European Union

EUROPEAN UNION. - The need to create a European union became practically relevant after the First World War. The existence of a "spirit" and a "sentiment" of Europe before the First World War is a rather complex question; today it is asserted that a European unity existed as a widespread sentiment and rested on the great force of Latinity and of Germanism, which met and sometimes clashed as two vital sap-flows of a living organism, inasmuch as both were founded on the great Roman and Christian tradition, even though the original common Roman Catholicism had in some regions fragmented into different Churches.

Despite this common foundation, the Anglo-Saxon force had taken on a momentum of European hegemony; having overcome Spanish and French hegemony, it did not tolerate a Germanic hegemony, which had been asserting itself ever more decisively since 1870, and which had nevertheless more than once fallen back on the acceptance of an Anglo-German diarchy (also proposed by Hitler), likewise founded on a substantial racial unity. But a third force was rising in Eastern Europe, and it was the massive empire of all the Russias (so called after a dominant race), which had had to conquer all of northern Asia in an unbridled imperialism and in the name of the defense of Russia, poorly protected by the Urals, which nevertheless, oscillating between "Westernism" and "Eurasianism" (v.), wore itself out in many internal nationalist-revolutionary struggles. The First World War ended with the defeat of Germany's attempted hegemony, but the decisive push toward that defeat was called upon to come from the new Anglo-Saxon world, that of the USA, while Russia shattered itself in the anti-German effort it made, giving birth to a new "Eurasia" which, deprived of its westernmost territories, from Finland to Bessarabia, and having become ever more Asiatic, launched itself toward the policy of a new Community, with an essentially Asiatic background, in the new imperial formula of the Bolshevik revolution. It is under this pressure that Europe falls apart and its divisions are accentuated, so that people speak of the decline and the defense of the West, inasmuch as Europe does not defend itself on its own, nor had it defended itself on its own, but thanks to American aid. Except that the USA, having emerged from isolationist policy during the First World War, returned to it decisively, leaving Europe to itself.

1. FROM THE PANEUROPA PROJECT TO THE BRIAND PLAN

Only when Europe feels isolated, with the Bolshevik threat in the East, does it truly perceive the danger of its situation, and so the general idea of Paneuropa appears, an avant-garde and romantic idea in its tendency, too radical for those times, while more modest projects come with the general initiative of the Federal Committee for European Cooperation (Emile Borel) and the more limited initiative of the European Customs Union (Yves La Trocqueur). On the practical level the problem of the European union was posed in 1929 by Aristide Briand. The deficiencies of the failed League of Nations (v.) were felt, after the defection of the USA, once again shut, as has been said, in their isolationism, disavowing Wilson, who had been the chief promoter and author of the Pact. The initiative, however, according to Briand, was to be framed within the Pact, which allowed the creation of regional understandings, so that the organization of a European union tended to make the larger organization act more effectively, into which it came to be inserted concentrically, thus attempting to restore unity of spirit to Europe, divided after the failure of the Locarno Pact and of the Four-Power Pact. Briand's project was less advanced than those that called for a European federation; it did not touch the sovereignty of States. The European States, for the purpose of periodically examining their particular interests in common, would have formed a European Conference, and, as an executive organ, a Permanent Committee and a Secretariat, always within the framework of the League of Nations. In the memorandum sent to the various Governments, Briand, when he had to give examples, stopped at economic and social questions (customs, industrial unions and cartels, public works, communications, labor, hygiene, finances, intellectual cooperation), mentioning, in the political field, only interparliamentary relations that already had some tradition. Thus, one may say that the Briand proposal tended to arrive at political construction through an economic coalition, whereby it overcame the observations made by some States, in their replies, about the necessity of beginning with economic questions. An objection of a territorial character was raised by Italy and Germany: namely, that the exclusion of Russia and Turkey from Europe was inadmissible. Germany itself and Hungary pointed out that in order to arrive at the European union it was necessary to eliminate the inequalities created by the peace treaties. More serious and indeed preclusive objections came from Great Britain, Switzerland, and other States, which observed that a useless duplicate of the League's organs was being created, and indeed Great Britain hinted that the European union, rather than performing a work of union of spirits, might accentuate, if not actually stir up, new hostilities. When the Briand project, eloquently defended by its author, was discussed at Geneva (Sept. 1930), Scialoja pointed out the difficulties of an immediate realization, so that it was advisable to begin with a study commission. Motta was more radical, while Brüning (Germany) and Schober (Austria) insisted that the new Union should deal only with economic problems. The Assembly accepted Scialoja's point of view and appointed a Study Commission for the European union. This met in Jan. 1931 under the presidency of Briand, with the participation of 27 States, and in its meetings agreed on the necessity of inviting the USSR and Turkey, but always spoke of the economic crisis. When in the Assembly of the League of Nations of Sept. 1931 the problem of the organization of the European union was addressed, it was decided to create only a Study Commission with the participation also of non-European States, and with this decision the Union was buried.

