European Union: Copyright Jill Margerison 2003
Convergence and Divergence in the EU
by Jill Margerison
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What key factors are reviving European
unity?
Are these forces relatively constant or will
they wax and wane?
Who wants European unity?
Why is it so difficult to move from negative
integration to positive integration to political
unity?
Will these obstacles persist in the future?
Historical Legacy of Divergence
• Today- Europe is recognised as a region of unity
and identity, but this is a recent phenomena.
Europe has experienced much more division,
tensions and conflict than it has experienced any
common purpose or harmony of sprit.
• Western Europe- the peoples and nation states
have long differed and been divided from one
another in many ways.
5 Key Features of Divergence
Language - perhaps the obvious divisive force.
Religion - northern countries (except Ireland ) being
mainly Protestant and the southern countries
(including France, but excluding Orthodox
Greece) being predominantly Catholic.
Contrasting cultural traditions and historical
experience - distinct identification and feelings of
‘us’ and ‘them’ across the map of Europe.
5 Key Divergences contd.
Political divisions - varying systems of government and
competing ideological orientations. 19th and 20th centuries
autocracies existed alongside emerging and more liberal
parliamentary democracies. Then - two world wars
parliamentary democracy - under attack and in some cases
was overthrown.
Economic divisions was no less marked. From the beginning
of the Industrial Revolution until the middle of the 19th
century Britain was industrially and commercially
dominant. Gradually, it was challenged- particularly by
Germany, but also by Belgium, France and others so that
by the early 20th competition for overseas markets by these
countries was intense.
Factors influencing Europe’s
need for convergence
1. The post-World War II environment = utter
devastation - called for urgent and
dramatic steps.
2. Growing threat of Soviet Communist encroachment on Western European
democracy - prompted an acceleration of
reconstruction and stabilization efforts.
3. Regional, rather than a national approach
was required
Benelux Arrangement
• Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg
had already created a common market and
customs union among themselves.
• This was know as the Benelux arrangement
and served as the model for what was later
to become the European Economic
Community
Importance of regionalism
• Regionalism - depicts state led efforts to create a
region… it is a top down (generally ) state led
attempt to define a functional regional identity or
regional body in a formal manner…
• Beyond Europe - we do not find the same kind of
transformation taking place.
• (The one exception to this argument can be noted
as ASEAN but even this arrangement cannot be
compared with the fixed closed regionalism of the
EU.)
Why did regionalism in Europe
take off?
Countries joined the EEC for a variety of reasons.
  Germany - membership = vehicle for international
acceptance
  France hoped to use the EEC to dominate European
politics diplomatically
  Italy hoped that the EEC could provide economic and
diplomatic rehabilitation
  Benelux countries were eager to lower continental trade
barriers which they felt discriminated against their own
more efficient industries
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EURO currency convergence
• Key manifestation of the European economic
dimension is the EU currency
• Some observers regard the introduction of the euro
as a significant event – Euro has prompted many
leaders in Asia to further advance their own
visions of regional economic integration and in
this way provides a potential model or country
model for them to use
• Not all countries accepted Euro as currency
Divergence
Some problems with EU regionalism
• Membership - When and which countries to
admit into EU
• Nationalism – Eastern Europe is
rediscovering nationalism after the
containment under Soviet Communism ..
not only is it operating at that state level but
also a the level of minority nationalities
Maastricht Treaty - 1991
• Importance of Maastricht - led to
strengthening of EU
• Move away from the absolute sovereign
control of states over their territory towards reassertion of authority by
supranational institutions…
• The Maastricht treaty set the stage for
enlargement of the EU
Maastricht
• EU = umbrella organization for the
European Community’s diverse institutions
• The treaty established a timetable for
completing in 1999 a single market
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) that
created the single ‘euro’ currency - potent
symbol of Europe’s new dynamism
Security Communities
• What the Europeans have effectively done in
converging on key political and economic policies
is to have constructed what Karl Deutsch termed a
‘security community’
• This is a community in which the expectation of
war between states has vanished from – and in
particular this expectation has vanished from one
of the historically most violence-prone regions of
the world
Security Communities contd.
• Despite convergence and divergence- Armed
conflict between the EU’s democracies is highly
unlikely
• The EU as a security community can then be
argued is one in which the spread of trans-national
values, the development of shared understandings
and the generation of mutual trust has contributed
to the development of long term peaceful
interaction - ruling out this use of force in settling
disputes with other members of the group.
European Security Arrangements
• The EU - High Representative for the Common
Foreign and Security Policy of the Union who will
help form a consensus on foreign policy positions,
but as yet he has not become a significant voice..
.the EU has also established an intelligence and
policy planning unit.
• In 1997 the European Council signed the Treaty of
Amsterdam deigned to given more weight and
urgency to common union policies in the hope that
states will choose to constructively abstain rather
than block union polices… …..
What causes war –what makes
peace?
• Identifying the conditions under which states avoid
the recurrence of war and establish durable peace
is one of the most difficult challenges today for
practitioners, or policy makers and theorists of
international relations.
• Karl Deutsch’s concept security communities twofold significance :States can manage anarchy
and escape the security dilemma + provides
theoretical and analytical framework for studying
impact of international institutions in promoting
peaceful change in international relations.
Distinguishing Features –
Security Community
• Distinct from an alliance –alliance is usually
conceived and directed from - collective defence
• Security communities identify no such threat or may
have no function of organising a joint defense against
them
• Security communities = absence of a competitive
military build- up or arms race involving their
members…
• The key aim of a security community is to develop
the common interests of actors in peace and stability
rather than to deter or balance a common threat.
Divergence - dealing with the
‘other Europe’
• Security community is the antithesis of a ‘security
complex’… = an interdependence of rivalry
among given group of states
• 2 Europe’s - one rich and stable - and the other
poor and unstable… this could create future
conflicts, not unlike those of the past unless the
threat of failed states on the EU’s periphery
Convergence over security
arrangements
• EU – fast becoming an international security actor
• Treaty of Nice in 2001 – permanent structure
modeled on NATO to organize and train the
European Rapid Reaction Force…(ERRF)
• Not termed - ‘European army’
• European Union not taking on collective defence –
job of NATO
• More questions than answers?
Divergence over security
arrangements
• European governments have long been heavily
involved in European security arrangements
although the arrangements have tended to be
disconnected and relatively weak…
• European actions –failed to take unified position
on Bosnia in the early 1990’s
• Similarly – problems in dealing with issue of Iraq
in 2003
EU Enlargement
• EU membership - considerable enlargement since
its original conception.
• This has posed many problems for member states
• In 1963, Britain’s application for membership was
blocked by the French (de Gaulle)
• What really caused disagreements and tensions in
the community was the additions of Greece in
1981 and Spain and Portugal in 1986.
Case study - Sangatte
• British government and railway executives
accused France of inadequate policing of their side
of the tunnel
• France has pleaded - unable to cope with the
numbers of refugees crossing its borders --• EU countries have attempted to clamp down
refugees… however this has only served to
contribute to a more efficient infrastructure for
people smuggling gangs
Convergence - Divergence re.
Refugees
• EU’s policy to refugees….
• Firstly, there needs to be a uniform refugee status
and common procedure for deciding who qualifies
• Secondly, there should be a more liberal
immigration regime established
• Thirdly, that the EU should devise a system for
sharing the burden of refugee movements
Conclusion
• European Union = most dramatic, far-reaching
and successful example of international
integration in history.
• Critics in the 1970’s predicted the withering away
of the EEC in the face of divergence, in particular
the French and British sovereign demands.
• Currently, however, most international scholars
see the European Union as a new standard for
international cooperation.