A Brief History of European Union

European issues are coming back to the political economic debates after a half century brake. Through the end of the Cold War, the unionization process of the Europe increased its political and economic significance for the world agenda, thus they returned to the center of the Europe. For centuries, until the First World War, they were the strongest of the World with their huge imperial power and they were controlling remaining parts of the world. When they became dispersed with global level wars, their power was transferred to the USA, the emerging economy of the 20^th century.

The short historical scope shows us the power shifts the leading position in the world affairs, and the only escape for Europeans is to get unionized to counterweight and then dominate others. Their historical experiences enlighten their path; they should move through a united Europe.

The synergy is a very fashioned concept and it signifies the whole makes actually more than the mere summation of individual parts. When parts harmoniously join on a given purpose, they become parts of a greater entity, bigger than they can predict. This synergy notion and the historical experiences can encourage us to invest to the future of the Europe. They come together and they irreversibly institutionalize their togetherness through bolder and wider unification.

When they had started in the early 1950s the purpose was to mutually increase their economic benefits on a strictly limited bundle of goods. The joining was limited with the national interest accounts of members. The economic principles then turned out to be a political impetus to grant the Franco-German hospitality in the future. The union started to organize its upcoming around a core of the greatest members, namely the Germany and France. Indeed, still the power was determining the leading place.

Through the end of the 1980s, when economic recession came to its end and European economies enjoying satisfactory growth figures, they reaccelerated the unionization issue, which had been frozen in the 1960s and 70s. They framed the road of the unionization through clear cut structural reforms and they moved further on institutionalization. The logic was to burn the ships via intensifying the level of represented issues in the union. The more common points they gathered, the more the union became consolidated and the stronger impulse for joining emerge.

By the 1990s, the self-enriching mechanism of the European Community was in practice and it was following self-motivation tools. The Maastricht Treaty, or the Treaty on the European Union was an outcome of such motivations. With the treaty, separate institutions gathered under the EU framework. Moreover a plan of the monetary union, which had been debated for decades, was put into practice.

The three stage process, the Stability and Growth Pact, the introduction of new institutions are steps that we will analyze later. Yet, we should be aware of the general background on the unionization perspective. The point is to remain stronger in the three-level game. From out to in, the core struggle is at the global level to counterweight and challenge the USA; secondly, to get a leading seat in the EU decision making with a regional perspective; and finally to keep the gates of one’s country in the national politics.