E

East Germany (see GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC)

Eastern Question The significance of this term, covering the international ramifications of the decline of the Ottoman Empire from the later eighteenth until the early twentieth century, can be best considered through further reference to Turkey and to its role in European affairs during that period (see TURKEY AND EUROPE; also Map 7).

In essence, the Eastern Question involved two kinds of destabilizing rivalry that interacted with each other. First, there was competition between the various BALKAN nationalities (see NATIONALISM) who were seeking greater autonomy, and increasingly independence, as Ottoman control over the region weakened. Second, there were the tensions that Turkish decline generated as between the Great Powers. In this context both RUSSIA and the HABSBURG EMPIRE remained constantly alert to the possibilities of promoting their own territorial expansion. Meanwhile, the British concerned themselves principally with securing their maritime ascendancy (see STRAITS QUESTION). By the opening of the twentieth century, the GERMAN EMPIRE was already bent on supplanting Britain as Turkey's most crucial source of diplomatic support. For that reason, and also due to intensified Austro-Russian rivalries in the Balkan region, the Eastern Question became one of the principal factors linked to the causation of WORLD WAR I. In its classic form, the concept then retained some measure of relevance for a little longer, until the rise of ATATÜRK and the signing of the LAUSANNE TREATY in 1923 rendered it redundant.

Eastern Rumelia By the Treaty of San Stefano (March 1878) this area was transferred from Turkey (see TURKEY AND EUROPE) to newly-independent BULGARIA. In the following July the BERLIN CONGRESS revised the arrangement. Eastern Rumelia became an administratively autonomous part of southern Bulgaria, but with provision for the sultan to retain substantial political and military authority over it. In practice the Bulgarians rapidly marginalized such Turkish involvement, and by 1886 had succeeded in getting international recognition for the region's incorporation into their new principality.

Ebert, Friedrich (1871–1925), President of the WEIMAR REPUBLIC (1919–25). Upon the GERMAN EMPIRE'S collapse early in November 1918 this former saddler, who had been chairman of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF GERMANY since 1913, immediately became chancellor at the behest of Prince Max von Baden. As a moderate, Ebert sought army support in resisting the revolutionary pressures growing at that juncture amongst groups from the more extreme left (see SPARTACIST RISING). He was then chosen by the National Assembly to assume the Presidency of the new republic in February 1919. Now head of state, he was still powerless to prevent the humiliations loaded upon defeated Germany at the PARIS PEACE SETTLEMENT, especially through the VERSAILLES TREATY. Despite his efforts to promote democratic moderation, Weimar's instabilities were soon such that in 1922 the Assembly abandoned its plans to hold a presidential election by popular vote. Instead, the parliamentary deputies simply prolonged their own previous mandate to Ebert. Thereafter he suffered increasingly from right-wing attacks (e.g. for his allegedly treasonable conduct in regard to munitions strikes during the war years, and for welcoming the failure of the BEER HALL PUTSCH attempted by HITLER). After Ebert died in office, a national election produced as his presidential successor the far more conservative figure of HINDENBURG.

Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) Within the context of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION, discussion about creating a single currency began in 1969. However, it was not until the 1989 DELORS report that the project became a priority. Plans for its staged implementation then featured in the 1992 MAASTRICHT TREATY. Those states of the European Union (EU) wishing to participate agreed that they would aim to meet, by the end of the decade, certain “convergence criteria” for an irrevocable fixing of the exchange rate at which each national currency would be converted into the shared one. The latter, eventually issued by the European Central Bank under the title of the “euro,” became operative in 2002. By 2010, 16 of the 27 members of the EU had adopted it as their official currency, and it was also widely used in a further five European countries. However, this was also the epoch at which “convergence” seemed to have given way to renewed “divergence” in certain cases, with that of GREECE (severely beset by public debt) providing the most worrying example of such a threat to the continuing coherence of the eurozone.

Eden, Anthony (1897–1977), British Prime Minister (1955–7), primarily remembered for his role in the SUEZ CRISIS (1956). Born into the aristocracy, he was educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving with distinction in the World War I. In 1923, he was elected to parliament as a Conservative. It was as private secretary to Austen Chamberlain (1926–9) that he developed an interest in foreign policy, going on to serve as under-secretary at the Foreign Office (1931–4), minister for League of Nations affairs (1934–5), and foreign secretary (1935–8). Though he did not oppose HITLER'S remilitarization of the RHINELAND, he was skeptical of the policy of APPEASEMENT and resigned his office in February 1938 when Neville Chamberlain attempted to court Italy. Although a convinced anti-appeaser, Eden nevertheless kept a low profile, abstaining from voting on the MUNICH AGREEMENT. At the outbreak of WORLD WAR II, he returned to government as secretary of state for the Dominions and, on Chamberlain's resignation in May 1940, was considered a possible prime minister. Instead, he served under CHURCHILL as minister for war (1940) and then as foreign minister (1940–5). In that latter role he was given the thorny task of negotiating with DE GAULLE, but otherwise found that he was often merely shadowing the war premier. In 1951, he returned to the Foreign Office and, though his health was deteriorating, he was still in 1955 the obvious prime-ministerial successor to Churchill. During Eden's own brief administration, foreign affairs remained his chief concern. In 1956 he supported intervention in the Middle East when the Suez Canal was nationalized by Nasser, the Egyptian leader. Viewing the latter as another version of Hitler, Eden resorted to military force, which was supported by Israel and France but condemned by most of the international community, especially the USA. At the height of the crisis, French premier Guy Mollet suggested an ANGLO-FRENCH UNION similar to that mooted in June 1940. Yet, especially because of pressures from Washington, Eden swiftly recognized that Britain had little choice but to withdraw. The retreat from Suez was a national humiliation, and illustrated how, in the new world order dominated by the USA and USSR, there was little the UK could do without American support. The discredit was felt most keenly by Eden himself, whose health deteriorated yet further, prompting his resignation in January 1957.

education Derived from Latin educare (“to bring out”), this term may denote any kind of intellectual, moral, or social instruction, but is treated here principally in the contexts of formal schooling and university provision.

