National identities confronting European integration

Abstract

The modern antecedents of European integration can be traced back to the beginning of the 18th century with the publication in 1713 of the large Projet de Trait? pour rendre la paix perp?tuelle en Europe by the abbey Saint-Pierre (1761), the European commonwealth of Bl?ntschli in 1871, and the project of European confederation proposed by the lawyer Gaston Isambert. In the 20th century, ideas promoting European integra? tion go back to the proposals of the Comte Coudenhove-Kalergi (1922), who dreamed of a society of nations (pan-Europe) and of Aristides Briand (1929) for a European Union.1 They took a more concrete form with the signing of a treaty in Paris in 1951 to establish a European Community of Coal and Steel, also called the Schuman plan, and with the signing of a treaty in Rome by the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and France in 1957 to create the European Economic Community (EEC). In the 1970s and 1980s, United Kingdom, Ireland, Denmark, Greece, Spain, and Portugal joined the EEC to bring the number of member countries to 12. The EEC was initiated principally to ensure peace and security and to facilitate an economic flow among its member countries by creating an internal market for goods, services, and capital.2 However, in the 1980s its aims became broader, to encompass the political and social, as well as eco? nomic sphere. The EEC came to be called the European Community (EC) to reflect that change. Since its creation, the institutions of the EC have been issuing agree? ments to strengthen its unity. The latest agreement, and probably the most important since the EC's creation, is the Maastricht Treaty (signed in 1991 and ratified by all member states in 1992 and 1993)3?a comprehensive