The Netherlands and the Integration of Europe 1945-1957 [antikvár]

PREFACE It scarcely seems necessary to justify a book of this kind in historical terms. The Netherlands was among the six founders of the European Coal and Steel Community established by the Treaty of Paris in 1951 and was also one of the same six nations which agreed to the creation of EURATOM and the European Economic Community by signing the Treaties of Rome in 1957. Although the Coal and Steel Community and EURATOM have faded now from public attention, from its inception the Economic Community has gone from strength to strength. Whatever charges its critics may lay against it, "invisibility" has never been one of them. In terms of commodity trade and, later, external currency management, to name but two examples, Brussels has provided the framework and the content for policy discussion among its increasing membership. Since the signing of the single European Act and the propaganda drive towards "1992", the European Commission under the presidency of Jacques Delors has never been far from the public eye. The Netherlands, therefore, was one of the founders of a set of institutional arrangements and trade and competition rules etc., which did not wither under the economic boom of the 1960's, as did the OECD and which did not collapse under the impact of oil crises, inflation and recession of the 1970's, as did the Bret-ton Woods system and the IMF. The Rome treaties may not have fulfdled the hopes of those who had wanted the creation of a united Europe, but the off-spring is still alive and kicking. Loaded from the start with the aspirations of European federalists, the creation of the EEC has, unlike most other institutional arrangements emerging after the Second World War, picked up more than its fair share of subsequent mythology. This is partly because much of the writing of its early history has been inspired by those who, at the time, had hoped for a united Europe, preached a united Europe