Such limited school systems as existed in European countries towards the end of the eighteenth century were generally associated with the churches. Over the next 100 years, the greater diversity that developed in educational arrangements was particularly apparent at the elementary level. Even there, however, certain shared characteristics were discernible. Provision was generally aimed at children of the lower orders (see CLASS; WORKING CLASS) between the ages of 6 and 13, though many pupils would have ceased such education well before their thirteenth birthday, especially since leaving-exams were rare and school attendance was not compulsory. Educational establishments, whether under ecclesiastical or other control, charged fees, though the costs were normally small and sometimes covered by bursaries for the poorest. The curriculum was largely restricted to “the three Rs,” with special emphasis on reading skills (see also LITERACY). This reflected the clerical origins of “mass education” at the time of the Reformation, when it had been pioneered by the Catholic Church (see CATHOLICISM) to maintain the loyalty of the faithful and inculcate piety through the provision of wholesome literature: by contrast, writing was an unnecessary luxury. Teachers, even those from religious orders, were poorly trained and often incapable of managing the curriculum. As for governments, these were initially little involved in the provision and oversight of elementary education, preferring to leave this to private or ecclesiastical initiative. By the 1840s the best-provided areas of Europe (Scandinavia, Scotland, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the German states) still gave such schooling only to some 10 percent of children. Even there, as well as yet more obviously as one moved southwards and eastwards across the map, any prospect of broad obligatory attendance remained frustrated by the fact that so many working-class parents depended upon the contribution made to the family economy by the wages of their children. Thus, even where teaching was available, they resisted sending them to school, especially in the summer when their children's labor was required in the fields. Moreover, still smaller numbers – and these mainly boys – went on to secondary level.

Elite opinion was divided about the merits of education for the laboring classes. Some commentators believed that it would simply arouse unsustainable expectations. However, more optimistic reformers founded organizations to promote the cause. In Britain, the Anglican-inspired National Society for the Education of the Poor (1811) provided one example, while another was Lord Brougham's creation of the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (1827) with the aim of making self-help “improvement literature” similarly available to the most disadvantaged. Taking a middle course, Thomas Malthus had argued that only education would reconcile the impoverished to their inevitable hardships. Amid such debate both in Britain and in Europe at large, what might be termed state systems of elementary education grew quite slowly during the nineteenth century. Their emergence reflected a number of overlapping concerns.

Following GERMAN UNIFICATION and ITALIAN UNIFICATION, the new national governments in these countries proved keen to use schooling to promote a sense of patriotic self-awareness and cohesion. In the first case, educational control was one of the points at issue in the anti-Catholic KULTURKAMPF of the 1870s and 1880s. In the second, poor levels of literacy (as well as property qualifications) had prevented much of the southern Italian population from voting in the 1860 plebiscite that led to the proclamation of a unified state the following year. Though governmental approval was given for at least a limited amount of elementary schooling throughout Italy in 1877, severe unevenness of effective provision remained one of the great divides between north and south for decades to come. In France the THIRD REPUBLIC'S desire to create patriotic and obedient citizens following the country's defeat in the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR underpinned the FERRY laws of 1882. These made elementary education free and compulsory up to the age of 13 and required départements to establish teacher-training establishments. The need for a better-schooled workforce if a country was to remain at the forefront of manufacture was also a significant consideration in the context of INDUSTRIALIZATION. As rates of German economic growth rose, politicians both in France and Britain became fretful about educational inadequacies. In the latter case, direct state provision of elementary schooling was one of the reforming measures initiated under the Gladstone ministries, beginning with the Education Act of 1870. A decade later attendance was made compulsory until the age of 10, and in 1891 most fees were removed. Balfour's Act of 1902 gave responsibility for the instruction of 5.6 million children to a central Board of Education, and truancy officers were instituted on the eve of WORLD WAR I to reinforce obligatory attendance. In Russia, where two-thirds of the population comprised largely illiterate serfs (see SERFDOM), the Crimean War of the 1850s had revealed the inadequacies of the state. ALEXANDER II responded by initiating educational reforms that produced modest improvements from a low base, though their effect was blunted by the actions of his reactionary successor, ALEXANDER III.

In a number of countries one effect of the extension of elementary education was to increase the proportion of the population speaking the language of the dominant elite. For example, “Italian” in the form of Tuscan/Roman began slowly to spread, and more Bretons and Gascons used French than ever before, while the teaching of Magyar to other ethnic groupings became a central feature of Hungarian policy for all primary schools. In Catholic parts of Europe, deeper state involvement also undermined the extensive ecclesiastical commitment to educational provision. Although the governments in France and the Habsburg Empire had certainly hastened to reassert the church's control of education after the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9, the long-term trend went in the opposite direction. This was especially true of countries where ANTICLERICALISM was prominent, but it applied also in the more staunchly Catholic instances of Spain and Portugal where education tended at times to promote a supposedly progressive “secular” emphasis (see SECULARIZATION) as opposed to an allegedly reactionary one focused on personal piety.

By contrast with their tardy involvement in elementary education, governments had engaged at a much earlier stage with some provision for secondary education. The intention was to produce a cadre of persons capable of serving the state as bureaucrats, public functionaries, and military officers. Here France led the way. Building on initiatives first projected during the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789 and the DIRECTORY, NAPOLEON I introduced educational reforms, though the system he envisaged was never brought fully into effect. Even if elementary education – and especially schooling for girls, which remained focused upon producing dutiful wives and mothers (see also GENDER; FEMINISM) – was neglected by the French state and left to the religious orders, the country's secondary provision was probably the best in Europe by 1815. Subsequently, however, the lycées established by Napoleon would be overtaken by the Prussian Gymnasien, forms of grammar school offering a more varied curriculum including some elements of religious instruction. Across Europe at large further expansion of state-sponsored education for secondary pupils followed during the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in tandem with the growth of elementary schooling and for broadly similar reasons. Over the period from 1875 to 1912 there was a threefold increase in the number of such students in Germany and a fourfold one in France. In Britain, school fees were initially waived and then abolished altogether in 1910, and the 1918 Education Act made the state responsible for secondary education for the first time. In Russia, entry to secondary school was guaranteed to all who passed qualifying examinations after 1864, some aspects of the censorship laws were revoked to allow access to hitherto unavailable books, and travel restrictions on students were lifted.

Yet, even if secondary provision (particularly with more frequent emphasis on new technical skills) was enhanced in all European states, the absolute number of beneficiaries remained limited, with a predominance of students who were male and drawn from the ranks of the better-off. Although access to higher education was generally even more restricted, the German states offered wider opportunities than most. The new University of Berlin, founded in 1810 by HUMBOLDT, was notable for differentiating itself from medieval foundations by its stress upon science, and served in some respects as a model for later developments at tertiary level (including the emergence of broadly “polytechnic” education) across much of Europe. Meanwhile, the student radicalism increasingly evident in the German states during the epoch of METTERNICH became a source of disquiet to the authorities (see also BURSCHENSCHAFTEN; CARLSBAD DECREES) and made a significant contribution to the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9. Even as the numbers registered at European universities steadily increased over the period down to 1914, such an education remained chiefly an elitist preserve – one whose most notable exclusions affected, yet again, virtually all women as well as males from working-class backgrounds.

