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Monnet and the Action Committee: The Formative Period of the European Communities

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 May 2009

Walter Yondorf
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Extract

The Community of the Six owes its origin and continued success largely to the inventiveness and political astuteness of a small group of leaders, generally associated with Jean Monnet (France) and, from 1956 on, the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. The purpose of this article is to assess the strategy of Monnet and his associates and their influence on the formation and development of the three European Communities: the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom), and the European Economic Community (EEC) or the Common Market.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Organization , Volume 19 , Issue 4 , Fall 1965 , pp. 885 - 912
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 1965

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References

1 France, the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany), Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg.

2 Monnet brought two most valuable assets to the job of supranational construction: extensive experience in international finance, politics, and economic planning and a wide acquaintance among world leaders, many of whom regarded him as a friend. Some of the more spectacular Monnet accomplishments include: organization of the Anglo-French Purchasing Commission in World War I, Deputy Secretary-General of the League of Nations at the age of 31, reorganizer of Polish and Rumanian finances, a year's service in China as Chiang Kai-shek's financial adviser, and, in between jobs, a fling on Wall Street where he made and lost a fortune. During World War II he became head of the new Anglo-French Purchasing Commission. After the fall of France, the British government sent him to Washington to coordinate the Anglo-American victory program. In 1943 he joined Charles de Gaulle in Algiers as Minister of Supply, Armament, and Reconstruction. After the war he became head of the Commissariat Général du Plan de Modernisation et d'Equipement, the agency which he himself had proposed in the “Monnet Plan” to supervise the reconstruction of France's economy. Leaders outside France widi whom Monnet has maintained friendly contact and who frequently have sought his advice include Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard of West Germany, Winston Churchill of the United Kingdom, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Dean Acheson, Douglas Dillon, and John McCloy of the United States.

See European Coal and Steel Community, Annuaire-Manuel de l'Assemblée Commune 1957 (Luxembourg, 1957), p. 76Google Scholar;Ringer, Paul, “A Close-up of ‘Mr. Europe’ Monnet,” The Milwaukee Journal, 03 10, 1957Google Scholar; and Time, October 6, 1961, pp. 28–33.

3 The literature on die origin of die Schuman Plan is vast. Valuable accounts in English include Diebold, William Jr, The Schuman Plan: A Study in Economic Cooperation, 1950–1959 (New York: Frederick A. Praeger [for the Council on Foreign Relations], 1959), pp. 9–112Google Scholar;Lister, Louis, Europe's Coal and Steel Community: An Experiment in Economic Union (New York: The Twentieth Century Fund, Inc., 1960), pp. 3–18Google Scholar; andHaas, Ernst B., The Uniting of Europe: Political, Social, and Economic Forces, 1950–1957 (Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1958)Google Scholar.

4 Massip, Roger, Void l'Europe (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1958), pp. 83–84Google Scholar.

5 Schuman is quoted as having said: “J'ai lu la note. C'est interéssant. J'en fais mon affaire.” (Ibid., p. 86.)

6 Ibid., p. 92.

7 Massip maintains that approval depended on the fact that several ministers voting in favor of the plan were not too clear about the long-range implications of the Schuman initiative. (Ibid., pp. 91–92.)

8 The subsequent history of these men shows that participation in the “conspiracy” did not harm their political careers. Mayer and Pleven served brief stints as French Prime Ministers. Five of the nine key men–Monnet, Schuman, Pleven, Hirsch, and Uri–subsequently held high office in the European Communities. Monnet served as first President of the ECSC High Authority (1952–1955) and was succeeded in office by René Mayer (1955–1958). Schuman served as President of the European Parliament (1958–1960). Pleven was and still is President of the Parliament's Liberal Party Group. Etienne Hirsch was President of the Euratom Commission from 1959 to 1961. Pierre Uri became Chief of the Economic Division of the ECSC High Authority (1952–1959) and played a leading role in drafting the Treaty Establishing the European Economic Community.

Professor Reuter has not held office in the Community but was a member of the French delegation negotiating the Treaty Establishing the European Coal and Steel Community. Bernard Clappier became a senior adviser on economic foreign policy under de Gaulle, was one of the “Four Wise Men” who drew up the preliminary plans for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), and has since been appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank of France.

9 It is a mark of good supranational strategy to seek to direct integration into channels calculated to maximize positive spillover effects. See Haas, pp. 291–299.

