National interest and the EEC/EC/EU

Abstract

The seven contributions of National interest and the EEC/EC/EU presented here are drawn from a round-table conference arranged by the Royal Norwegian Society of Science and Letters in September 1997 in Trondheim. The concept National interest bears on how the involved governments defined their respective great power-, security-, and economic interests in relation to the evolving European communities, the ECSC, Euratom, EEC, EC, EU. Divergences and rivalries concerning these matters have set the course and directed the development throughout the evolution of the communities from the formation of the Coal and Steel Community in 1952 till the EU of today. The contributions deal with Britain, France, Germany and the US in addition to two small countries, Denmark and Norway. All of them pose the question why a number of West European countries in principle accept a partial surrender of sovereignty to a supranational organisation and committed themselves to a policy harmonisation in specific areas. The ambition is to provide some tentative answers by highlighting the interrelation of internal and external interests in and between the above mentioned countries. Professor Alan S. Milward accounts for the historical perspective of the presentation in a historiographical introduction: Interpreting the European Union.

All the contributors have been associated with the Contemporary European History programme at the Department of History, NTNU, Trondheim. This programme is led by Professor Svein Dahl, Associate professor Hans Otto Frøland and Professor Alan S. Milward. It is partly financed by ARENA, Advanced Research on the Europeanisation of the Nation-state, a national research programme under the Norwegian Research Council.