In the course of the twentieth century there was throughout Europe a broadening in the availability of educational opportunities at every level, particularly as governments continued to encourage more directly utilitarian curricula in response to increasingly complex economic, scientific, and technological needs. Although provision became opened to all, it remained the case that there were very variable levels of attainment, and inequalities of effective opportunity that continued to reflect differences of gender, class, and culture. Meanwhile, education had undoubtedly become a central feature within the development of MASS SOCIETY and mass politics. Even in broadly non-authoritarian situations, the governments that now supplied most of the relevant funding tended to exploit the potential which almost universal schooling, in particular, offered to them when addressing matters of social control. However, this attitude was more evident still wherever education became converted into relentless indoctrination, as the tool of dictatorial propaganda whether spread from the right in countries whose regimes adopted any of the varieties of FASCISM or from the left in those parts of Europe that experienced communist rule (see COMMUNISM). During the latter half of the century the contentious nature of governmental control, especially over tertiary education, became most clearly highlighted in two contexts and phases. First, in much of western Europe (and the USA) there occurred the STUDENT REVOLTS OF 1968 and the period immediately following. Then, during the 1980s, further currents of disaffection developed, albeit more slowly, within the universities of eastern Europe, thus contributing to the processes that culminated in the REVOLUTIONS OF 1989–91.

Even beyond the turn of the millennium, many long-held assumptions about the purposes of education have continued to come under critical scrutiny. One ongoing trend has been the increasing marginalization of knowledge pursued “for its own sake,” as distinct from more instrumentalist approaches. Among the latter, the belief that a key objective must be to mould acceptance of prevailing norms has remained a matter of debate; but so too has the more radical counter-conviction that learning should be essentially harnessed to the pursuit of social change.

Eichmann, Adolf (1906–62), leading Nazi administrator (see NAZISM) who made a major contribution towards implementation of the so-called FINAL SOLUTION. Eichmann was a Rhinelander who joined the Austrian branch of the Nazi movement in 1932. Under the Third Reich he returned to Germany and became one of Reinhard Heydrich's assistants in the SICHERHEITSDIENST (SD). By 1935 he was head of the office for Jewish emigration (see JEWS; ANTISEMITISM), and in 1938–9 arranged expulsions from Austria and Bohemia. He played a pivotal role in organizing the WANNSEE CONFERENCE, and thereafter in providing bureaucratic underpinning to the genocidal policies pursued by HITLER and HIMMLER. Although the Americans captured him at the end of WORLD WAR II, his importance was as yet not fully understood. Helped by a Vatican passport, he soon escaped to South America. In 1960 Israeli agents seized Eichmann in Argentina. At his Jerusalem trial in 1961, he was found guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people, and was executed early the following year. These proceedings prompted Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem (1963), with its controversial meditations on “the banality of evil.”

Eire (see under IRELAND)

emancipation of the serfs (see under SERFDOM)

emigration (see under MIGRATION)

Ems Telegram The dispatch of July 13, 1870, whose edited version, prepared by BISMARCK, triggered the FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR. When on July 4, 1870 Paris learned that Leopold von Hohenzollern (see also HOHENZOLLERN DYNASTY) was a candidate for the Spanish throne, NAPOLEON III objected on the grounds that he regarded Spain as part of the French orbit. In an atmosphere of mutual mistrust, both France and Prussia mobilized their forces, which persuaded King WILLIAM I to withdraw his support for the candidature. This was not enough for the French, who wanted reassurances that the Hohenzollern monarch would not revive the issue. So it was that the French ambassador Benedetti approached William on July 13 at Ems. Here, the king agreed to Leopold's withdrawal, but would give no guarantees as to the future. On learning what had happened, Bismarck used the episode to his advantage. Since the creation of the NORTH GERMAN CONFEDERATION in 1867, he had believed that only war with France would consolidate his vision of GERMAN UNIFICATION by bringing the southern states onto his side. He thus released a tendentiously edited version of the meeting, the so-called Ems dispatch, which found its way into the Berlin press on July 14. In this version of events, it seemed that both parties had insulted one another. Bismarck had thus presented the French with a pretext for war, which was duly declared on July 19.

Enabling Act Law for “removing the distress of People and Reich” passed by the German Reichstag on March 23, 1933, nearly two months into HITLER'S chancellorship and less than three weeks after his Nazi Party (see NAZISM) had failed to obtain an absolute majority in parliamentary elections. With stormtroopers (see STURMABTEILUNG) threatening the assembly, he bullied through the legislation by 444 votes to 94. Only the Social Democrats were left to oppose this grant to Hitler's government of the power to operate for four years without consulting parliament and to revise the constitution of the WEIMAR REPUBLIC. The Act greatly assisted the implementation of GLEICHSCHALTUNG, and gave a specious legal gloss to the establishment of unfettered Nazi dictatorship. Its renewals in 1937, 1939, and 1943 were a mere formality.

Engels, Friedrich (1820–95), German social thinker, most notable as the closest friend and collaborator of MARX. Born into a family of Rhineland factory owners who had partners in Manchester, Engels came to Lancashire in 1842. Shortly after meeting Marx in Paris he published The Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), a scathing indictment of the laborers' plight under the system of industrial CAPITALISM. Together they joined the Communist League in 1847, and early the following year coauthored its celebrated Manifesto (see COMMUNISM). The eventual failure in Germany and elsewhere of the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9 led them both to flee the continent. During the 1850s and 1860s Engels was residing back in Manchester, enjoying the lifestyle appropriate to a prosperous capitalist employer even while also helping to finance the survival of Marx and his family in London. After his own retirement from industry, Engels too moved to London and devoted himself to assisting his friend with the preparation of Capital, though he did manage to publish the Anti-Dühring under his own name in 1878. Following Marx's death in 1883, Engels effectively continued the collaboration by tidying and systematizing his colleague's intellectual legacy. The result was some loss of subtlety, as the canon of orthodox Marxism now came to be characterized, even more markedly than before, by materialistic determinism and uncritical POSITIVISM.

ENIGMA (see under ULTRA)

Enlightenment Although this intellectual movement registered most of its major achievements even before the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789, it is noteworthy also for its subsequent influence. That said, the Enlightenment's organizational or doctrinal coherence should not be exaggerated. Its philosophes came from the aristocracy as well as the educated bourgeoisie, and participated in a phenomenon which, though truly European in scope, exhibited significant variations shaped by local circumstance. For example, the religious skepticism promoted by figures such as Voltaire in its French heartland during the eighteenth century stands in contrast to both the Catholic and Protestant brands of Enlightenment more evident in the German states. The depiction of the enlightened as a tight phalanx of plotters, aiming to impose standardized dogma, was largely the product of their opponents' anxious imaginations. What did draw the movement together was a shared attitude of mind generating broad consensus about the problems facing ANCIEN REGIME Europe and the strategies needed to address them. This reflected the conviction that effective action was dependent on the application of critical thinking, firmly founded on reason. As Immanuel Kant put it in 1784, only by the courageous application of that faculty could the process of Enlightenment fulfill its goal of securing “the emergence of mankind from self-imposed immaturity.” Though this meant a systematic questioning of traditional authority, the thrust was far from solely negative. Works such as the celebrated Encyclopédie (1751–80) compiled by Denis Diderot aimed not merely to catalogue the abuses that frustrated freedom and felicity alike but also to promote the practicability and pace of remedial social change. Eventually, around 1789, the ideas of the Enlightenment (especially as popularized through the cheap literature of the libelles) helped to unleash in France an even more sudden and violent upheaval than most of the philosophes had bargained for. Yet, just as surely, the movement assisted in a wider transformation, involving an erosion of the persuasive power of mere tradition and an encouragement of experimental innovation that would have lasting effects on Europe at large. The Enlightenment's legacies included encouragement of early-nineteenth-century LIBERALISM as well as POSITIVISM; conversely, it also helped to provoke ROMANTICISM precisely as a counter-current to the arguably exaggerated reliance of the philosophes upon rationalism.

