ENG ELC 220 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Nato, Single European Act, Warsaw Pact
14 Oct 2020
School
Department
Course
Professor
This summary has been made by Hannah Oettrich, Mara van Lidth, Marie-Marie Jacob, Gaël Ferier
and Roman Massion – All rights reserved – March 21, 2018
European & Global Politics
A6 The collapse of Communism
Anderson – The European Union, the Soviet Union, and the End of the Cold War
Summary (p.253)
• Impact end Cold War on EU: triggered avalanche of applications from neutral states and ex-
Communist Central and Eastern Europe countries
• Single market programme + Single European Act (SEA) = European integration
➔ May have hasten reform movement in Central/Eastern Europe + Collapse Soviet Union
Introduction (p.254)
- ‘50s European integration project as a response to two threats
o German question: bind Germany to the West to prevent it starting another war
o Establish a zone of stable prosperity, with US support, against the Soviet threat
- Soviet Union’s extension of sphere of influence in Central & Eastern Europe + East Germany
→ May have fostered European Union.
→ Had the Soviet-dominated Eastern bloc not emerged, would West European elites have
moved with the same pace (vitesse) towards a common market with supranational political
aspirations?”
- 1980s events: relaunch of the European project in the form of the Single European Act;
reform communism emanating from Moscow and pulsing throughout the Eastern bloc; the
collapse of the Berlin Wall; German unification; the end of the cold war; the demise of the
Soviet Union
- Acceleration of European economic and political integration in the 1980s
→
role in collapse
Soviet empire?
In turn, collapse SU
→
Intensification integration 1990s?
East-West relations in Europe, 1945-85 (p.255)
- End 40s – 50s: Bloc rivalry in IR
o North Atlantic Treaty Organization (‘49) vs. Warsaw Pact alliance (‘55)
(military)
o Marshall Plan (‘47) vs. Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA/Comecon)
(‘49) (economic)
- CMEA:
➢ Purpose: coordination plans (trade) among Soviet bloc (including Cuba, Mongolia and
Vietnam) and set common economic projects
➢ No principle of supranationality. Active leadership SU → Other member states limited
decision-making power
- Key role of FRD (Federal Republic of Germany; W-Germany) in East-West conflict
o 1970 Ostpolitik: FRD foreign policy towards SU = establishment of a regional détente
→ promote a German unification
- Mid 1980s: Twin movement: W-European integration and Eastern bloc disintegration
View from the East (p.256)
This summary has been made by Hannah Oettrich, Mara van Lidth, Marie-Marie Jacob, Gaël Ferier
and Roman Massion – All rights reserved – March 21, 2018
- CMEA hostile towards EC until 1962: non-recognition + attempt to bloc EC participation in
international organizations and conventions. → EC did not care, was too concentrated on the
establishment of the common market and the common agricultural policy (CAP)
- 1962 recognition as an economic and political reality → To show to recalcitrant allies the
benefits of deeper integration?
- Economic inefficiency + widening gap with EC → Initiatives to implement reform socialism
within Eastern bloc, esp. HUN & CZESLO → Supposed to improve production efficiency
through introduction of new techniques + political liberalization
➔ Demand for better pol and economic relationships with EC
➔ First need better internal cooperation within CMEA
- End 1960s: Western firms and governments look for new markets in a context of
international competition and economic instability → Increase relations with SU (trade,
technological exchange)
The EC’s response (p.258)
- European Commission could no longer ignore the Western economic involvement in the East
→ Demand for greater degree of coordination on commercial policy (including that directed
towards CMEA)
- 2 developments strengthened the collective actions vis-à-vis CMEA countries
o 1970 European Political Cooperation to improve foreign policy coordination
emerged out of Germany’s Ostpolitik
o 1974 Helsinki Accords after Conference on Security and Cooperation: Legitimacy of
human and minority rights in Europe and indirect support to the political dissident
movements in Poland and Czechoslovakia
- 1974 Plan to introduce a notification and consultation procedure for economic cooperation
and trade agreements with CMEA and oil-producing countries. Why? To regulate
uncontrolled competition among EC member states for contracts with partners in these
regions.
