History is about explaining and understanding the past. However, interpreting the past is always difficult because it is at the mercy of the present and what we want to do with the future. The past is condemned to be assessed in terms of the events and circumstances which follow it. Our experience of the present impels us to rethink and reassess the past. History is, therefore, constantly reappraised and reinterpreted precisely because the past, present and future are inescapably intertwined. But scholarly historical analysis of this complex relationship must be distinguished from the political uses of history. As Francis H.Hinsley remarked, ‘People often study history less for what they might learn than for what they want to prove’.1 It is in this sense that recent historical revisionism concerning the origins and nature of post-war European integration must be judged.
Corrective zeal has its merits but in justifiably seeking to disprove and debunk much of the early history, often written by enthusiasts, the great danger is that revisionism can go too far. History itself then becomes the casualty.
Hinsley’s statement serves as a useful reminder of this danger. The motives of the revisionist historian and the particular approach which he or she employs are of crucial significance. In this chapter, I intend to investigate the nature of recent historical revisionism in the light of the European Community’s (EC) federal heritage.2 I want to look closely at some of the recent scholarly contributions to the debate about the origins and early development of European integration in order to clarify and assess the implications of this revisionism. I shall also attempt to ‘reappraise the reappraisals’ by restoring the significance of federalism to the building of Europe in the years between 1950 and 1972. My general hypothesis is that some of the historical revisionism has distorted our understanding of the driving forces and political influences behind European integration in its determination to challenge the myths and folklore in post-war European history. In this quest, which involves both historical reappraisal and theoretical reassessment, my underlying purpose is to reinstate federal political ideas, influences and strategies in the overall evolution of the EC during this period. My interpretation of the building of Europe in these
years is, therefore, intended to challenge those aspects of the recent historical revisionism which deny the importance of political ideas and visions entertained by particular statesmen, groups and movements in their search to change the nature of inter-state relations in postwar Europe. Let us begin our quest by looking first at the new orthodoxy recently established by both historians and political scientists.
History and theory: reappraisals reappraised
In an influential study first published in 1984, Alan Milward quickly became the standard-bearer of the new historical revisionism when he successfully challenged many of the hallowed conventional wisdoms related to the early post-war economic and political reconstruction of Europe.3 For our purposes here, it is necessary to focus only upon those aspects of the revisions which are relevant to federalism, federal theory and the federalists. We will start with a summary of Milward’s arguments which relate, however broadly, to these issues.
Milward’s basic purpose was to provide a comprehensive explanation of both the economic and political nature of the rebuilding process which occurred in Europe during 1945–51. His general conclusion, put simply, was that the success of Western Europe’s post-war reconstruction derived from the creation of ‘its own pattern of institutionalized international economic interdependence’.4 Based upon a detailed study of the available statistical information and archival research into official government records, the main arguments of the book were unavoidably confined to ‘the macroeconomic level’ which sought to explain ‘the way in which governments shaped the pattern of economic interdependence to suit their own national objectives’. The overall thrust of Milward’s impressive study which emphasized the pivotal role of national governments and their political and bureaucratic elites was clear: the very limited degree of integration that was achieved came about through the pursuit of the narrow self-interest of what were still powerful national states.5 There was no room at all for what he variously called the human idealism, idealism (s) and higher ideals of men like Adenauer, Schuman, Sforza, Spaak and Monnet.
According to Milward, previous writers had always failed to show through what political mechanisms the idealisms which supported west European integration ‘actually influenced governmental policy-making in the nation- states’. On the contrary, the evidence clearly indicated that the limited economic integration which had emerged had been created not by the espousal of high ideals but by national bureaucracies ‘out of the internal expression of national political interest’ rather than by ‘the major statesmen who implemented policy’.6
Another argument central to Milward’s iconoclastic purpose was his assertion that the origins and early evolution of the EC were relative and contingent rather than expressive of fundamental principles which might
be universal and timeless. Accordingly, the EC came into existence not as part of any grand design but merely ‘to cope with certain historically- specific and well-defined economic and political problems’. The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) and the EC itself were indispensable pillars of Europe’s continued economic prosperity but ‘each was and is designed to resolve a particular and limited, not a generalized and universal, problem’. There was, in short, ‘no necessary implication in any of these carefully controlled acts of economic integration that the supersession of the nation state was an inevitable continuing process.’ Moreover, the process of integration was
‘neither a thread woven into the fabric of Europe’s political destiny nor one woven into the destiny of all highly developed capitalist nation states’.7
In uncompromising language which foreshadowed the emergence of the so-called ‘liberal intergovernmentalist’ school of thought in the 1990s, Milward acknowledged that further steps in the direction of economic integration would have to be ‘equally specific to the resolution of economic and politicial problems not otherwise resolvable’. He conceded, however, that there might well be such problems in the future; the theoretical possibility therefore certainly existed that the pattern of integrative activity peculiar to the reconstruction period under review could be repeated.
