Industrial policy is back on the agenda of policymakers at a global level. In the EU, industrial policy has a very controversial history: it has been not only conditioned by the multilevel competencies shared between the EU and the Member States, by the different national priorities and the varieties of economic cultures, but also by the crucial problem of resources. Based on archival sources and relevant multidisciplinary literature, the paper traces the emergence of European initiatives in industrial policy from the 1960s until the launch of the Europe 2020 strategy (2010). Following this, the role of the Juncker Plan (2014) in promoting EU industrial policy is examined, highlighting the potential contradiction between ambitious goals and limited resources. Subsequently, an analysis is conducted to determine whether the launch of the new EU industrial strategy in 2020, coupled with the adoption of the Next Generation EU, could offer a blueprint for establishing an ambitious EU industrial policy and represent a potential Hamiltonian moment for the Union.

In The Seventh Member State, I show that imperial concerns were central to the original shape of the European Communities, in particular French anxieties about Algeria. The latter had been imagined by several generations of French as an extension of the metropole across the Mediterranean, while at the same time a majority of the population was not granted citizenship rights. While in 1951 France opted for the exclusion of Algeria from the territory of the Coal and Steel Community, in 1957 the strategy followed was the opposite, and Algeria was made part of the EEC, not least because this seemed to reinforce French claim that the territory was part of France and, perhaps above all, it rendered possible to obtain the financial support of the other five founding states for costly Algerian development projects. Labelling Algeria a seventh member state, as is done in the title of the book, calls the attention of the reader not only to the sweeping expanse of postwar European institutions, which lasted even after states such as Algeria gained independence, but also to the contestable and contested conception of Member State. Mainly intended as a piece in French history, the book illuminates the extent to which Europe was the main vehicle of the rescue of the imperial nation-state, and how white supremacy and colonial rule were maintained through a peculiar combination of the rule of law and states of emergency.

The history of European integration, even if yet a rather minor sub-field, has seen a good deal of developments in the last two decades. New scholars have joined the field and new topics of research have been considered. Megan Brown’s The Seventh Member State is an impressive contribution to the literature. The book does not only demonstrate that a main goal of the European Economic Community was to rescue the imperial nation-state, but illustrates the point by means of considering the complex relationship between France and Algeria, also marked by Algeria becoming part of the territory of the European Economic Community. As Brown shows, this had lasting effects, especially after Algeria’s independence. Doubts, however, can be raised regarding the extent to which the title of the book is not a trifle exaggerated. Not least because Algeria was never offered the status of member state, but remained subordinated to France. If its territory was part of the EEC, it was indeed as a result of the peculiar status assigned to Algeria under French law. In addition, it could be argued that the conclusions of the book would have been strengthened if a wider set of archives and literature would have been consulted (Dutch and German, and above all Algerian literature).