What kind of entity is the European Union ?

Résumé du document

In order to define the characteristics of the EU as an entity, it is essential to determine the sources of its creation. The immediate origins of European unification lie in the economic and political problems confronting European countries, notably France and Germany, in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. Indeed, the war had devastated European economies, and national governments in 1945 were first and foremost forced to address the task of economic reconstruction. Economic prosperity was the driving motive for unity, and European leaders were becoming more concerned with the material improvement of life on a peaceful continent, as expressed in Winston Churchill's speech at Zurich in September 1946 in which he called for a "United States of Europe" led by Europe's former antagonists, France and Germany.
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[...] The founding members of the European Community (Jean Monnet, Walter Halistein, Altiero Spinelli) were committed federalists. Altiero Spinelli, Italian deputy, founded the European federalist movement, with the goal of the creation of a genuine European federation composed of individual states that would cede their sovereignty to common democratic institutions. Indeed, federalism involves irreversible transfer of substantial parts of the states' sovereignty to a supranational authority”[3]. Thus, the Federalists would argue that the negotiations opened in December 1990 between the member states to complete Economic and Monetary Union and expand community competence in foreign and security policy were important steps towards federalism, as they resulted in the signature of the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. [...]

[...] BIBLIOGRAPHY The European Union, Brent F. Nelsen and Alexander G. Stubb, New York The European Union in the 1990s, Paul Taylor, Oxford University Press, New York “Exploring the nature of the beast: international relations theory and comparative policy analysis meet the European Union”, in: Journal of Common Market studies, March 1996. The Globalisation of World Politics, Baylis and Smith, 2nd edition, Oxford University Press The European Union, Power and Policy-making, Jeremy Richardson, 2nd edition, Routledge The Rules of Integration, Gerald Schneider and Mark Aspinwall, Manchester University Press Brent F. [...]

[...] They enjoy significant powers with regard to the adoption of policies, and the Council constitutes the key institution through which member states represent their interests in the EU. Furthermore, EU members can influence decision-making through Intergovernmental conferences (IGCs) held by member states when changes or additions to treaties seem necessary, and only do member states decide on the changes to the treaties. The Rome Treaties are on the other hand the results of intergovernmental conferences, where representatives of national governments negotiate the legal framework within which the EU institutions operate. [...]

[...] Therefore, the unification of Europe was initially completed under economic auspices; Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the European Community, outlined a plan to unite under a single authority the coal and steel industries of France and Germany, in the Schuman declaration of may 1950. This was the origin of the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 by France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Belgium. Its main institution was the High Authority, an executive committee independent of national governments and headed until 1955 by the founding father of European integration, Jean Monnet. [...]

[...] Furthermore, states such as Belgium or Luxembourg have been helped by the Union to become international players. Therefore, the complex institutional “machinery” of the EU makes it difficult to give it a single definition. The EU has not acquired yet the status of federation, and is not currently considered as a state; yet, it is gradually imposing itself as an independent actor in world politics. In the initial phases of European integration, the competence of the EU was limited to the field of international economic policy in which it came to play an important role as the EU institutions acquired the exclusive responsibility to regulate trade between member and non-member states. [...]