Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-lj6df Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T04:13:54.754Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

19 - The EU and the Narrative of Prosperity

from Prosperity and Solidarity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2023

By
Claudia Hiepel
Edited by
Mathieu Segers  and
Steven Van Hecke
Mathieu Segers
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
Steven Van Hecke
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
Get access

Summary

Since its very beginnings, a central narrative of European integration has been that only a form of profound cooperation between the European states will allow the promotion of prosperity and social security. The narrative of prosperity is one of the oldest and most constant meta-arguments of regional European integration. The Schuman Declaration of 9 May 1950 already stated that the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) would contribute to ‘raising living standards’.1 In the European Union’s (EU’s) self-portrayal, prosperity, growth and employment are still among its hardly questioned and fundamental goals, as former President of the Commission Emanuel Barroso put it: ‘Today the raison d’être of our Union is also the same that was there sixty years ago: peace, democracy, to be freed from fears, mistrust and divisions, to share security, stability and prosperity.’

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the European Union , pp. 540 - 564
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Recommended Reading

Berend, I. T. An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe: Economic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016).Google Scholar
Eichengreen, B. The European Economy since 1945: Coordinated Capitalism and Beyond (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 2007).Google Scholar
Eichengreen, B. and Boltho, A.. ‘The Economic Impact of European Integration’, in Broadberry, S. and O’Rourke, K. H. (eds.), The Cambridge Economic History of Modern Europe, vol. ii: 1870 to the Present (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2010), pp. 267–95.Google Scholar
Kaelble, H. A Social History of Europe, 1945–2000: Recovery and Transformation after Two World Wars (New York, NY and Oxford, Berghahn, 2013).Google Scholar
Patel, K. K. Project Europe: A History (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Warlouzet, L. Governing Europe in a Globalizing World: Neoliberalism and Its Alternatives Following the 1973 Oil Crisis (London, Routledge, 2018).Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×