Federalism and the European Union : The Building of Europe, 1950-2000

A revisionist interpretation of the post-war evolution of European integration and the European Union (EU), this book reappraises and reassesses conventional explanations of European integration. It adopts a federalist approach which supplements state-based arguments with federal political ideas, influences and strategies. By exploring the philosophical and historical origins of federal ideas and tracing their influence throughout the whole of the EU's evolution, the book makes a significant contribution to the scholarly debate about the nature and development of the EU. The book looks at federal ideas stretching back to the sixteenth century and demonstrates their fundamental continuity to contemporary European integration. It situates these ideas in the broad context of post-war western Europe and underlines their practical relevance in the activities of Jean Monnet and Altiero Spinelli. Post-war empirical developments are explored from a federalist perspective, revealing an enduring persistence of federal ideas which have been either ignored or overlooked in conventional interpretations. The book challenges traditional conceptions of the post-war and contemporary evolution of the EU, to reassert and reinstate federalism in theory and practice at the very core of European integration. Book Cover......Page 1 Title......Page 4 Contents......Page 5 Acknowledgements......Page 10 Introduction......Page 12 Federalism, the state and the European idea......Page 16 Federalism and federation in Western Europe: the theoretical discourse......Page 38 Federalism and the building of Europe, 1950 72......Page 70 Federalism and the struggle for European Union, 1973 84......Page 116 Federalism, European Union and the Single European Act, 1985 88......Page 172 Maastricht: the last treaty of the Cold War, 1989 93......Page 204 From Maastricht to Amsterdam, 1994 98......Page 234 The European Union as an intellectual puzzle: federal and confederal elements in European integration......Page 268 Federalism and European Union: fin de sicle......Page 288 Index......Page 296 This book demonstrates that a federal Europe is not a serious threat to the survival of the nation-state. It construes a federal Europe as a perfectly rational organisational response to international changes which challenge the capacity of the state to satisfy the demands of its citizens in the new millennium This book demonstrates that a federal Europe is not a serious threat to the survival of the nation-state. Essential reading for all those interested in European federalism, European politics and the history of the EU At the end of the twentieth century, we continue to live in a world of states whose historical origins stretch back to sixteenth-century Europe.