The Hague Summit 1969

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The Hague Summit was a summit meeting of the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the European Communities on December 1 and 2, 1969 in The Hague . The occasion of the conference was the expiry of the twelve-year contractual development phase of the EEC (ex Art. 8 EECV). Far-reaching political decisions were made about the further development of the communities. The Hague Conference initiated all the important European political issues of the 1970s: the financial constitution of the community with its own income, creation of an economic and monetary union, completion of the common agricultural policy , expansion to include Great Britain and other states, establishment of European political cooperation (EPC) and examining direct elections to the European Parliament. The Hague Summit was the first politically significant summit meeting of all heads of state and government of the EC and thus the forerunner of the European Council established as a regular body in 1974 . First of all, there were annual "summit conferences" of the EC heads of state and government as the executive body. At the suggestion of Giscard d'Estaing, the 1974 summits were transformed into a European Council of Heads of State and Government, which met at least twice a year. From this, in 1987, the European Council was anchored in the Treaty within the framework of the EEA (Art. 2) .

prehistory

At the end of the 1960s, the European Communities found themselves in their first serious crisis: From July 1965 to January 1966, France had blocked the development of the Community with the policy of the empty chair , as this enabled the transition to majority decisions in the EC Council of Ministers as well as the Tried to prevent introduction of own financial means of the European commission for the common agricultural policy . While the dispute over the decision-making process in the Luxembourg Compromise had been settled in early 1966, the funding problem continued to smolder.

In addition, there has been a constant conflict since the early 1960s over the planned expansion of the communities to include the United Kingdom and other EFTA states (particularly Denmark and Norway ) as well as Ireland . While most members of the communities welcomed this enlargement, France, under President Charles de Gaulle , rejected it , fearing that it would lose influence in the community and, through the special relationship between Great Britain and the USA, the project of a European political union as the third Saw power between the USA and the USSR at risk. Two applications for membership by Great Britain were therefore unsuccessful in 1963 and 1967 due to the French veto .

A third problem area was the further development of the communities. A need for action was seen in the coordination of foreign and currency policy in particular after the beginning of the Vietnam War in 1964 led to an intensification of the Cold War and the problems of the Bretton Woods system became clear with the US insolvency in 1969 .

In this situation there were changes of government in both Germany and France in 1969: Willy Brandt replaced Kurt Georg Kiesinger as Federal Chancellor; Georges Pompidou succeeded Charles de Gaulle as French President. This made it easier for Pompidou to attempt a political “fresh start” on July 10, 1969 with his proposal for a summit of European heads of state and government to resolve the unanswered questions in the areas of “completion, deepening and enlargement”. Since the Netherlands was currently holding the presidency of the EC Council of Ministers in the second half of 1969 , this conference finally took place on 1/2. December in The Hague . While only the heads of state and government of the communities met on the first day, the President of the European Commission, Jean Rey, was also included in the meeting on the second day .

Results of the summit

completion

In the area of ​​completing the common agricultural policy, the European heads of state and government agreed in their final communiqué to move “from the transitional period to the final phase of the European Community” and to gradually introduce financing from the Commission's own resources. France thus yielded in the demands it had been making since 1965.

deepening

For the further expansion of the community, the summit participants agreed on the establishment of two commissions, one of which, under the leadership of Luxembourg Prime Minister Pierre Werner, was to develop a step-by-step plan for the introduction of a common European currency. The second commission, headed by the Belgian diplomat Étienne Davignon, was supposed to develop proposals on how the foreign policy of the EC states could be coordinated. In addition, it was decided for the first time to expand the European Parliament's budgetary powers.

extension

Finally, the European heads of state and government acknowledged their "agreement on the principle of the enlargement of the Community, as provided for in Article 237 of the Rome Treaty". However, a condition for the accession of new states was their recognition of the acquis communautaire that had arisen since the founding of the communities . It was also agreed that before the accession negotiations, the EC states would first develop a common basis for negotiations. This made it clear that the accession of new states would in principle only be possible on the terms of the EC states - which was against the possible plans of Great Britain on the one hand to join the communities, but on the other hand to continue to have a global foreign policy independent of them with special relations with the USA and the Commonwealth of Nations to operate.

consequences

With the summit in The Hague, the European Communities succeeded in breaking out of the crisis of the 1960s and triggering a new phase of intensified integration. The most important of the resolutions passed were implemented in the following years: In 1970, for example, own funds were introduced to finance the common agricultural policy, which were derived from the value added tax levied in all member states, of which 1 percent now had to be paid directly to the European Commission. The European Parliament, together with the Council, was given budgetary authority over Community expenditure, but only on so-called 'non-compulsory' expenditure (i.e. all expenditure except for agricultural policy, which at that time accounted for over 90% of the total budget).

Both the Werner and Davignon Commissions presented their final reports in 1970. The Werner Plan , which provided for the gradual introduction of a common currency, was adopted by the Council of Ministers on March 22, 1971. However, it ultimately failed as a result of the global economic and currency crisis, which in 1972 also led to the collapse of the Bretton Woods system , and was finally replaced by the less ambitious currency snake. The Davignon report led to the establishment of the (initially non-institutionalized) European Political Cooperation , an intergovernmental coordination of the EC states in the field of foreign policy. Although the EPZ was only informal and purely voluntary, it led to certain foreign policy successes in the 1970s, such as the common position of the EC states at the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe 1973-75.

After the passing of the Werner and Davignon reports, the accession negotiations with Great Britain and the other EFTA states that were willing to join began at the end of 1970, but - also due to the tough negotiating position of the EC - they dragged on for over a year. It was not until January 1972 that the Accession Treaties were finally signed, which led to the first enlargement of the communities to include Great Britain , Denmark and Ireland on January 1, 1973.

The collapse of the Bretton Woods system and the 1973 oil crisis soon led the communities back into serious difficulties and led to the phase of Eurosclerosis , in which European unification stagnated until the mid-1980s. Nonetheless, the Hague Summit became a model for overcoming integration crises. Similar summits of heads of state and government were therefore repeated in Paris in 1972 and in Copenhagen in 1973 . At the Paris summit in 1974 it was finally decided to hold meetings of the European heads of state and government three times a year, which were now known as the European Council .

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