enosis Greek word for “union.” Its primary point of modern historical reference has been CYPRUS. Particularly from the 1930s onward, the Greek Cypriot majority opposed to British rule used enosis as the rallying-cry for integration with GREECE – a campaign that by the 1950s was running into violent channels. The compromise of 1959–60, establishing an independent Cyprus under Archbishop MAKARIOS III, was challenged in 1974 by the Athens regime of the GREEK COLONELS. Their annexation plans were frustrated by a preemptive invasion from TURKEY, which, claiming to protect the ethnic minority, then occupied the northern area. Thus enosis now came to mean primarily the Greek Cypriots' quest to reunify the divided island.

Entente Cordiale A set of “agreements” between France and Britain signed on April 8, 1904 that resolved their longstanding colonial disputes. It comprised three documents. One involved the French relinquishing fishing rights around Newfoundland, and obtaining in return the upper Gambian town of Yarbutenda; it further settled border issues in central and western Africa. Another ruled on disputes in Siam, Madagascar, and the New Hebrides. The most far-reaching document concerned North Africa, where Britain obtained a free hand in Egypt by agreeing not to obstruct French designs on Morocco. Though not a formal alliance, the Entente Cordiale was significant for ending a century of intermittent hostilities between the two countries – the so-called “second Hundred Years War” – and for signaling that Germany was now perceived as a common threat. Berlin attempted to test the strength of this new understanding by provoking in 1905 the first of the MOROCCAN CRISES, which was resolved peacefully at the Algeciras conference a year later. In 1907 Britain completed a similar informal agreement with Russia, already allied with France (see FRANCO-RUSSIAN ALLIANCE), so creating the TRIPLE ENTENTE that would confront the CENTRAL POWERS in WORLD WAR I.

environmentalism Disparate political and social movement which seeks to emphasize that humankind's capacities for destructive domination of the natural world have increasingly outstripped our sense of responsibility towards it. Although the term was invented in the 1930s, the ideological roots of environmentalism go back at least as far as the eighteenth-century movements of ENLIGHTENMENT and ROMANTICISM. Promoters of the latter were particularly emphatic about the negative features of early INDUSTRIALIZATION, associated with forest clearances, land reclamation, air pollution, the burning of fossil fuels, the desecration of the landscape, and rapid growth in POPULATION and URBANIZATION alike. Though the impact of these changes was uneven, nineteenth-century governments generally lacked both the will and the capacity to respond. Thus environmental issues tended to be appropriated either by individuals or by fringe groupings based on such organizations as health clubs, ramblers' associations, and vegetarian societies. The Catholic Church also expressed concern through a series of papal encyclicals. However, it would be too much to speak of an environmental movement as already existing by the 1890s. During much of the ensuing century the politics of ecology tended to be more a concern for the right than the left, particularly since the latter was often in thrall to what was viewed as the modernizing progress of the SOVIET UNION. In the 1930s, for example, it was NAZISM that ostentatiously championed “green” issues. Yet its concerns turned out to be only superficial, especially as HITLER prepared for a war of cataclysmic proportions. Ambivalence also marked the right-wing authoritarian regimes of FRANCO and SALAZAR. While they celebrated the values of RURAL SOCIETY, their search for tourist revenue prompted collusion in the over-development of the Costas and the Algarve.

It was in the 1960s that environmentalism became a more potent political force. Its appeal, already evident in the STUDENT REVOLTS OF 1968, was further heightened by the OIL CRISES of the 1970s, by the proliferation of nuclear power, and by disenchantment with the traditional parties of the left. 1970 saw the founding of the Friends of the Earth which initially favored direct action in its attempts to halt the French government's nuclear program. The following year Greenpeace was born. Throughout western Europe, conservation groups, civil rights activists, wildlife societies, and movements for sexual liberation flourished, embracing such issues as natural energy, organic farming, and communal living. Many individuals too were also now making more conspicuous efforts to live out an alternative life-style. Politically, environmentalism came to be championed most forcibly by the Green parties, the first of which appeared in West Germany in 1973. Though similar organizations soon emerged elsewhere, this was not the case in Soviet- dominated eastern Europe. There protest was stymied, and the focus remained on maximizing production. This resulted unavoidably in the flouting of safety rules, breach of which became tragically evident in the nuclear CHERNOBYL DISASTER of 1986. Where Green parties did develop in Europe, they embraced direct democracy and proved deeply mistrustful of CAPITALISM. Recruiting most effectively among the young and well-educated, they enjoyed mixed fortunes, partly because they were perceived to be “single issue” groupings. As such, they were least successful in Scandinavia largely because, there at any rate, ecological issues were already being incorporated into the programs of the mainstream parties. They also had a limited impact in Britain where the first-past-the-post electoral system worked against them, though the placing of US missiles on British soil in the 1980s rejuvenated the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. In the French case, the Greens were from 1979 onward conspicuous players in national and local politics, and in 1997 the ecological champion Dominique Voynet was appointed minister of the environment. Greens did best in the Federal Republic of Germany, thanks partly to the use of proportional representation and, at least until the end of the 1980s, due also to the country's particular vulnerability amid the tensions of the COLD WAR. Since the collapse of communism, Green parties have continued to experience varied electoral fortunes. However, environmentalism as broadly defined has been successful in promoting among Europeans (as well as many others) a heightened and more urgent awareness of global warming and other ecological concerns. These have become the focus for a series of international gatherings, such as the United Nations conference on climate change held at Copenhagen in late 2009. Its disappointing outcome underlined that, even then, it was still easier to generate talk than action.