The immaturity of the problem in a Europe that felt itself morally divided was therefore evident. The new attempt at German hegemony was crushed with the contribution of two extra-European forces: the Eurasian one of the USSR and that of the USA, forced once again out of isolationism by Roosevelt's policy. When it came to settling the accounts of victory, Roosevelt and Churchill accepted Stalin's thesis of the division of Europe into two zones, leaving to the influence of the USSR the one east of the Stettin-Trieste line.

II. THE DEFENSE OF THE WEST AND THE REALIZATION OF THE NEW EUROPEAN UNION

Once Eastern Europe had fallen under Soviet domination, the whole of Europe west of the Yalta line remained indefensible, and rather than of Europe one had to speak of the West, so that a defense of the Atlantic took precedence, to which the USA ended up having to give an American stamp, also arranging on their own account to stipulate agreements with Spain, excluded from the defense of the West, thanks to the anti-Franco policy of certain States. In these conditions the movement for European unity reappears, with a marked tendency toward a federal solution. Nor are considerations to the contrary lacking, as in the decade 1920-30, on the part of those who assert that present possibilities are limited, territorially and morally. Morally, Europe is at the height of its divisions, especially through the fault of the decisions of Yalta and the peace treaties of 1947. Territorially, because very few are the States disposed to form themselves into a Union, and indeed this arises far more limited than the Europe participating in the Atlantic defense, being reduced to Italy, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg and Western Germany (should the latter succeed in overcoming the oppositions), while the two Iberian States remain outside it, though they form an integral and fundamental part of Western Europe. This second attempt at a E.U. is born with the support of America and also of Great Britain, which, however, limits itself to the function of guarantor, once again making its character as a British Community with a base and with world-wide interests prevail. Even in its practical realizations the Union follows a new method. The Council of Europe collaborates with the Atlantic Community, of which it is in substance an episode, especially in the field of defense. One begins therefore with a basic agreement of an economic-industrial character and another of a defensive character, in the awareness that Europe will be constituted upon "concrete realizations."

The European Coal and Steel Community, established by the Treaty of Paris of 18 Apr. 1951, aims to create a common market, supplied and guided by a Community, an autonomous legal person, which is organized with a High Authority (9 members) assisted by a Consultative Committee (from 30 to 51 members), under the control of an Assembly (18 members each for Germany, France, Italy; 10 for Belgium and Holland, Luxembourg), with a body of mediation between the High Authority and the governments, represented by the Council of Foreign Ministers, and a Court (7 members) which ensures respect for the law in the interpretation and application of the treaty and of the implementing regulations.

The European Defense Community (EDC) was established by the same States with the Treaty of Paris of 27 May 1952, in the spirit of the UN charter and with purely defensive aims against any aggression. The EDC has a supranational character; it comprises common institutions, budget and armed forces (European defense forces). The powers of action and control are entrusted to a Commissariat (9 members). For the purposes of control the same Assembly of the Coal Community is used, while the harmonization of the Commissariat's action with the Governments is entrusted to a Council of representatives of the member States. Common with the Consortium is the Court of Justice, which must fulfill the same functions in relation to the EDC pact. The Consortium's pact ends up becoming a basic pact for the future developments of the Organization, and indeed it has been deemed appropriate to refer to the two bodies created also the elaboration of the general construction of the Union, which currently functions in a provisional form through the representations of the members of the member States and of the Council of Foreign Ministers, so that it is useless to dwell on the present situation. It is therefore a question of an initial construction, limited territorially and institutionally, which is born within the framework of the UN, of which 4 of the unionist States are members; Italy and Germany are outside it.

The link between the EDC and the Atlantic Community is conventionally determined by a series of protocols which extend the guarantees against aggression to Great Britain and connect European defense to Atlantic defense with a coordination of the EDC with NATO, and which give a clear view of the nature, of the defensive field, episodic, of European defense with respect to Atlantic defense, albeit with the tendency — wished for by the U.S.A. — to make the defense of Europe autonomous.

The two complex Paris agreements represent only the beginning of the regulation of the E.U., which should find further developments in the consortium for agriculture (called the "green pool"), whose structure is under discussion (Paris Conference, March 1953) and, above all, in the Treaty for the European Community, delivered on 9 March to the Council of the six Foreign Ministers for examination by the six governments.

Amedeo Giannini

UNIONE GIURISTI CATTOLICI ITALIANI (U. G. C. I.): v. OPERE CATTOLICHE COORDINATE ALL'AZIONE CATTOLICA ITALIANA.