Did France and Germany Lead Europe? A Retrospect
Did France and Germany Lead Europe? A Retrospect
The exclusive reliance on the Franco-German relationship to provide EU leadership is misleading because it acted as the brake rather than the motor of integration. The Coal and Steel Community was a French initiative, with Monnet and Schuman the leaders and Adenauer's Germany as follower. De Gaulle successfully challenged Hallstein's supranational aspirations and then dominated the alliance with Adenauerm but failed to exercise intergovernmental leadership. Giscard d'Estaing and Helmut Schmidt launched the European Council to take over more of the leadership from the Commission. With Delors, the Mitterrand-Kohl cooperative hegemony of the 1980s prevailed but the 1989 reunification of Germany shifted the balance of power within the tandem. Thereafter, weaker national leaderships in France and Germany, in a context of enlargement, precluded joint EU leadership.
Keywords: Monnet, Schuman, Adenauer, de Gaulle, Hallstein, Giscard d'Estaing, Schmidt, Mitterrand, Kohl, hegemony
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