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2 - From Messina and Rome to the Single European Act

from Part I - Milestones: Treaties and Treaty Changes

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 October 2023

By
Michael Gehler
Edited by
Mathieu Segers  and
Steven Van Hecke
Mathieu Segers
Affiliation:
Universiteit Maastricht, Netherlands
Steven Van Hecke
Affiliation:
Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
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Summary

This chapter presents the relevant integration policy decisions from the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Conference in Messina (1955) to the Single European Act (SEA) (1987). It will trace the genesis of the Rome Treaties (1955–7), the foundation of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) (1958–60), de Gaulle’s policies (1958–65), the development from the Merger Treaty to the Hague Summit (1965–9), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the ‘northern enlargement’ (1973). The question of whether the 1970s were times of ‘Eurosclerosis’ is answered. The path to ‘southern enlargement’, the settlement of the British budget dispute and the departure for reforms follow as further topics, whereby the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) and the European Monetary System (EMS) as well as the SEA are dealt with.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge History of the European Union , pp. 60 - 92
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

Recommended Reading

Bussière, E., Dujardin, V., Dumoulin, M., Ludlow, P. N., Brouwer, J. W. and Palmero, E. (eds.). The European Commission 1973–86: History and Memories of an Institution (Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union, 2014).Google Scholar
Deighton, A. and Milward, A. S. (eds.). Widening, Deepening and Acceleration: The European Economic Community 1957–1963 (Baden-Baden and Brussels, Nomos and Bruylant 1999).Google Scholar
Dumoulin, M. (ed.). The European Commission 1957–72: History and Memories (Luxembourg, Publications Office of the European Union, 2007).Google Scholar
Gehler, M. (ed., in collaboration with A. Pudlat). Vom gemeinsamen Markt zur europäischen Unionsbildung: 50 Jahre Römische Verträge 1957–2007/From Common Market to European Union Building: 50 Years of the Rome Treaties 1957–2007 (Vienna, Cologne and Weimar, Böhlau, 2009).Google Scholar
Gehler, M. The Signing of the Rome Treaties 65 Years Ago: Origins, Provisions and Effects (Bonn, ZEI, 2022).Google Scholar
Gehler, M. and Loth, W. (eds.). Reshaping Europe: Towards a Political, Economic and Monetary Union, 1984–1989 (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2020).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kaiser, W. ‘Shaping European Union: The European Parliament and Institutional Reform, 1979–1989’ (2018), www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/STUD/2018/630271/EPRS_STU(2018)630271_EN.pdf.Google Scholar
Laursen, J. (ed.). The Institutions and Dynamics of the European Community, 1973–83 (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2014).Google Scholar
Loth, W. (ed.). Crises and Compromises: The European Project 1963–69 (Baden-Baden, Nomos, 2001).Google Scholar
Van der Harst, J. (ed.). Beyond the Customs Union: The European Community’s Quest for Deepening, Widening and Completion, 1969–1975 (Brussels, Paris and Baden-Baden, Bruylant and Nomos, 2007).Google Scholar
Van der Harst, J. and Voerman, G. (eds.). An Impossible Job? The Presidents of the European Commission 1958–2014 (London, Harper, 2015).Google Scholar
Warlouzet, L., Governing Europe in a Globalizing World: Neoliberalism and Its Alternatives Following the 1973 Oil Crisis (London, Routledge, 2017).Google Scholar

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