Supranational integration among the Six is based on intergovernmental agreements to unify one sector of national life at a time, as and if sufficient political support builds up to make another step forward. It is true, of course, as Stanley Hoffmann has pointed out, that “political integration is not so cosmically self-generating.” The governments which made integration possible by fashioning the Community Treaties will be in a position, at least until integration has reached a very advanced stage, to undo what they have done. (Hoffmann, Stanley, “Discord in Community: The North Atlantic Area as a Partial International System,” International Organization, Summer 1963 [Vol. 17, No. 3], pp. 528–529CrossRefGoogle Scholar.)

10 Mills, C. Wright, The Power Elite (New York: Oxford University Press [Galaxy Edition], 1959), pp. 2–3Google Scholar.

11 Monnet, Jean, Les Etats-Unis d'Europe ont commencé (Paris: Robert Laffort, 1955), p. 102Google Scholar. This volume contains excerpts from speeches which Monnet made in the years 1952–1954. It was compiled by his ECSC High Authority colleagues and presented to Monnet as a parting present upon his retirement from the presidency of the High Authority.

12 Action Committee for the United States of Europe (hereinafter cited as Action Committee), “Note for Journalists” (Paris, May 4, 1957).

13 In most cases the parties represented on the Committee have together commanded overwhelming majorities in their national parliaments. Italy, from the beginning, and France, since de Gaulle's bloodless revolution, have been the exceptions. The four Italian parties on the Monnet Committee in 1960 (Social Democrats, Christian Democrats, Liberals, and Republicans) together had only 52 percent of the seats in the Italian Chamber of Deputies. The five French parties (Socialists, Radicals, Democrats, Popular Republican Movement [MRP], and Independents) on the Committee mustered only 48 percent of the membership of 552 in die French National Assembly in 1960.

14 Interview with Enzo Dalla Chiesa, Rome, January 6, 1960. I am indebted to Enzo Dalla Chiesa, Secretary of UIL, for many sharp insights into the operation of the Action Committee.

15 Guy Mollet was not only head of the French Socialist Party (SFIO) and a former Prime Minister of France but a man who, although anti-Gaullist on the whole, had demonstrated his capacity to work with the General, as evidenced by the fact that he was a member of the latter's government up to 1959. Herbert Wehner, a former Communist, is the leader of the left wing of the SPD, and, in 1960, it was he rather than Erich Ollenhauer, the titular leader of the party, who led the opposition against Konrad Adenauer. In 1960 the Belgian Senator Roger Motz was not only President of die Liberal Party of Belgium but President of the Liberal Party Group in the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe and a former Minister of Economics. Ludwig Rosenberg, one of Europe's most able labor leaders, was not only Vice President of the DGB but a Vice President of the EEC Economic and Social Committee (to whose presidency he was subsequently elected), a member of the ECSC Consultative Committee, and President of the six-country trade union committee of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions for EEC and Euratom.

Kurt Kiesinger became President of Baden-Würtemberg in 1958 but continued to serve on die Action Committee because he was an outstanding CDU leader of European stature. At the time he joined the Committee, he was President of the Bundestag-Bundesrat Legislative Conference Committee, President of the West German Parliamentary Section of the European Movement, President of the Christian Democratic Party Group of the Consultative Assembly, and a member of the ECSC Common Assembly.

16 For lists of members and member organizations, see “Creation of Action Committee for a United States of Europe” (Secretariat of Jean Monnet, Press Release, Paris, 10 13, 1955)Google Scholar; andAction Committee, Joint Declaration, Eighth Session (Paris, 07 11, 1960), pp. 14–15Google Scholar.

17 Action Committee, Joint Declaration, Eleventh Session (Bonn, 06 1, 1964), pp. 15–16Google Scholar.

18 The other new names together with their affiliations were: F. Erler (West German SPD), M. Tanassi (Italian Social Democratic Party), A. Vondeling (Netherlands Labor Party), W. P. Berghuis (Netherlands Antirevoluntionary Party), P. A. Blaisse and N. Schmelzer (Netherlands Catholic People's Party), C. A. Bos (Netherlands Christian Historical Union), P. Vanden Boeynarts (Belgian Social Christian Party), K. Birrenbach and F. Etzel (West German CDU), M. Rumor (Italian Christian Democratic Party), H. Hougardy (Belgian Party of Liberty and Progress), Erich Mende (West German FDP), A. Bergeron (French CGTFO), G. Levard (French CFTC), L. Major (Belgian CGT), E. Dalla Chiesa (Italian Workers' Union), D. F. Van der Mei (Netherlands Christian Trade Union), and B. Tacke (West German DGB). Ibid., pp. 14–15.