Erfurt Union An abortive attempt by PRUSSIA to create and dominate a new organization of German states in the immediate aftermath of the REVOLUTIONS OF 1848–9. Following the dissolution of the FRANKFURT PARLIAMENT and his refusal to accept the crown of a “little” Germany from a popular assembly, FREDERICK WILLIAM IV of Prussia, guided by his chief minister General von Radowitz, eyed favorably a different opportunity to develop some federal version of GERMAN UNIFICATION under Hohenzollern leadership. This involved the so-called “policy of fusion,” initiated by the Alliance of Three Kings (May 26, 1849), concluded between Prussia, SAXONY, and HANOVER. The latter two agreed to membership on the understanding that all other German states, apart from Austria (see HABSBURG EMPIRE), would eventually join. From this evolved the concept of the Erfurt Union, which was to have its own parliament, and which would coexist with Austria in some form of loose confederation. However, elections conducted in January 1850 excited little popular support. The Erfurt Union faced a far more serious challenge in the shape of Austria itself which had regained its confidence after the crushing of revolution in Italy and Germany. FRANCIS JOSEPH I, the new Habsburg emperor, was determined to counter Prussian aspirations towards leadership of Germany. By the end of 1850 his strategy had led to the collapse of the Erfurt Union, and to the OLMÜTZ AGREEMENT which restored the former GERMAN CONFEDERATION and Austrian presidency thereof.

Erhard, Ludwig (1897–1977), Chancellor of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY (1963–6). Having assisted the British and Americans with advice on reconstruction in their post-1945 zones of occupation, this economist entered the FRG's new parliament in 1949 as an advocate of CHRISTIAN DEMOCRACY. ADENAUER promptly appointed him to be minister of economics, and Erhard continued in that post until 1963. During this long span the latter enjoyed considerable freedom of action in implementing his vision of a “social market economy,” aimed at strong welfare provision (see WELFARISM) within a framework of CAPITALISM. Erhard also rightly took much of the credit for the “economic miracle” that accompanied the FRG's recovery from the disastrous material consequences of WORLD WAR II, and thus also for the democratic stabilization that such prosperity served to underpin. Even so, he was less adept at political maneuvering than at economic strategy, and that weakness was directly exposed once he succeeded Adenauer in the chancellorship. Erhard's wrangling with the Liberals (the minority element in his two-party administration), especially over Christian Democratic proposals for higher taxes, brought an unexpectedly early end to his leadership. He was replaced by his party colleague KIESINGER, whose reconfigured “grand coalition” then gave the left its first direct share of governmental involvement in the FRG.

Erlander, Tage (1901–85), Prime Minister of SWEDEN (1946–68). This Social Democrat dominated his country's politics for more than twenty years. He used such measures as steeply progressive taxation to consolidate Sweden's wider European reputation as a prosperous model for WELFARISM. Erlander's belief in democratic SOCIALISM as the ideal middle way between CAPITALISM and COMMUNISM was all of a piece with his determination to maintain Swedish NEUTRALITY even amidst the international strains of the COLD WAR. (See also SCANDINAVIA)

Estado Novo The name (literally “new state”) given to the dictatorial one-party regime established by SALAZAR on becoming prime minister of PORTUGAL in 1932, six years after its first republic had been toppled by a military coup. Inspired by traditional Catholic values and operating under the slogan “God, country, and family,” the Estado Novo was more a form of integral CONSERVATISM than FASCISM. However, it borrowed quite heavily from MUSSOLINI and resorted to police terror tactics (see TERRORISM) to root out opposition. Regarding social policy, the Estado Novo gave the teachings of CATHOLICISM an elevated place, especially within education. In the economic domain it promoted a CORPORATE STATE, where capital was favored over labor. After World War II, the Estado Novo increasingly obstructed DECOLONIZATION. Closely associated with Salazar himself, dictatorship in Portugal would survive for only a few years after illness forced his retirement in 1968, before giving way to the reestablishment of liberal democracy in 1975–6.

Estates General Representative assembly which, having last met in 1614, was revived at the start of the FRENCH REVOLUTION OF 1789. It had been initially summoned for 1792, but the worsening financial crisis obliged LOUIS XVI to bring matters forward to May 1789. Elections to the assembly had been accompanied by the drafting of lists of grievances (cahiers de doléances) and when the deputies assembled in the three traditional orders – clergy, nobility, and third estate – at the palace of Versailles, there were high hopes that France was embarking on major reform. However, optimism quickly soured as the government gave no reformist lead and the assembly became deadlocked over voting procedures – by head or by order. Increasingly frustrated, the Third Estate ended the stalemate by voting on June 17 to call itself the National Assembly, thus signaling that it saw its authority deriving from the people, rather than the king. This challenge to royal sovereignty was reinforced three days later by the TENNIS COURT OATH, when the deputies vowed not to disperse until they had given France a new constitution. On June 27 Louis capitulated, after the deputies defied his order for the three Estates to meet separately. On July 9 the gathering changed its title for the last time, to the National CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY, thus confirming its intention to prioritize the provision of a new constitution.

Estonia (see under BALTIC STATES)

Ethiopian War (see ITALO-ETHIOPIAN WAR)

ethnic cleansing The removal of an ethnic, religious, or other cultural grouping in order to leave a particular territory more homogeneously and “purely” occupied by some other population. Thus the term may not only describe policies of enforced MIGRATION but also act as a euphemism for programs of killing, even to the point of becoming synonymous with systematic genocide. The phrase has become generally current since the 1990s, when it was first widely used in the context of the civil war that followed the break-up of YUGOSLAVIA, for example with reference to the SREBRENICA MASSACRE of 1995 perpetrated by Bosnian Serbs against MUSLIMS. It is now commonly employed to refer to many earlier instances, such as the expulsion of Turkish settlers from BALKAN territories “liberated” from Ottoman rule during the nineteenth century, or the ARMENIAN GENOCIDE, or the BOLSHEVIKS' deportation of Don Cossacks during the RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR, or the enforced flight of pieds noirs to France amidst the ALGERIAN WAR of the 1950s and early 1960s. Nothing looms larger, however, in modern European history than the utterly murderous forms of “ethnic cleansing” central to the theory as well as practice of NAZISM. (See also RACISM)

Eupen-Malmédy These contested cantons on the German-Belgian border belonged in the eighteenth century to the AUSTRIAN NETHERLANDS. The region was then appropriated by the French revolutionary armies in 1796 and governed directly as part of France. In 1815, at the VIENNA CONGRESS, Eupen-Malmédy was handed over to PRUSSIA. Thereafter it was steadily Germanized, especially at the time of the KULTURKAMPF when the use of the French language was proscribed. The VERSAILLES TREATY of 1919 transferred the region to BELGIUM, partly as compensation for the economic damage that it sustained during WORLD WAR I. In 1940 HITLER incorporated Eupen-Malmédy into the Third Reich, a move that was applauded by a majority of inhabitants who had always considered themselves German. In 1945, the lands were restored to Belgium, which carried out a large-scale purge of those accused of COLLABORATION with the Nazis. Since then, the German community has always proclaimed its distinct identity, even though Brussels has made a number of concessions, especially regarding protection of the German language.

