Michael Gehler

From Paneurope to the Single Currency: Recent Studies on the History of European Integration

Mark Gilbert, Surpassing Realism. The Politics of European Integration since 1945 (Landham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 276 pp.,

From Non-alignment to Neutrality: Austria's Transformation during the First East-West Detente, 1953-1958

26.95, ISBN 0742519147. John Gillingham, European Integration 1950–2003: Superstate or New Market Economy? (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 588 pp., £47.50, ISBN 0521012627. Gilles Grin, The Battle of the Single European Market. Achievements and Economics 1985–2000 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 375 pp.,

A Study in Ambivalence: Austria and European Integration 1945–95

144.50, ISBN 0710309384. Wolf D. Gruner, and Wichard Woyke, Europa-Lexikon. Lander – Politik – Institutionen (Munich: Beck, 2004), 505 pp., €19.90, ISBN 3406494250. S TEVEN VAN H ECKE and E MMANUEL G ERARD , eds., Christian Democratic Parties in Europe since the End of the Cold War , KADOC Studies on Religion, Culture and Society 1 (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2004), 343 pp., €29.00, ISBN 9058673774. Guido Muller, Europaische Gesellschaftsbeziehungen nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg. Das Deutsch-Franzosische Studienkomitee und der Europaische Kulturbund (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 2005), 525 pp., €54.80, ISBN 3486577360. Anita Ziegerhofer, Botschafter Europas. Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi und die Paneuropa-Bewegung in den zwanziger und dreisiger Jahren (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: Boehlau, 2004), 587 pp., €69.00, ISBN 3205772122. Anita Ziegerhofer, Europaische Integrationsgeschichte unter besonderer Berucksichtigung des osterreichischen Weges nach Brussel (Innsbruck: Studienverlag, 2004), 235 pp., €19.00, ISBN 3706519046.

At the Heart of Integration: Understanding National European Policy

This article deals with Austria during the first phase of dtente from 1953 to 1958, a period in which the country was still formally under Four-Power control. The article recounts and analyzes the conclusion of the Austrian State Treaty (and Austrias accompanying declaration of neutrality) in 1955 and the positions taken by Austria during the crises in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956, and Lebanon in 1958. Austrias neutrality was spurred not so much by the Cold War as by the East-West thaw after Stalins death. Neutrality helped usher in a remarkably successful period of national self-assertion that facilitated Austrias efforts at nation building.

Austria and European integration, 1947–60: Western orientation, neutrality and free trade

During the Cold War era the smaller states in Western Europe were confronted with numerous external pressures. These included most of all the need for closer economic co-operation within Western Europe to sustain the process of post-war economic and political reconstruction and the impact on Europe of the confrontation between the new superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The responses of the smaller states to these external pressures varied considerably between two poles: on the one hand, a policy of active integration, with common policies and the transfer of at least some degree of national sovereignty to common institutions, and, on the other, a policy of neutrality, either chosen freely or initially forced upon, to retain as much decision-making autonomy as possible, while safeguarding core economic interests through intergovernmental co-operation. The choice of strategy depended not only on the character and degree of the external political pressures, but also on the respective historical preconditions and on what domestic and external aims the smaller states hoped to achieve with their policies.

Imperien, Weltmächte und Weltherrschaft in Oswald Spenglers Gedankenwelt

After World War II European integration became crucially necessary for the reconstruction of the nation-states of Europe, if not for their outright ‘rescue’, as Alan S. Milward (1992) argued somewhat provocatively in his book European Rescue of the Nation-State. The nation-states founded the present-day European Union (EU), and they are still its main supporters. The economic difficulties of reconstruction and the decolonization shock of the 1950s complicated integration. In the 1970s international economic slumps, turbulence in the currency markets and political crises impeded greater progress in integration. These problems in turn led to repeated attempts to reassert the nation-state and national sovereignty within the present-day EU. Subsequently, rapid industrial and technological development across the world and the emergence of new economic and trading powers onwards required the full implementation of the common market in the form of the single market programme, combined with increased pooling of national sovereignty in the Single European Act (SEA) and the Maastricht Treaty on European Union.

Austria in the European Union

The purpose of this paper is to analyze Austrias role in the early days of European integration. This includes the attempt to find a European solution to the South Tyrol problem and the first steps towards the economys Western orientation, that is, Austrias participation in the Marshall Plan, its OEEC and EPU memberships as well as its relationship with the Council of Europe and the ECSC. International relations determined Austrias room for manoeuvre in its efforts to obtain independence. This excluded EEC membership. The Ballhausplatz was thus striving for a European Free Trade Area. The role of the political parties are also covered in this paper. A further objective is to examine Austrias integration policy and the contrasts between the situation in Austria and West Germany. The paper points out how this small European state tried to avoid its exclusion from the European integration process and how it applied various methods to approach and cooperate with European institutions.

The European Democrat Union and the Revolutionary Events in Central Europe in 1989

Die Geschichtsforschung kennt verschiedene Hegemonialmachte, Grosreiche und Imperien, die mit „Weltherrschaft s“-Ambitionen angetreten oder zu assoziieren sind, so das Romische Reich, das Mongolenreich unter Dschingis Khan oder das habsburgisch-spanische Kolonialreich unter Karl V.

Von der Befürwortung zur Verzögerung und Verhinderung: Österreichs EG-Antragsgesuch, die Bundesrepublik und die Annäherungen der DDR an die Europäischen Gemeinschaften 1989–1990

Since it joined the European Union in 1995 Austria has has experienced dramatic reversals in how it is viewed by other members of the Union. In 1998 it assumed its first presidency and its competent conduct enhanced its reputation. Then Jorg Haider formed a rightwing populist government and the other members of the Union levied sanctions. This volume assesses Austrias first five years in the European Union and also its on going struggle with its past.

“Europe”, Europeanizations and their Meaning for European Integration Historiography

First, this article will explain the role of the “European Democrat Union” (EDU) within the framework of European Christian Democrats and Conservatives and its importance for the year of change 1989. Second, it will touch on a few aspects on the leading figures; third, on the promising contacts between the EDU and the Communist Party of the USSR; fourth, on the role played by the EDU in Central Europe, especially vis-à-vis the events in Poland and Hungary, which were its priorities; and finally, on the developments in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) regarding the German Question.1