany in those events needs no elaboration here; suffice it to say that policy -makers in both Western Europe and the United States were fully aware of the need to ensure that the energies of the defeated nation at the heart of the continent were harnessed for purposes of peace, not war. Other reasons can be found to explain why European nations began to relinquish sovereign control over important parts of their economies, but the twin beliefs that greater economic integration would provide the conditions for lasting peace, and that it would simultaneously act as a means of containing and controlling the Federal Republic, were at the core of the European project. The Schuman Plan, announced on May 9, 1950, was an act of profound political idealism and a calculated exercise in power-sharing by the French state. It gave Konrad Adenauer the opportunity to begin steering the new German republic back into the free society of nations. He was ready to do this even if it meant postponing hopes of unification and permitting neighbouring states to influence the pace and character of German post-war reconstruction. The Federal Republic’s engagement with the European project thus began with a major sacrifice – made in order to win the friendship and esteem of adjacent democratic states. Though Adenauer conceded on this point, he was no pushover in other matters. During the negotiations for the European Defence Community between 1952 and 1954, he bargained hard to end the Occupation Statute and to obtain recognition of West Germany as a sovereign state that could have its own foreign and defence policy – but he did show surpassing realism in grasping that Bonn had to give to Europe in order to gain from it, and that building Europe was in everyone’s interest. Mark Gilbert/Eva Oberloskamp/Thomas Raithel The European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community (EEC) brought clear milieu advantages to all member states, and these 1 With regard to the abundance of syntheses on European integration, we would like to refer to four books published by researchers included in this volume: Mark Gilbert, European Integration . A Concise History, Lanham/MD et al. 2012; Wilfried Loth, Building Europe. A History of European Unification, Berlin/Boston (MA) 2015; Kiran Klaus Patel, Projekt Europa. Eine kritische Geschichte, Munich 2018, and Guido Thiemeyer, Europäische Integration. Motive – Prozesse – Strukturen, Cologne/Weimar/Vienna 2010. 8 Mark Gilbert/Eva Oberloskamp/Thomas Raithel were worth the sacrifice of some immediate economic possession goals.2 It is a caricature to describe the March 1957 Treaty of Rome as a deal by which France conceded market access to German manufacturers in exchange for Europeanization of the costs of its former colonies and access of its farmers to the German domestic market, but not a gross one. The outcome was increased prosperity for all. European integration also encouraged greater equality between the member states – a point that is often overlooked. Although France was primus inter pares in the 1950s, the Federal Republic was able to exercise considerable influence on the EEC’s decision-making, as could the other four member states. Unlike the French, German statesmen showed a consistent willingness to accept a collegial decision-making process: Bonn fought for its interests but never insisted upon vetoing items of policy broadly acceptable to the Community as a whole. West Germany was a “good citizen” of the European project, not an “awkward partner,” as Britain was to be when it entered the Community in the 1970s.3 Collegiality should not be mistaken for ineffectuality. The Federal Republic’s extraordinary economic success – not to mention its comparative political stability – led Bonn to exercise an ever-greater role in the development of the European Community in the 1970s and 1980s. Under Willy Brandt, Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl, West Germany came to imprint its values and political centrality on the Community as a whole. The...