The Vision of Europe

Abstract

One of the most widely quoted remarks on the subject of European integration must be the title of Andrew Shonfield’s work, ‘Europe: Journey to an unknown destination’. Although there have been many visionaries, like Jean Monnet and some of the founding fathers of the European Communities, who have had their eyes on explicit distant objectives, integration has on the whole progressed because the contracting parties can also see direct advantages from particular moves in the relatively near future, like the lowering of tariffs, a joint approach to the restructuring of the coal and steel industries and the removal of costs at borders. It has also progressed because many of the grand ideas are to be realised a long way in the future and hence can remain unclear, without any real impact on current actions. They may therefore present no awkward political or economic commitments in the short term. Even so there has been a reluctance on some countries’ part to make distant commitments, even if it would be easy to step back from them at a later date, if they are not thoroughly convinced that this is the route they wish to follow. This rings particularly true in the UK which chose to pursue the concept of a wider free trade area with its European Free Trade Association (EFTA) partners in the 1950s rather than the tighter linkages of the Coal and Steel Community and then the European Economic Community, only choosing closer linkages at a later date.