19 See ECSC, Common Assembly, Résolution [27] relative aux pouvoirs de l'Assemblée Commune et leur exercise, adopted December 2, 1954, and Résolution [35] définissant la position de l'Assemblie avant la réunion des Ministres prévue pour le ier juin 1955, adopted May 14, 1955, as reprinted in European Coal and Steel Community, Annuaire-Manuel de l'Assemblée Commune 1956 (Luxembourg, 1956), pp. 399. 407.

20 “Le Marché Commun et l'Euratom,” Chronique de Politique Etrangère (Brussels), 07–11 1957 (Vol. 10, Nos. 4–5), p. 417Google Scholar.

21 Excerpt from Monnet's letter to individual leaders to join in the foundation of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe. (“Creation of the Action Committee for a United States of Europe,” Secretariat of Jean Monnet, Press Release, Paris, 10 13, 1955)Google Scholar.

22 Ibid.

23 The SFIO had originally supported the EDC project. But on the motion to bring up the treaty for ratification (August 1954), Socialist Deputies split, with 53 voting against, 50 voting for, and one abstaining. See Fauvet, Jaques, “Birth and Death of a Treaty,” France Defeats EDC, ed. Lerner, Daniel and Aron, Raymond (New York: Frederick A. Pracger, 1957), pp. 129, 143, 162Google Scholar.

24 The need to unite the moderate political left also accounts for the heavy representation of labor organizations on the Committee. This move was tactically sound since members of trade unions were the mainstay of Socialist voting strength in Western Europe. The presence of Deutsche Gewerkschaftsbund (DGB) leaders on the Committee was particularly important in swinging SPD leaders into line since the DGB, in contrast to the SPD, with which it maintains many personal and political ties, had favored supranational integration from the beginning. (Interview with Gerhard Kroebel, economic expert for the DGB, Diisseldorf, June 1, 1960. For the DGB's stand on the ratification of the Schuman Plan, see DGB, Memorandum to union officials, No. 4, May 15, 1951 [mimeographed].)

25 Part of the information presented in the next several pages was obtained with the understanding that informants would not be identified.

28 See point 5, Table 2, Action Committee Resolution of September 1956.

27 For the text of the joint statement issued by the United States Department of State, the Atomic Energy Commission, and the Euratom Committee (Louis Armand of France, Franz Etzel of West Germany, and Francesco Giordani of Italy, the “Three Wise Men”), see Bulletin from the European Community for Coal and Steel, February–March 1957 (No. 22), pp. 6–7.

28 The Committee members formally agreed to “recommend” to their parties, parliaments, and governments ratification of the two treaties “before the forthcoming parliamentary recess.” (Action Committee, Fourth Session [Paris, May 6–7, 1957], Resolution III.)

29 In the closing debate in the Bundestag the Action Committee received the plaudits of the Socialist Deputy Wilhelm Mellics. Summing up his party's position he said that the fact that Ollenhauer, President of die SPD, had become a member of the Monnet Committee had “greatly contributed to the realization of the treaties.” (German Federal Republic, Bundestag, Sitzungsbericht, 2 Wahlperiode, July 5, 1957 [No. 224], pp. 348–349.)

30 The list of close associates among EEC Commissioners (which is not necessarily exhaustive) includes Professor Walter Hallstein, President of the EEC Commission, who headed die West German delegation during the Schuman Plan negotiations and was Konrad Adenauer's Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (1951–1958); Robert Marjolin, Vice President of the EEC Commission, who was one of Monnet's senior officials at the Commissariat Général du Plan; Hans von der Groeben, member of the EEC Commission, who was chief of the ECSC section in Bonn's Ministry of Economics and headed the West German experts negotiating the Common Market Treaty; and Jean Rey, member of the EEC Commission, former Belgian Minister of Economics, who headed the ECSC Council of Ministers in 1954, 1955, and 1956. Euratom Commissioners close to the Action Committee include Eticnne Hirsch, President of the Commission (1959–1961), who was Monnet's deputy at die Commissariat Général du Plan and succeeded him in the presidency of that organization; and Emanuel Sassen, member of the Euratom Commission, who was a member of the ECSC Common Assembly (1952–1958) and President of its Christian Democratic Party Group.

For biographic data on the Commissioners, consult European Parliament, Annuaire-Manuel de l'Assemblée parlementaire européenne 1959–1960 (Luxembourg: Service des publications des Communautés européennes, 1960), pp. 119–121, 129–133, 155–159Google Scholar.