Euratom Common name for the European Atomic Energy Community, which was established alongside the European Economic Community (EEC) by the ROME TREATIES of 1957 (see EUROPEAN INTEGRATION). Originally comprising “THE SIX,” it had as its purpose the promotion of nuclear technology as a source of alternative energy supply to oil and coal. In 1967, while continuing to possess a separate legal existence, it became part of the European Community (EC) which brought together the EEC and the EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY. More recently, Euratom's membership has continued to grow in step with enlargement of the European Union, and it remains committed to the development of nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

Eurocommunism Denotes the inclination shown by some Western Marxists during the later stages of the COLD WAR to emphasize how their version of COMMUNISM differed from the authoritarian model dominant in the Eastern bloc. Their position had been foreshadowed by GRAMSCI, and was most notably expressed in the Eurocommunist Manifesto of November 1975. This was initially sponsored by the Communist parties in Italy (see BERLINGUER) and France, and soon by the Spanish movement too. Eurocommunism involved a pragmatic acceptance of multi-party politics within democratic parliamentary systems, and a willingness to use the advance of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION as a means of improving working conditions. In the late 1970s the SOVIET UNION dismissed it, predictably, as a capitulation to anti-revolutionary revisionism. A decade later, towards the end of the GORBACHEV era, both that regime and Eurocommunism itself looked increasingly irrelevant to progressive left-wing politics.

Europe des patries (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION; DE GAULLE)

European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) Operative from July 1952, this formed an early landmark in the course of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION. On the basis of preparatory work done by Jean MONNET, a proposal to create it was first made public in May 1950 by the French foreign minister, Robert SCHUMAN. Accepting that grand federalist projects (see FEDERALISM[1]) were as yet premature, the scheme (often referred to as “the Schuman Plan”) envisaged a process of integration that would advance from sector to sector, beginning with the heavy industries of steel and coal. It was also understood that by pooling these vital resources France and the new Federal Republic of Germany would be drawn together, thus reducing the scope for further conflict. During 1951 Italy and the trio of BENELUX countries also agreed to be founding members of the ECSC, based on a 50-year treaty, and thus completed the grouping that became known as “THE SIX.” Conversely, the UK chose to exclude itself, fearing a loss of national sovereignty (see BRITAIN AND EUROPE). The ECSC committed itself to the abolition of tariffs and quotas on coal, iron, and steel, thus paving a way towards the 1957 ROME TREATIES. The European Economic Community (EEC) that resulted from those agreements largely mirrored the bureaucratic machinery already established for the ECSC. The Merger Treaty of 1965 (effective from 1967) brought the ECSC together with the EEC and EURATOM so as to form the European Community (EC), though each of the three bodies continued to enjoy a semi-independent existence. With widening participation in the integration process, membership of the ECSC grew accordingly, though it could not reverse retrenchment in the coal and steel industries. In 2002, on the expiry of its founding agreement, the organization was formally disbanded and its functions were fully absorbed into the European Union.

European Commission (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

European Community (EC) (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

European Constitution Treaty (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

European Convention on Human Rights An agreement signed by members of the COUNCIL OF EUROPE in November 1950. It became formally operative in 1953, though its institutional centerpiece, the European Court of Human Rights (see EUROPEAN COURT[2]), was not functional until 1959. The Convention reflected a tradition of concerns with liberty and dignity that dated back at least to the time of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (see RIGHTS OF MAN). It was inspired more immediately by the Declaration of Human Rights approved by the fledgling UNITED NATIONS in December 1948. The 1950 Convention was the first regional instrument to give, by supervision and legal enforcement, significant substance to promises about ensuring the accountability of those who violated basic freedoms and entitlements. So long as the COLD WAR persisted, it lacked applicability beyond western Europe. Since the early 1990s, however, nearly all the countries of eastern Europe (including post-communist RUSSIA) have come, at least formally, within its ambit. As and when domestic processes of remedy might be exhausted, both individuals and governments are entitled to call upon the Court of Human Rights to consider relevant complaints against signatory states. The Convention's achievements have stemmed largely from the influence that the judgments of this court have increasingly exerted over governments and public opinion, in the direction of improving the respect for human rights contained within the various domestic legal systems at issue.

European Council (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

European Court This label tends to be applied, confusingly, to two separate bodies.

[1] The Court of Justice of the European Communities, established in 1952 within the broader context of EUROPEAN INTEGRATION. It was originally created to oversee the legal working of the EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY. Its functions were extended in 1957 to the whole trio of communities operative after the ROME TREATIES, and it has subsequently retained “Communities” within its formal title. Based in Luxemburg, it adjudicates on the implementation of treaties and other legal agreements as between member states of the European Union (EU).

[2] The European Court of Human Rights, which sits at Strasbourg under the auspices of the COUNCIL OF EUROPE. This was established in 1959 to consider cases brought under the EUROPEAN CONVENTION ON HUMAN RIGHTS.

European Defence Community (EDC) (see under WESTERN EUROPEAN UNION)

European Economic Area (EEA) (see under EUROPEAN FREE TRADE ASSOCIATION)

European Economic Community (EEC) (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

European Free Trade Association (EFTA) Formed in 1960, this originally comprised Austria, Denmark, Norway, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK. These became immediately known as “the Seven,” to distinguish them from “THE SIX” who three years earlier had created the European Economic Community (EEC) via the ROME TREATIES (see EUROPEAN INTEGRATION). The UK was by far the largest partner in EFTA, whose creation was very much driven by British designs. It was envisaged as an alternative to the EEC that would facilitate the abolition of tariffs on industrial products between member states over a seven-year period (see LAISSEZ-FAIRE), but without involving any deeper harmonization of economic policies. Though Iceland joined in 1970, EFTA suffered a major reverse three years later when Britain and Denmark resigned to join the European Community. They were followed in 1986 by Portugal. In 1995 Austria and Sweden went the same way, together with Finland which had been an associate member of the Association since 1961 and a full one since 1986. During the 1970s and the 1980s, the individual members of EFTA agreed various bilateral trade agreements with Brussels. This process led to the creation in 1994 of the European Economic Area (EEA), a device that enabled all EFTA countries (other than Switzerland, which chose not to participate) to engage in the European single market without directly joining the European Union. By the early twenty-first century, membership of EFTA comprised only Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein (which had enrolled in 1991). In the first of these cases, the particularly disastrous effects of the international financial crisis that began in the autumn of 2008 produced strong pressures favoring transfer into the European Union – a possibility that clearly threatened EFTA's effective survival.

European integration Ongoing process of political and socioeconomic cooperation between governments, originally stimulated in large measure by the conditions prevailing in post-1945 western Europe. Major landmarks in this development include the EUROPEAN COAL AND STEEL COMMUNITY (ECSC, operative from 1952), the ROME TREATIES of 1957, the SINGLE EUROPEAN ACT (operative from 1987), the MAASTRICHT TREATY of 1992, and the AMSTERDAM TREATY of 1997.

