European Integration, 1950-2003: Superstate or New Market Economy?

• Author: Tupy, Marian L.
• Position: Book Review

European Integration, 1950-2003: Superstate or New Market Economy?

John Gillingham

Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003, 588 pp.

To a political economist it may often seem as though the European Union, like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, suffers from an acute case of multiple personality disorder. Thus, it is not uncommon to learn of new EU plans for more regulation of the European labor market one day of the week and new EU plans for deregulation of the service industry another day of the week. What explains that seemingly constant oscillation between socialism and liberalism?

Finally, there is a book that answers the above question and many others. Gillingham's book became a definitive study on the EU even before the ink dried on the last of its 588 pages. The book is detailed as well as comprehensive. It should become, as John Gillingham, professor of History at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, no doubt intended, a standard university textbook on the evolution of the EU. However, it is worthwhile to start by mentioning a few particularities.

First, Gillingham is an American, which will undoubtedly raise eyebrows among those who harbor the illusion that only Europeans can understand the subtleties of the European integration process. Second, Gillingham writes from a classical liberal perspective, and his appreciation for Friedrich Hayek and spontaneous order is evident. Third, Gillingham analyzes EU evolution from the perspective of global economics and liberalizing trends within it, arguing that globalization was more important to EU integration than political designs concocted in Brussels. As such, Gillingham cuts through the mythical mist surrounding Jean Monnet, Walter Hallstein, and Jacques Delors, exposing them as Europe's floundering, rather than "founding," fathers.

Gillingham's book begins with the juxtaposition of two competing visions of European integration. First, there is the supranationalist model of integration, which relies on intensive planning and heavy regulation from the center. That model was behind the European Coal and Steel Community, which brought the steel industries of Germany and France under the control of one "supranational" authority. Supranationalism, it was expected, would lead to economic benefits, which would then result in demands for integration of other economic sectors. Central planning, however, proved wholly unsuitable for the post-World War II era, which necessitated an ever-increasing...