Essay On European Integration

The European Union is based on a collection of treaties between the member states. The dynamic nature of EU polity, whose aims, policies, institutional structures and membership have been in a continuous and vibrant process of development and expansion for several decades, is all-pervasive in the history of the legal order of the Union. Generally, states chose to create the European Economic Community (EEC) and subsequently, for valid reasons made changes to the treaty. Constitutional and supranational cooperation between states was accentuated with the advent of the Single European Act (SEA) , the Maastricht, Amsterdam and Nice treaties. The inter-institutional disposition of power with the EU and substantive areas over which it has competence experienced significant changes. The element of supranationalisation shaped both institutional and substantive treaty amendments. This discussion sheds light on these realities.

The aftermath of the Second World War and the desire for peace in Europe contributed towards European integration and a new world of political cooperation based on the idea of a United Europe. In 1947, the USA announced the Marshall Plan to provide financial aid for Europe (Organisation for European Economic cooperation). In the 1948 Brussels Treaty between France, UK and the Benelux countries there are signs of early

For example, France, rather than agree to German rearmament within NATO proposed a European Defence Community with a European army, a Common Budget and joint institutions. Though the ECSC states signed the EDC Treaty, Britain refused to participate with the process towards ratification, bringing slow major setbacks for the integration process; here the result was the shelving of plans for defence and political union. It would be 39 years before member states ratified another treaty signed at Maastricht in 1992, claiming to establish a “European