Ideas about the creation of some kind of formal European community may be traced back to the seventeenth century when Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, contemplated a Europe of 15 equal-sized states overseen by a Christian Council. Such notions were clearly fanciful, as are the occasional claims that the CONTINENTAL SYSTEM of NAPOLEON I was a prototype for some pan-European economic union. During the nineteenth century as a whole, the rise of NATIONALISM was hardly conducive to the fulfillment of such ambitions. It was, instead, the destruction brought about by WORLD WAR I that concentrated minds on some measure of integration. In 1923 Count Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-European Union whose ambitious projects were matched by the Association for European Cooperation created in 1926. Three years later BRIAND floated the idea of a European Federal Union. Some limited progress was made on the economic front. In 1919, a European Coal Commission attempted to coordinate production, while France, Belgium, and Britain established a Supreme Economic Council so as to channel aid for reconstruction. In 1931–2, inspired by the nineteenth-century ZOLLVEREIN, Austria and Germany explored the possibility of a customs union that might offset the effects of the GREAT DEPRESSION[2]. Belgium and Luxemburg ventured similar plans in the Ouchy Convention of July 1932. In the event, the wider economic downturn and the rise of NAZISM scotched any progress. HITLER did aim, of course, to build his own version of a unified Europe (see NEW ORDER;MITTELEUROPA; COLLABORATION). Yet it was one wholly subservient to German interests, and designed to exclude (as he put it) Asiatics, JEWS, and BOLSHEVIKS.

In the aftermath of WORLD WAR II Europe's desperate situation led many to think about the advantages of closer cooperation. There was an obvious need to rebuild shattered economies. Agricultural and industrial production was well below pre-1939 levels; trade was severely dislocated; unemployment was high; and inflation was rampant. There was a further need for governments to coordinate so as to rehouse millions of refugees and displaced persons. On the eastern side of what soon became the COLD WAR “Iron Curtain,” STALIN set out to tackle such challenges in a dictatorial and coercive manner that entrenched across his Soviet bloc methods contrasting with those available to the liberal democracies of western Europe. Without any guarantee of long-term US commitment, the latter were militarily weak in the face of the hegemony that the SOVIET UNION was establishing over eastern Europe. COMMUNISM also constituted a potential internal enemy, particularly where its popularity had been enhanced by its contribution during wartime to internal RESISTANCE organizations. At least there was no challenge from the extreme right which was discredited by its associations with Nazism and the so-called FINAL SOLUTION.

In this environment pro-integration pressure groups flourished, among them the Union Européene des Fédéralistes (UEF) and the International Committee of Movements for European Unity (ICMEU). They had a shared experience of resistance to Nazism, a belief in building a New Jerusalem, a faith in FEDERALISM, and an indefatigable optimism. Spurred on by CHURCHILL'S Zurich speech of September 19, 1946 calling for a “United States of Europe,” though significantly one without direct British participation (see BRITAIN AND EUROPE), federalists were heartened by early steps towards cooperation. On the military front, in 1946 Britain and France signed the DUNKIRK TREATY. This was augmented two years later by the BRUSSELS TREATY which helped pave the way for the creation of NATO. There was progress too in the economic domain, with the establishment in 1948 of the BENELUX customs union and the Organization for European Economic Cooperation (see ORGANIZATION FOR EUROPEAN COOPERATION AND DEVELOPMENT) designed to administer the American aid envisaged by the MARSHALL PLAN. Meanwhile, the COUNCIL OF EUROPE, inspired by the CONGRESS OF EUROPE, appeared to augur progress in the political and cultural arenas. Some historians have seen the supporters of a quite centralized version of federalism as crucial to the early stages of integration, but this is misleading. Divided over long-term aims, they held little sway over government policy and made poor lobbyists, having limited influence on the key figures such as MONNET whose conversion to a strongly integrationist approach arose partly from his reading of the wider international situation.

In that vital broader context of Cold War confrontation, the US government believed that western European security rested not solely on the TRUMAN DOCTRINE, but also on closer economic cooperation. Thus Washington revived federalist proposals that it had shelved in the course of the war for fear of alienating Stalin. The expectation was that the UK would take the lead, and its willingness to do so, up to a certain point, was reflected in the Dunkirk and Brussels Treaties and in its exploration of a Western European Customs Union. Yet the latter idea met with opposition lest it might weaken sterling, undermine the City of London, and open the door to deeper political union. In this situation, the initiative fell to France which was keen not just to promote its economic recovery, which was threatened by international competition, but also to protect itself against Germany. To these ends, the French government initially sought the permanent dismemberment of Germany and the creation of a separate autonomous province of the Ruhr – policies first contemplated during the negotiations surrounding the 1919 VERSAILLES TREATY. The creation of the two Germanys in 1949 effectively forced a rethink. Now France believed its interests were best served by the creation of a “little Europe,” based on Franco-German understanding and a pooling of coal and steel production. This idea also had an appeal to West Germany (see FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY) which was keen to avoid the international ostracism it had suffered after the World War I when it was initially refused entry to the LEAGUE OF NATIONS. The project also appealed to the new BENELUX trio and to Italy, all of whom understood that Franco-German cooperation was axiomatic to their own economic and political well-being.

These states, together with France and West Germany, came to form “THE SIX.” During 1951, following proposals from French foreign minister SCHUMAN, they agreed to create the ECSC. The irony was that in attempting to protect national security France momentarily put its faith in a supranational institution. In the event, the ECSC itself promoted only a limited form of so-called “sectoral” integration. The vexed question of German rearmament illustrated the limits of French enthusiasm for the European project. Plans for a European Defence Community (EDC) had as their outcome an altogether less ambitious WESTERN EUROPEAN UNION. The failure of EDC led many to think that further cooperation was finished, as did the collapse of a related scheme for a European Political Community (EPC) and the unwillingness of Britain to join the ECSC. However, closer integration offered to West Germany and France prospects of economic benefit that were too great to resist. In 1955 the MESSINA CONFERENCE paved the way for the Rome Treaties two years later. Strongly influenced by the thinking of the Belgian SPAAK, these agreements gave birth not simply to EURATOM but, more importantly, to the European Economic Community (EEC) which was to oversee the gradual implementation of a Common Market.

Those two bodies, together with the ECSC, would become known collectively first as the European Community (EC), following a “merger treaty” operative from 1967, and then from the time of the Maastricht agreement as the European Union (EU). The Rome Treaties provided them with a bureaucratic infrastructure largely copied from the original ECSC model. This comprised four main elements. The Brussels-based European Commission, manned by technocrats and fronted by commissioners, was a supranational body charged with initiating policy in the Community's interest. Often described as the “engine room” of integration, it often found itself at loggerheads with the European Council of Ministers formed by government representatives from the Six who were each sensitive to national interests. There was additionally a European parliament, based at Strasbourg, initially made up of representatives selected by the various national parliamentary assemblies. Though its budgetary, consultative, and debating powers grew larger, it had little direct control over either the Commission or the Council. The final body was the European Court of Justice (see EUROPEAN COURT[1]) whose remit related to technical legal issues arising out of the interpretation of the Rome Treaties.

