Reluctant EuropeanPub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198840671.003.0003
S. Wall
{"title":"The Price of Victory","authors":"S. Wall","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840671.003.0003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840671.003.0003","url":null,"abstract":"Post-war Labour and Conservative governments saw the UK’s global interests as lying primarily with the United States and the Commonwealth. They took no part in the formation of the European Coal and Steel Community or in the proposed European Defence Community, though, when the EDC idea foundered, Prime Minister Anthony Eden played a prominent role in promoting European defence, just as Labour Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin had done in fostering the establishment of NATO. The British sent only an observer to the Messina Conference (1956) that negotiated the terms of the Treaty of Rome establishing the European Community (EEC). The UK set up its own trading bloc (EFTA) but it could not compete politically or economically with the EEC and, in 1961, the government of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan applied for EEC membership, despite the opposition of France’s President de Gaulle.","PeriodicalId":169467,"journal":{"name":"Reluctant European","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114778800","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Reluctant EuropeanPub Date : 2020-09-24DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198840671.003.0012
S. Wall
{"title":"Brave New World?","authors":"S. Wall","doi":"10.1093/oso/9780198840671.003.0012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198840671.003.0012","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter analyses the implications of Brexit for the UK and the issues facing the EU without the UK. It assesses the costs to the UK in terms of economics and loss of influence on decisions affecting key UK interests. It concludes that the UK is bound to be diminished, but that the EU will also feel the loss of UK influence on economic liberalization, in overseas aid and in foreign policy. The Eurozone will survive but its difficulty in making progress towards a fiscal union will also make it harder for a core grouping to emerge. In seeking to set a common vision for the EU, President Macron of France is so far a lonely voice. For the author, the EU offers a means of managing the relations between potentially querulous neighbours and of entrenching and sharing democratic values. There will be tangible, and less immediately obvious, losses to the UK.","PeriodicalId":169467,"journal":{"name":"Reluctant European","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133971907","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}