- New approach of the EC to Eastern bloc based on relations between EC and individual
members of the CMEA, not as a collectivity. → Mistrust/Suspicion CMEA: attempt to divide
and conquer
- 1976-77: ROM and POL formal individual negotiations with EC over textile import
East and West, 1985-90 (p.260)
- 1980s ferment reform in EC and CMEA + warming CMEA towards EC → but decline of trade
and economic cooperation
➔ Why? Eastern bloc had accumulated external debt + unable to compete in global
markets for manufactured goods
- 1987 SEA
➢ Major step Western European integration
➢ Completion of the internal market for Dec 31, 1992 + extension QMV in Council of
Ministers & ‘cooperation procedure’ for European Parliament → Break with 1966
Luxembourg Compromise and consensual decision-making
➢ Top-down
➢ Causes: Reaction to economic challenges posed by Japan and US; cold war ‘no discernible
part’ (p.260)
This summary has been made by Hannah Oettrich, Mara van Lidth, Marie-Marie Jacob, Gaël Ferier
and Roman Massion – All rights reserved – March 21, 2018
- Third industrial revolution in US, W-EU, Asia → SU increasingly left behind in economy and
technology
➔ Reform movements and initiatives in POL, HUN and SU
➢ Gorbachev’s perestroika: Economic reform. Complete modernization of the
socialist economy. Behind US and Asia technologically and economically.
Dependant on access to Western technology
➔ Mid-1980s: Gorbachev’s campaign for closer ties with W-Eu countries and esp. W-
Germany. “Common European Home”: willingness of normalization of Russia in Europe
and reunification of the continent
➢ Divided response in W-Eu: Germany enthusiast; UK mistrust, FR scared that
unified Germany which would leave EC
German unification (p.262)
- People from Eastern Germany chanting “We are the people!” and demanding basic human
rights were brutalized by East German police. Many came over to the West as refugees
- 8 November Kohl called for all-German dialogue in a state-of-the-nation address to
parliament and demanded all-powerful Communist Party in E-Germany to allow the
formation of independent political parties
- 9 November 1989 unexpected collapse of the Berlin Wall
➔ The unification question on the top of the political agenda.
- Failure of E-German reformers to develop a socialist alternative, path between Western
capitalism and Eastern communism
- Nov 28, 1989 Kohl’s “Ten Point Plan for German Unity”. Statement resonated with East
German citizens, who demanded rapid change.
- March 18, 1990: Referendum on unification. E-Germany voted YES
- 1 July 1990: German economic, social and monetary union
- October 1990: East-Germany was dissolved
- Reactions neighbours
➢ GB: cautious against a hasty resolution of the German Question
➢ France: German unification is legally and politically impossible
Conclusion (p.268)
• Integration and ascendance in the West coincided with disintegration and decline in the East
• After WWII, Western Europe’s approach to the SU was based on dual principles of
containment and co-existence → No real common foreign policy
• West played a role of model for the East, being ‘free and prosperous’ (economically and in
technology)
• Break-up Eastern bloc → Enlargement to Central & Eastern Europe
➔ The continent is much closer to being ‘a common European home’ than Gorbachev could
possibly have envisioned.
Document Summary
Anderson the european union, the soviet union, and the end of the cold war. Impact end cold war on eu: triggered avalanche of applications from neutral states and ex- Communist central and eastern europe countries: single market programme + single european act (sea) = european integration. May have hasten reform movement in central/eastern europe + collapse soviet union. 50s european integration project as a response to two threats: german question: bind germany to the west to prevent it starting another war, establish a zone of stable prosperity, with us support, against the soviet threat. Soviet union"s extension of sphere of influence in central & eastern europe + east germany. Had the soviet-dominated eastern bloc not emerged, would west european elites have moved with the same pace (vitesse) towards a common market with supranational political aspirations? . Acceleration of european economic and political integration in the 1980s role in collapse.