These institutions have expanded and deepened their functions over time (see also ACQUIS COMMUNAUTAIRE) in a way that has led many political scientists to postulate some essentially irresistible momentum. The experience of the 1960s – and especially the failure of Britain's belated bid for EC membership – suggests that matters were not so simple. Wary of entangling itself in any project which might lead to loss of national sovereignty, the UK had hoped that the EUROPEAN FREE TRADE ASSOCIATION (EFTA) and the Commonwealth would reinvigorate its sluggish economic performance. Its leaders eventually realized that neither could supply the same tonic as the EC. However, the first British attempt to join the Community was thwarted in 1963 by DE GAULLE. In his view, the UK was little more than the cat's-paw of the USA, and he placed greater reliance on cementing improved relations with West Germany (e.g. via the Franco-German Friendship Treaty of 1963). De Gaulle further feared that Britain's historic commitment to free trade (see LAISSEZ-FAIRE) would undermine French protectionist concerns, especially in the farming domain. His preference, initially outlined in the so-called Fouchet Plan of 1961, was for a Europe des patries, a loose confederal community based on limited intergovernmental cooperation and minimal erosion of national sovereignty. Such preferences were demonstrated in 1965 during the so-called “empty chair crisis” when France rejected generous rural subsidies, paid through the COMMON AGRICULTURAL POLICY, in order to oppose a strengthening of both the European Commission and the Parliament. In the resulting LUXEMBURG COMPROMISE of 1966 moves towards qualified majority of voting were set aside so that each member state could effectively veto key decisions.

With de Gaulle's resignation in 1969, the EC project appeared set for reinvigoration. Britain, Ireland, and Denmark joined in 1973, and Greece in 1981. Through the Lomé Convention (1975), the EC responded to accusations of insularity by removing the duties on imports from various African and Caribbean countries, nearly all of which were former colonies. The first direct elections to the European parliament occurred in 1979. That was also the year when President GISCARD D'ESTAING of France pioneered the Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM) as part of the European Monetary System (EMS), so as to prepare the way for a single currency (see ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION). Britain, however decided to remain outside the ERM; and, though it did eventually join in 1990, it made a panic-stricken exit two years later. The UK's continuing ambivalence towards Europe had already become increasingly plain during the previous decade or so of THATCHER'S administration. In 1984, for example, she had expended considerable energy in reducing Britain's budgetary contributions. She thereby reflected a wider disillusionment with the EC. In the eyes of Eurosceptics it lacked transparency, while many Europhiles feared that the Community was losing sight of its original ideals and reverting to protectionism.

The talk in the early 1980s was thus of “Eurosclerosis.” Stagnation was eventually overcome by a wider realization that the EC was being increasingly challenged by Japan and other Asian economies. There was also a growing awareness that the model of WELFARISM adopted by western European states in the 1960s had not been able to address the problems of the 1970s – high unemployment, inflation, and government debt. The unsuccessful attempts by MITTERRAND to pursue Keynesian economics (see KEYNES) at the start of his presidency nearly forced France out of the EMS, and thus reinforced those perceptions. In the event, it was DELORS (French head of the European Commission, 1985–95), closely backed by Mitterrand and the German chancellor KOHL, who found the way forward. Delors oversaw further increase of EC/EU membership, with Portugal and Spain joining in 1986, followed by Austria, Finland, and Sweden in 1995. As well as steering through the SINGLE EUROPEAN ACT and preparing enlargement of the SCHENGEN AGREEMENT, Delors oversaw the Maastricht Treaty, the need for which had become all the more urgent after the further territorial extension connected with the GERMAN REUNIFICATION of 1990.

This event, accompanied by the broader collapse of communism, augured the enlargement of the Community eastwards. The major implications of that growth were addressed in the 1997 Amsterdam Treaty. In 2004 Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania all joined the EU, and were then followed by Bulgaria and Romania three years later. Such expansion clearly necessitated further institutional reform. One aspect was covered by the Treaty of Nice (2001, effective from 2004), which recalibrated the voting strength of each member state. Another was confronted through the European Constitution Treaty (TCE) of 2004, which sought to codify previous agreements and to streamline decision-making procedures. Having been agreed by the representatives of the 25 member states, this lengthy and complex document needed to be ratified by all the countries of the EU. Most did so through votes in parliament, yet elsewhere the project was put to a referendum. When in 2005 such plebiscites in France and the Netherlands overwhelmingly rejected the proposals, the whole confirmation process ground to a halt. In December 2007 the Treaty of Lisbon incorporated a number of concessions offered in response to the critics of the TCE, including greater reliance on qualified majority voting and a strengthening of the position of the European parliament. Yet this “reform treaty” too faced difficulties during a ratification process that now involved 27 countries (see Map 12). Obstacles included anxieties about the development of a revised form of “presidency” (but more accurately, chairmanship) of the European Council of Ministers, as well as about a post of “High Representative” that might seem to diminish the status of existing foreign ministers. The Lisbon accord was eventually ratified in November 2009, after especially stubborn resistance from the president of the Czech Republic and the holding of a second Irish referendum that cancelled the negative outcome previously registered in June 2008.

Even if the more demanding constitution of 2004 had been approved, it would not have created the supranational United States of Europe which its opponents feared. The strongly centralizing federalist ambitions of the 1950s remained very imperfectly realized. Progress in European integration had largely been in the economic and commercial spheres, and it had generally been national self-interest that prompted such cooperation. The post-Yugoslav wars in the BALKANS revealed the shortcomings of European integration in the military domain. Though there was now talk of incorporating all the states of that region into the EU (with Croatia and Macedonia being the two leading candidates for earliest further entry), the most recent enlargements had generally brought fragmentation, not closer cohesion. At the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century there also remained major dilemmas associated with the suggested future involvement of Turkey in particular (see TURKEY AND EUROPE). There were growing problems with the common “euro” currency adopted by a majority of EU members, and, even more generally, there remained a widespread belief that the institutions of the Union lacked proper accountability. Under those circumstances it was easy to underestimate the achievements of integration, which included not only the opening during the 1950s of an era of unprecedented stability in of Franco-German relations but also, more recently, the EU's contribution towards consolidating new liberal democracies in countries previously under communist rule.

European Monetary Union (see ECONOMIC AND MONETARY UNION)

European parliament (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

European Political Community (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

European Union (see under EUROPEAN INTEGRATION)

extermination camps (see under CONCENTRATION CAMPS)