This is an essay I wrote in early 2016, about why European integration is so much deeper than other free-trade areas, economic blocs and unions. While it is dry and technical, it also clearly lays out the basis for what I believe in four major areas. Ultimately I think the reasons it has been most successful run parallel to the arguments for why it should exist. I hope those will be interested in reading it, and will provide a reference point to arguments I make going forward.

Why have other regions of the world failed to attain the same level of integration of Europe?

The European Union is currently the most deeply integrated economic and political union in the world, spanning 28 countries, over 4 million km2, and 500 million people. Attempts to replicate European success have led to many free-trade, customs and other economic agreements such as ASEAN, Mercosur and NAFTA. None however, have been as successful in integrating their members as the EU. There are a series of reasons why Europe has managed to integrate its member-states to such levels, ranging from historical context, to more contemporary practical incentives. Underlining them all is that in the current context, Europe is simply a region more capable of integration than any other in the world.

Firstly, Europe has been integrating for far longer than any other region in the world to date. The ECSC was founded in 1951 with the Treaty of Paris, the current union thus the outcome of a 64-year process. Political integration in Europe stems back to the May 1948 Hague Congress, attended by 800 delegates.[1] Furthermore in 1946, one of Europe’s most famous contemporary statesmen, Winston Churchill, also called for a ‘United States of Europe’ in a speech in Zurich.[2] By contrast, Mercosur was founded in 1991, NAFTA in 1994, and even ASEAN was originally founded in 1967, with the economic agreement coming later in 1992. Thus, European integration predates all similar institutions, having two clear effects. Firstly, it gives the participating nations more time to integrate further. Integration to the European level cannot take place in a couple of decades; Europe’s intergovernmental and supranational bodies developed their powers slowly over half a century, culminating in the 2009 Lisbon Treaty. Secondly, the time factor allows mutual bonds to develop between member-states, particularly in times of crisis. The ‘Empty Chair’ crisis 1965-66 and the 70s oil shock are two examples which the then EEC had to negotiate together. I would argue that confronting shared crises gives member-states a shared sense of purpose and direction, and thus brings them closer together. By overcoming these crises, the union gains more legitimacy and more meaning in the fact that it overcame its obstacles. By contrast, whilst ASEAN was the only other region at the time of the oil shock, its level of integration was then negligible, to the point where this was not a common issue.

Shared experience and history is a crucial factor here however, as it facilitates integration and cooperation. Europe has countless common experiences dating back to the Roman Empire. Christianity, adopted by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 380 AD, the Renaissance, the Reformation triggered by Martin Luther’s protest against the Church in 1517, and the Enlightenment, described by historian David Blackbourn as having common European features[3]; these are all part of European history. Furthermore, Carl Strikwerda demonstrated that economic integration took place passively before the First World War in Western Europe.[4] These common experiences are important, because they develop a common identity and sense of community, the latter argued by the transactionalist school as being attained by successful integration.[5] Furthermore, Habermas argued that the sense of nationhood leads to people in a nation being able to trust one another and share mutual aims and understandings;[6] this sense of trust is necessary in the pooling of sovereignties, which is a feature of deeper integration. As further evidence that Europeans do have a sense of shared identity, Eurobarometer reported in 2014 that 59% of Europeans recognise ‘European’ as some aspect of their identity. By contrast, ASEAN, NAFTA and Mercosur do not have the same depth of shared experiences or community, which restricts them from the highest levels of integration achieved by Europe. The lack of institutions in ASEAN and tradition of non-interference in domestic affairs are examples of this. The EU is very much a social construct as well as a legal and economic one, key to the EU’s level of integration.

Thirdly, I believe that unlike the South American, South East Asian or North American states, European states have a joint historical obligation towards cooperation, as a result of their long history of warfare. There have been countless European continental wars, from the 30 Years’ War during the 17^th Century, to the Napoleonic Wars, and the two World Wars. Pinker wrote in 2011 that no continent had seen as much violence as Europe.[7] Since the creation of the union in 1951 however, there have been no Europe-wide wars on the continent; Pinker further wrote that there has been no region in history as unaffected by violence as modern Europe. 70 years of peace in the context of Europe’s past is a monumental achievement then, and I believe it is this historical context that provides Europe’s leaders with justification for ever-deeper integration, in a way which other transnational communities do not have. As a further point, the past century of war also provided the economic context for the creation of the union. Mark Gilbert wrote that Europe was a total ruin after the Second World War,[8] and struggled to restore itself to the position its nations held prior to the conflict; the best solution in this new world was integrating politically and economically. This driving memory of war provides an emotional cause for integration that pushes Europe further, in a way that the East Asians and Americans simply do not have.