Evidently what was necessary for this to happen was a conjunction of circumstances which would produce a durable consensus among west European governments sufficient to support new forms of international and/or supra-national organizations which would, like the ECSC, be created ‘as an arm of the nation states to do things which could not otherwise be achieved’ by themselves acting independently.8
This cursory survey of Milward’s vintage 1984 broadside against the prevailing historiography of the age explains why he was firmly placed in the realist category of scholars who emphasized the role of the national state in controlling the integration process. He was somewhat reticent about the precise nature of the relationship between ‘interdependence’ and
‘integration’ at this time, but his historical analysis of the latter, as it evolved between 1947 and 1951, conceded that it was ‘significantly different in form and final implication from anything previously seen’, even if it was not then possible to arrive at any firm conclusions about its nature and meaning.9 There remained more questions than answers. Nevertheless Milward’s reappraisal of post-war European integration chimed perfectly with the established intellectual position of the American realist, Stanley Hoffman, whose observations in 1982 had already reaffirmed the fundamental role of the EC in serving ‘not only to preserve the nation- states, but paradoxically to regenerate them and to adapt them to the world of today.’10 The EC was not involved in a zero-sum game with its constituent member states; rather, it corresponded to an ‘international regime’ of the sort originally identified in 1977 by Robert Keohane and
Joseph Nye which required ‘long-term reciprocation’ to survive in the world of international relations.11
In 1992, Milward’s entrenched position in the realist camp of scholars was reinforced when his subsequent historical study of the relationship between the EC and the national state in the 1950s was published. The central argument of this study was twofold: first, that the evolution of the EC since 1945 had been an integral part of the reassertion of the national state; and, second, that the very process of European integration had been a necessary part of the post-war rescue of the national state. Indeed ‘the EC only evolved as an aspect of that national reassertion and without it the reassertion might well have proved impossible’.12 The major reason for the origins, early evolution and the continued existence of the EC was quite straightforward: it was simply one more stage in the long evolution of the European state. And the economic historian in Milward could not resist the temptation to state categorically that ‘the true origins of the European Community are economic and social’.13
In order for him to pursue his twofold argument, Milward began by denouncing what he took to be a false assumption which had been absorbed into popular discussion, namely, the assumed antithesis between the EC and the national state. His view was that no such antithesis existed.
The EC and its constituent member states could coexist alongside each other quite easily. Indeed, since it was the national states that had created the EC, its subsequent evolution had been state-directed. Member state governments were in control of both the pace and the direction of European integration. Nevertheless, he acknowledged that this false assumption had endured and remained at the core of virtually every attempt at comprehensive theoretical explanations of the origins and evolution of the EC. According to Milward, it was historians who were to blame, by default of silence, for allowing this false assumption to continue to serve as the historical foundation for much theory-building. Moreover, much of the theory which had emerged was due to a predominantly ahistorical stance on the part of many of the enthusiasts of integration who were able to ‘argue as though there were no history whose influence could not be set aside with no more cost than an effort of will’.14
In a nutshell, then, Milward set himself an ambitious twofold task: first, to use historical evidence to triumph over the prevailing but inadequate theories of European integration; and, second, to attempt to replace them with a new theoretical explanation which was rooted in ‘a new set of assumptions in conformity with the facts which historical research has brought to light’.15 This, he believed, would enable him to reconcile two dominant aspects of European history in the last half-century: the reassertion of the national state as the fundamental organizational unit of political, economic and social existence with the undeniable surrender of limited areas of national sovereignty to the EC. Milward’s conclusions confirmed his original hypothesis that the EC was the European rescue of
the national state. The cumulative surrenders of national sovereignty during the 1950s were just one aspect, albeit the most important one, of the successful reassertion of the national state as the basic organizational unit of Europe. The new theory which he claimed to have constructed rested upon the historical evidence assembled from the official archives located in eight different countries as well as those of the EC itself. It boiled down to what he called ‘an open-ended theory’ based upon the nature of national domestic policy choices which did not forecast any particular outcome but allowed for several possibilities. The theory suggested that the broad choices available to EC member state governments between either a framework of interdependence or an integrationist framework depended entirely upon a series of strategic decisions leading to a convergence of national policy choices. The theory’s greatest merit was that it fitted ‘the historical facts’.16
This important scholarly contribution to the history and theory of European integration was bolstered and enriched in 1993 when Milward and his colleagues, working at the European University Institute in Florence (EUI), Italy, extended their historical analysis from the 1950s into the early 1990s. This project was an intellectually bold but risky attempt to persist with the pursuit of the goal toward which Milward was already moving, namely, the construction of a theory of integration derived from empirical research into Europe’s own history. The problem with investigating the historical evidence of recent events, however, was recognised at the outset: it was ‘not yet susceptible to a full analysis’.17 But Milward et al. were undaunted by this obstacle and concluded their brief survey of the early 1990s convinced that these developments in European integration did not seem in any way to modify their original hypotheses about either the process of integration or the EC itself; rather, they served to confirm them.18 But what was vitally necessary nonetheless remained seemingly unattainable, namely, a theory which could actually predict the future nature of national policy choices. Accordingly, the only predictive value of a theory derived from historically-based research would be ‘that once national policies were specified, their international consequences for the nation-state could be specified’.19
The crucial theoretical significance of this was that European integration contained no inherent logic or momentum which was driving the national state inexorably forward toward a supra-national or federal denouement.