31 The United Kingdom, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Austria, and Portugal.

32 In 1957 and 1958, as it became increasingly clear that the Six would succeed in forming a Common Market, the British government, unwilling or unable to accept the political provisions and constitutional constraints of the EEC Treaty, sought to secure the commercial advantages of a single market by proposing a European free trade zone. Negotiations progressed well for a time. However, after General de Gaulle's return to power in the summer of 1958, the French government took a tougher line, and the negotiations came to nought. For the official British view of these negotiations, see Reginald Maudling (Paymaster General), Negotiations for a European Free-Trade Area, Report on the Course of Negotiations up to December, 1958 (Cmd. 648) (London: Her Majesty's Stationery Office, 01 1959)Google Scholar.

33 European Economic Community, Commission, Second General Report, 1958–1959 (Brussels, 1959), pp. 32–36Google Scholar.

34 Action Committee, Joint Declaration, Sixth Session (Paris, 05 11, 1959), p. 6Google Scholar.

38 Ibid., pp. 7–8. See also, “The European Community and Under-Developed Countries” (mimeographed) prepared jointly by Professor Jan Tinbergen and the Documentation Center of the Action Committee, May 1959.

36 The EEC Council of Ministers voted to support the “Dillon proposals” on May 5, 1959. (Bulletin of the European Community, August–September 1959 [2nd Year, No. 37], p. 1.)

37 The notion that the Six might pursue a high-tariff protectionist policy continued to be repeated in the United Kingdom even after it had become evident that the Community was fully committed to the liberalization of international trade and after it had announced its intention to seek external tariff cuts which would bring Community duties in line with or below British tariffs. See Reginald Maudling (President of the Board of Trade), “The Future of European Economic Integration” (address delivered in Zurich, Switzerland, February 15, 1960), Board of Trade Journal, 02 19, 1960 (Vol. 178, No. 3283), p. 379Google Scholar.

38 The Hallstein declaration called for: 1) extension of the EEC Treaty provisions for the removal of intra-Community trade quotas to third countries; 2) a declaration announcing the Community's readiness to seek tariff cuts within GATT beyond those envisioned in the “Dillon proposals”; 3) Community participation in a worldwide program of aid to underdeveloped countries and prompt action to determine funds required and the institutional arrangements best calculated to implement such a program; 4) periodic economic consultations on an Atlantic scale and the establishment of a “Contact Commission,” not for the purpose of reaching a permanent setdement, but in order to identify problems and propose concrete solutions for specific difficulties of an economic or commercial nature arising between the Six and Seven; and 5) accelerated implementation of the EEC Treaty to speed the day en the Community would be more cohesive and, hence, in a better position to make permanent settlements with third countries. (See European Parliament, Dibats, September 24, 1959 [No. 17], pp. 134–137.)

39 Action Committee, Joint Declaration, Seventh Session (Paris, 11 19–20, 1959), p. 9Google Scholar.

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid., pp. 9–10.

42 The recommendations of the Four Wise Men are reported in W. Randolph Burgess and others, A Remodelled Economic Organization, Report by the Group of Four established by the Resolution of January 14, 1960, of the Twenty Governments and the Commission of the European Economic Community (Paris, April 1960).

43 The Frenchman selected for this honor was Schuman's and Monnet's old fellow conspirator of 1950, Bernard Clappier. The others were W. Randolph Burgess (United States), Sir Paul Gore-Booth (United Kingdom), and Xenophon Zolotas (Greece).

44 The Action Committee felt quite confident that acceleration would bring about a change of heart in London. “In Europe,” the Committee stated a full year ahead of the United Kingdom's actual application,

the acceleration of the Common Market has shown the United Kingdom and the other European countries that there is now no going back on European integration, that it is profitable, and also open to all.

(Action Committee, Joint Declaration, Eighth Session [Paris, 07 11, 1960], p. 8Google Scholar.)

45 Point 22, Table 2, gives a good example of the type of advice furnished by the Committee at the time.

46 Action Committee, Joint Declaration, Seventh Session (Paris, 11 19–20, 1960), p. 7Google Scholar.

47 Action Committee, Joint Declaration, Eleventh Session (Bonn, 06 1, 1964), p. 11Google Scholar.

48 lbid., p. 12.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid., 11, footnot 2.

51 The ECSC High Authority, overshadowed by the new Community executives and engaged in lacerating campaigns to reorganize the depressed coal industry and to get a common energy policy approved by the member governments, had very litde time to elaborate important new policies.

52 See above, Table 1.

53 The Economist, 05 15, 1965 (Vol. 215, No. 6351), p. 753Google Scholar.