Finally, I believe it is arguable that the European situation has achieved greater results than the East Asian and American versions have. This is partly because of starting point; Europe was integrating passively prior to the First World War, at which time Europe was already highly developed, as opposed to many of the ASEAN nations or even Mercosur. Germany was already producing a quarter of the world’s coal in 1914,[9] and Britain was the industrial pioneer and for most of the 19^th Century the major industrial power in the world without rival. This has allowed the EU to achieve a GDP (PPP) of $19 trillion[10], whereas the Southeast Asian economies have only $3.6 trillion and Mercosur $4.2 trillion. Even NAFTA, despite having 2 of the world’s largest economies, has a GDP of only $20 trillion according to an IMF estimate in 2013. The IMF also reported in 2004 that NAFTA’s percentage of world exports still lagged behind the EU’s (18% to 38%).[11] Intra-EU trade also is much higher (70%) than in its rivals like ASEAN, where only Laos and Myanmar have a majority of trade with other ASEAN members. Intra-regional trade is key in the European success story, as it has allowed the Europeans to fully exploit their economic potential in a similar way to the US or China, as opposed to just a bloc of states, working together but not properly integrating. The result of this deeper economic integration is clear – EU states are likely to have had a 12% lower per capita income, had they not joined the EU, and annual growth rates were likely to be 1.2% smaller.[12]

From these four arguments, it is clear to see that there is a much more developed context and pre-existing groundwork to facilitate European integration, and allow it to go much further than any other part of the world. The length of the project, pre-existing experiences and history, historical obligation and potential benefits are all interlinked and thus greater than in the cases of NAFTA, Mercosur and even ASEAN. It can be argued that common experience and history is ultimately what Europe has the most of and this is crucial as the deepest levels of integration that Europe has achieved, including the Eurozone and the Schengen Area, rely on levels of trust which are created from common experiences. The implications of those 2 examples in particular are ones which will certainly require transfers of sovereignty and the sense of community required will necessitate high levels of trust. I believe these are levels of trust far beyond anything NAFTA or ASEAN could have achieved by now, and that ultimately is the reason why those regional blocs have not attained a European level of integration – because there is no common desire to, and no capability for such a project.

[1] Europa, “The History of the European Union”, http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/1945-1959/1948/index_en.htm (accessed 21st December, 2015)

[2] Jürgen Habermas, The Lure of Technocracy, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015) preface xi

[3] David Blackbourn, History of Germany 1780-1918: the long Nineteenth Century, 2^nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2015) 25

[4] Carl Strikwerda, The Troubled Origins of European Economic Integration: International Iron and Steel and Labour Migration in the Era of World War I: The American Historical Review, Vol. 98, No. 4 PDF (Oxford University Press, accessed 21^st December, 2015) 1106-1129

[5] Ben Rosamond, Theories of European Integration, (London: Macmillan Press, 2000) 43

[6] Jürgen Habermas, The Lure of Technocracy, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2015) 36

[7] Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of our Nature: why violence has declined, (New York: Penguin Books, 2012)

[8] Mark Gilbert, European Integration: A Concise History 2^nd ed. (London: Rowman & Littlefield, 2011) 10

[9] David Blackbourn, History of Germany 1780-1918: the long Nineteenth Century, 2^nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2015) 241

[10] International Monetary Fund, “World Economic Outlook Database, April 2015,” http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2015/01/weodata/weorept.aspx?pr.x=59&pr.y=6&sy=2015&ey=2015&scsm=1&ssd=1&sort=country&ds=.&br=1&c=998&s=NGDPD%2CPPPGDP%2CPPPPC&grp=1&a=1 (accessed 20th December, 2015)

[11] M. Ayhan Kose, Guy M. Meredith, Christopher M. Towe “How Has NAFTA Affected the Mexican Economy? Review and Evidence” IMF Working Paper PDF (accessed 21^st December, 2015) 7

[12] Royal Economic Society, “ECONOMIC BENEFITS FROM MEMBERSHIP OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: New estimates April 2014”, http://www.res.org.uk/details/mediabrief/6052141/ECONOMIC-BENEFITS-FROM-MEMBERSHIP-OF-THE-EUROPEAN-UNION-New-estimates.html (accessed 21st December, 2015)