Abstract
Historians like finding turning-points. The turning-point in the history of the process of European Union set on foot by Jean Monnet and his collaborators had actually taken place a few months before the signature of the Treaty of Maastricht. The date was 20 June 1991 — the event the decision by the German Bundestag that the reunification of Germany (on 3 October 1990) should be followed by the resurrection of Berlin as the country’s capital and the gradual move from Bonn to Berlin of the principal institutions of the federal government. As was seen in an earlier chapter, the basic inspiration of Monnet, Adenauer, Schuman and de Gasperi was the recreation of the Carolingian Empire. Berlin had not existed in Charlemagne’s time and the region in which it was situated had never been part of that empire. It was then still contested ground between Teutons and Slavs.
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Notes and References
Apart from Denmark, the smaller countries were unlikely to put up obstacles. Ireland, the great financial beneficiary, voted to ratify by a large majority in a national referendum and Greece by an even more decisive parliamentary vote did the same.
On Mitterrand’s failure to get to grips with what was happening either in the former Soviet Union or in central and eastern Europe, see John Laughland, The Death of Politics: France under Mitterrand (London, 1994), pp. 247 ff.
As one of the 176 peers who voted for a referendum amendment, I should put it on record that I saw this as a last-ditch attempt to secure the bill’s defeat. I do not believe myself that in a parliamentary democracy the referendum is an appropriate method for deciding great national issues. If a referendum had been called and the treaty approved I would not have felt bound to suspend opposition to a surrender of sovereignty which no single generation has the right to make. In the event no such decision was called for since no fewer than 445 peers went into the government lobby. The list of those who voted for a referendum the saniorthough not the major parswill be found in Atkinson and McWhirter, Treason at Maastricht: The Destruction of the Nation State, 2nd edn (London, 1995), pp. 146–8.
The role of the Bundesbank in trying to establish a dictatorship over all European exchange rates and interest rates is explored in Bernard Connolly, The Rotten Heart of Europe. (London, 1995).
The French used the Edinburgh summit to extort an agreement that sessions of the European Parliament would continue to be held at Strasbourg. The division of the Community’s work between Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg has been one of the main factors in its extravagance and inefficiency.
It should be pointed out that Danish objections to the treaty were quite different from the British ones. Britain wished to prevent the Union from imposing extra controls in the industrial, social and environmental spheres; the Danes were fearful that their own high standards might be diluted and their non-participation in defence matters challenged. Norway, which was to reject EU membership, was a member of NATO. Denmark, which remained in the EU, was not.
A. Duff, J. Pinder and R. Pryce, Maastricht and Beyond: Building the European Union (London, 1994) p. 62.
A challenge in the British High Court by Lord Rees-Mogg to the validity of the ratification process in the UK was dismissed on 30 July.
George Ross, Jacques Delors and European Integration (Oxford, 1995), p. 196.
David Butler and Martin Westlake, British Politics and European Elections, 1994 (London, 1995) pp. 54–62.
For an early and penetrating analysis of the international implications of the break-up of Yugoslavia, see John Zametica, The Yugoslav Conflict (Adelphi paper), No. 270 (London: IISS 1992).
The most elaborate exposition of Mr Major’s position was in a lecture delivered at Leiden University in the Netherlands on 7 September 1994; what we want be said is a Europe ‘which does not impose undue conformity but encourages flexibility… a Europe which is free and secure, prosperous and coherent, democratic, potent and generous’.
An increase in the ceiling of the Community’s so-called ‘own resources’ from 1.2 per cent to 1.21 per cent of GNP was agreed by the European Council on 31 October 1994. The European Communities (Finance) Bill passed the House of Commons in December.
In a letter to all chairmen of Conservative Associations on 20 July 1995 after his re-election as party leader, Mr Major outlined among other aims his intentions with respect to Europe: ‘I believe in a free market, free trading Europe, built upon nation states. A wider Europe, spreading the benefits of peace and prosperity far to the East’.
The Court itself, so far from being willing to see any curtailment of its activities, was ambitious to extend them particularly in relation to pillars 2 and 3 of the Maastricht Treaty from which it had been excluded. See the European Court of Justice, ‘Report of the Court of Justice on Certain Aspects of the Treaty on European Union’, 24 May 1995, summarised by David Pannick, QC, in The Times, 16 August 1995.
Jacques Santer, who took readily to the role of a propagandist for further integration, proclaimed the ‘benefits’ of European union in a speech at the Guildhall on 4 May 1995, and in a speech to the TUC on 11 September 1995 dismissed all talk of the possibility of the single currency resulting in job losses.
While opposition to Maastricht had been largely guided in France by elements of the Right, there were also left-wing opponents, including in particular the former minister Jean-Pierre Chevènement. He reacted unfavourably to the suggestions from the German Christian Democrats for the further transformation of the political aspects of the European Union: ‘l’idé de transformer la Commission de Bruxelles en gouvernement responsable devant le Parlement européen, et le conseil Européen en seconde Chambre’ ne peut que susciter en France un formidableé éclat de rire. Cette idée manifeste hílas, la profondeur du fossé cuiturel qui separe encore l’Allemagne et la France’ (Le Monde,12 October 1994).
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© 1996 Lord Beloff
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Beloff, L. (1996). Britain and the Crisis of European Union. In: Britain and European Union. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-24883-4_7
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