From Thursday 27 till Saturday 29 October 2005, the European Community Liaison Committee of Historians organises a research conference at the University of Groningen, Netherlands. The venue is the Senaatszaal of the main Academic Building in the city centre of Groningen. The general topic concerns the development of European co-operation and integration in the period 1969-1975, roughly covering the years from the Hague summit to the creation of the European Council and the inauguration of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt. By the late 1960s the EC customs union was realised and implemented and - following the resignation of president De Gaulle - the Hague summit sought to provide a new integration stimulus by launching an ambitious triptych aimed at ‘widening, deepening and completing’ the Community. This specifically concerned the enlargement of membership with Britain, Denmark and Ireland, the tabling of proposals for EPC and EMU and the introduction of own resources for the Community. The Groningen research conference attempts to gauge the extent to which the expectations underlying the 1969 triptych (also called ‘the spirit of The Hague’) have been met and fulfilled during the six years under discussion. It is common knowledge that with the start of the oil crisis in 1973 the EC entered a dark era, dominated by stagnation, pessimism and even disintegration. This was accompanied by international monetary problems - following the collapse of the Bretton Woods system - and by intra-European skirmishes related to the UK’s entry into the Community. The post-war development of sustained economic growth came to a standstill. The conference thus covers a time characterised by fundamental - mostly unfavourable - changes in the international environment. We try to find out at what moment the European leaders discovered that - at least part of - the Hague goals had proved too ambitious and needed to be re-adapted, and how they dealt with this contingency. We also hope to discover to what extent the rising trend of pessimism was justified, in years that also witnessed the creation of the European Council, the growing acceptance of Ostpolitik, the realisation of a common European stance at the Helsinki negotiations, the start of regional and social policies and the signing of the Lomé Convention.

The conference in Groningen is the chronological successor to two previous research conferences organised by the Liaison Group: the 1996 Oxford meeting dealing with the early years (Rome Treaty till De Gaulle’s first veto of British membership) and the 1999 Essen meeting covering the subsequent period 1963-1969. The practical reason for the chronological focus is the availability of new archival material declassified for research ends. Given the existence of a thirty year embargo on consultation of government archives in most of the member countries, it has become possible now to investigate the period until 1975.

The conference programme is divided into five sessions:

1. The emergence of European summitry and its consequences for the Community’s institutional balance;
   
2. The first enlargement: the negotiations and their outcome;
   
3. The beginning of the European Political Co-operation (EPC) process;
   
4. America’s ‘Year of Europe’ and the development of European identity;
   
5. The development of the EC’s social, regional, agricultural and energy policies.
   
   

The sessions comprise a total of 18 papers presented by prominent researchers in the field.

For more information, please contact:

Jan van der Harst
Department of International Relations
University of Groningen
P.O. Box 716
NL-9700 AS Groningen
Netherlands

j.van.der.harst@let.rug.nl

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Programme

Groupe de Liaison conference, 27-29 October 2005, Senaatszaal, Main Academic Building, University of Groningen

Thursday 27 October, 15.00 - 18.00

Theme: Enlargement - candidates, new members and views from abroad

Chair: W. Loth (Essen)

• F. Guirao (Barcelona), ‘A critical analysis of EC relations with Spain, 1970-77’
  
• L. Coppolaro (EUI Florence), ‘The United States and EEC enlargement: reaffirming the Atlantic framework’
  
• H. Parr (Keele), ‘The political aspects of Britain’s policy towards the European Community, 1970-1973’
  
• A.S. Milward (London), ‘“The price of having no alternative”. The entry of the UK into the European Community’.
  
  

Discussant: J. Laursen (Arhus)

Friday 28 October, 9.30 - 12.00

Theme: Deepening - the EC’s foreign policy, security and defence

Chair: A.G. Harryvan (Groningen)

• W. Loth (Essen), ‘European Political Union and European Security’
  
• P. Deloge (Louvain-la-Neuve) and D. Burigana (Padova), ‘La “candidature” britannique à la coopération des Six dans le domaine des armements (1967-1973): un exemple de stratégie périphérique?’
  
• A. Wilkens (Metz), ‘Intégration européenne et politique de détente: la conception de Willy Brandt’
  
• A. Romano (Florence), ‘The Nine and the Conference of Helsinki: a challenging game with the Soviets’
  
  

Discussant: A. Deighton (Geneva)

Friday 28 October, 13.30 - 15.30

Theme: The EC’s identity, the Year of Europe and the United States

Chair: J.W. Brouwer (Nijmegen)

• C. Hiepel (Essen), ‘Kissinger’s “Year of Europe”. A challenge for the EC and the Franco-German axis’
  
• P. Winand (EUI Florence), ‘America’s Year of Europe and the European challenge’
  
• C.M. Megens (Groningen), ‘European identity as the result of a transatlantic debate in 1973/74’
  
  

Discussant: K. Schwabe (Aachen)

Friday 28 October, 16.00 - 18.00

Theme: Completion and deepening - the EC’s agricultural, social, regional and educational policies

Chair: M. Dumoulin (Louvain-la-Neuve)

• G. Thiemeyer (Kassel), ‘The Mansholt plan, the definite financing of the CAP and the enlargement of the Community, 1969-1973’
  
• A. Varsori and L. Mechi (Padova), ‘At the origins of European structural policy: the EEC social and regional policies from the late 1960s till the mid-1970s’
  
• S. Paoli (Florence), ‘Building a European cultural and educational model: another face of the integration process, 1969-1974’
  
  

Discussant: G. Bossuat (Cergy-Pontoise)

Saturday 29 October, 9.30 - 12.00

Theme: The EC’s institutional development - from The Hague to the Tindemans report

Chair: G. Trausch (Luxembourg)

• J.H. Meyer (Mainz), ‘Europeanising public spheres? British, French and German newspapers views on the summits of The Hague (1969) and Paris (1974)’
  
• M. Rasmussen (Copenhagen), ‘State power and the acquis communautaire in the European Community of the early 1970s – an institutional analysis’
  
• M. Dumoulin (Louvain-la-Neuve), ‘L’élaboration du rapport Tindemans’
  
• J. Sikora (Köln), ‘The EU as a promoter of “A Citizen’s Europe”. The impact of the Tindemans report on the European constitution’
  
  

Discussant: M.T. Bitsch (Strasbourg)