Post World War II European Social Economy

In the years iimmediately following World War II, the nations of western Europe tried to preserve the form of the sovereign state along with much of their nationalist sentiment, but also made very real attempts to organize a "free Europe." The goal was to preserve national individuality while at the same time pool resourses and personnel in order to facilitate unobstructed "free" trade.

In 1952, as a first step, France, West Germany,and Italy joined Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg ("Benelux") in setting up the European Coal and Steel Community, which created for their coal and iron industries a free market area of all all six nations wherein a joint administrative body would make certain final and binding decisions without the participation of any governemtn officials. Each nation had given up just a bit of its sovereignty, but the plan was a success.

In 1957, under the Treaty of Rome, these same six countries established the European Economic Community (EEC), better known as the Common Market or sometimes simply as "the Six." This community was the beginning of closer economic union under a central administration composed of delegates from each partner nation. A defining feature of this union was that its administration had certain economic rights independent of the government of any one of the member nations. The arrangement also provided for increasing powers over trade, production, immigration, and other matters for the Common Market according to a very carefully planned schedule. It was envisioned that by the 1970s one common trading and producing society would be created along with a single market free from internal tariffs and a population of some 180 million or more. In effect, this would be substantially reminscent of the United States and would be equipped with equal economic skills and experience as well as similar "mixed" economies.

The years after 1957 saw great progress toward this new European social economy. The tourist by car or rail, remembering prewar delays at the frontiers of the six countries, was astonished to be able to pass freely and easily from one country to another just as an American could cross state lines in the United States or the Canadian-American border. However, difficulties soon arose in connection with the orderly and efficient carrying out of the schedule of reforms. Twice France vetoed Britain's proposed entry into the EEC and insisted on specific provisions favoring French farmers in the Common Market. The difficulty about a British part in any continental European social economy and supranational arrangement was very real indeed, as many of the British had historically regarded themselves as primarily part of the British Commonwealth and not as Europeans properly speaking. Just as real, perhaps, was France's long-standing antimony against Great Britain, undoubtedly fueling its two time veto of Britain's incorporation into the Common Market. As a result of these difficulties, in 1959 Great Britain set up the European Free Trade Association, often referred to as the "Outer Seven," with Britain, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Austria, Swtizerland, and Portugal as constituent members. A much looser arrangement that the European Common Market, it allowed each member to set its own external tariffs as it wished, thus protecting British "imperial preference" in favor of Commonwealth countires. Not until the disappearance of De Gaulle from the French political scene in 1969 did the possibility of British entry into the Common Market revive.