The national state had surrendered its sovereignty to the EC only gradually and in piecemeal fashion, with certain limited and specific purposes in mind. And this itself suggested that the frontier of national sovereignty, which was approached within varying distances by national policy choices, remained essentially where it had been fixed in 1952 and 1957.20 All that could be realistically postulated, based upon the existing empirical evidence, was actually a recommendation to both politicians and Euro- enthusiasts: to descend to the detail of the relationship of each specific
policy proposal to the available international frameworks for advancing it.21 In other words, public support for European integration could best be promoted and sustained by relating each national policy choice to the appropriate international framework deemed necessary to implement it.
Mass publics could then relate the achievement of national policy goals directly to the existence of the EC.
What are we to make of this impressive historical revisionism? How does it impinge upon the relationship between federalism and European integration and what impact does it have upon the historical role of the federalists themselves in their drive toward a federal Europe? Clearly there is much in Milward’s sceptical reappraisal of both the history and the mainstream theories of European integration that helps us to understand better the driving-forces and centripetal pressures propelling the national state toward the building of Europe. He has explained and clarified what was previously unclear. But while he is quite right to expose and criticize the blatant over-simplifications and value judgements embodied in some of the earlier accounts of European integration, his approach to the subject is not without its own problems and pitfalls.
The first problem with this searching reappraisal is the methodology and sources used to arrive at conclusions of such far-reaching historical and theoretical significance. Milward’s heavy reliance upon official records and statistical information as the dominant basis for his arguments and interpretations meant that his conclusions were to some extent selffulfilling prophecies. If the historian who is already self-consciously revisionist is compelled to rely heavily upon official documentary evidence it is hardly surprising if he/she reaches conclusions which reflect what is ‘available official evidence’ and fails to appreciate the significance of the wider political context within which policy is decided. In short, the political environment is equally significant. One consistent thread which characterizes each of these revisionist contributions is the obsession with
‘historical facts’. Like the stiff, inflexible and dictatorial schoolmaster, Thomas Gradgrind, in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times, there is a relentless pursuit of the ‘facts’—facts, facts and more facts—as if they existed in objective isolation from their political and historical contexts. Milward, to be fair, does acknowledge this problem as the most obvious limitation of historical research as a conscious test of political theory. The standard 30- year rule for the release of historical records is clearly the most difficult obstacle to overcome. This is perfectly understandable. However, the attempt to utilize an historically-based hypothesis which was originally rooted in the early post-war years to explain events in the early 1990s suggests more than a little optimism about the capacity of historical method to bear the weight of such scholarly expectations. In short, Milward’s ambitious goal of seeking to construct an historically-based theory of integration which would have predictive value is bedevilled by the acknowledged need to support it with ‘a further theory which could predict
the choice of national domestic policies’ because ‘the process of integration is not separable from the evolution of domestic politics’.22
The implications for federalism and the federalists of this approach to the history and theory of European integration are palpably obvious. His acknowledgement that he deliberately ‘set aside the great body of popular, semi-popular and synthetic literature’ about the evolution of the EC and that ‘politicians leave few traces’ in west European government records effectively blinds Milward to other important rival influences and pressures for political change.23 Indeed, it makes the federalists and others that wanted a more binding and integrated EC almost invisible. It consigns them to oblivion as if their existence was simply irrelevant. This is the dangerous result of a kind of barefoot historical empiricism which recognises only the ‘facts’ derived from official sources. Aside from the presumption that we know precisely what an historical ‘fact’ is and that it is incontestable, it enables the historian virtually to dismiss as mere
‘idealism’ the combined influence and impact of such giants of the integration process as Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet, Alcide De Gasperi, Paul-Henri Spaak, Walter Hallstein, Konrad Adenauer and Johan Willem Beyen.
In a ferocious attack in 1992 on the historical significance of the socalled
‘European saints’, Milward railed against the hagiographers, fabulists and theologians who had dominated the historiography of European integration. As an antidote to this kind of propagandist history, he juxtaposed the weighty empirical evidence of a history culled from the accessible memoranda of national bureaucrats against the impressionistic and fragmentary perceptions of the founding fathers of the EC. The imperative was to arrive at an accurate understanding of their role, unobscured by the received and heavily contaminated accounts of their disciples and apologists. This corrective zeal was, once again, perfectly justifiable. Indeed, it was essential to put the record straight. But it is also important to be clear about what it was that Milward wanted so desperately to challenge and correct. A close analysis of his critique of ‘the lives and teachings of the European saints’ suggests that his main purpose was twofold: first, to expose the colossal over-simplifications and value judgements which purported to be accurate, objective historical accounts of the building of Europe by a small band of leading statesmen imbued with a shared, if grandiose, vision; and, second, to demolish the widely-held presumption that these men fervently believed in the ultimate dissolution of the national state as a direct consequence of European integration. He largely succeeded in achieving both of these goals. But his assertion that so few of these men ‘achieved anything of political significance’ remains a quite untenable position when we look at the concrete progress of post-war European integration.24 On the contrary, the collective achievements of men like Monnet, Schuman, Beyen and Spaak in this cause have been of lasting significance.