Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T20:17:37.462Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Programming the Common Market: The Making and Failure of a ‘Dirigiste’ Europe, 1957–1967

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 May 2021

Hugo Canihac Open the ORCID record for Hugo Canihac [Opens in a new window]
Hugo Canihac*
Affiliation:
Université Saint-Louis, Bruxelles, Boulevard du Jardin Botanique, 43, 1000, Bruxelles, Belgium
*
hugo.canihac@usaintlouis.be
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article contributes to the debate about the history of the political economy of the European Economic Community (EEC). It retraces the efforts during the early years of the EEC to implement a form of ‘European economic programming’, that is, a more ‘dirigiste’ type of economic governance than is usually associated with European integration. Based on a variety of archives, it offers a new account of the making and failure of this project. It argues that, at the time, the idea of economic programming found many supporters, but its implementation largely failed for political as well as practical reasons. In so doing, it also brings to light the role of economists during the early years of European integration.

Type
Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 30 , Issue 3 , August 2021 , pp. 383 - 397
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 See Lechevalier, Arnaud, ‘Why and How has German Ordoliberalism Become a French Issue? Some Aspects about Ordoliberal Thoughts We Can Learn from the French Reception’, in Hien, Joseph and Joerges, Christian, eds, Ordoliberalism, Law and the Rule of Economics (Oxford and Portland: Hart Publishing, 2017)Google Scholar; Denord, François and Schwartz, Antoine, (2010). ‘L'économie (très) politique du traité de Rome’ Politix, 89 (2010), 35–56CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sebastian Dullien and Ulrike Guérot, The Long Shadow of Ordoliberalism: Germany's Approach to the Euro Crisis, 2012; http://www.ecfr.eu/page/-/ECFR49_GERMANY_BRIEF.pdf (last accessed 15 July 2019); Dardot, Pierre and Laval, Christian, The New Way of the World: On Neoliberal Society, trans. Elliot, Gregory (London: Verso Books, 2014)Google Scholar; Schäfer, David, ‘A Banking Union of Ideas? The Impact of Ordoliberalism and the Vicious Circle on the EU Banking Union’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 54, 4 (2016), 961–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Warlouzet, Laurent, Governing Europe in a Globalizing World: Neoliberalism and its Alternatives Following the 1973 Oil Crisis (London: Routledge, 2018)Google Scholar; Shaev, Brian, ‘Liberalising Regional Trade: Socialists and European Economic Integration’, Contemporary European History, 27, 2 (2018), 258–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Leucht, Brigitte, Kaiser, Wolfram and Rasmussen, Morten, eds., The History of the European Union Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity 1950–72 (New York: Routledge, 2009)Google Scholar; Bussière, Éric, ed., Europe organisée, Europe du libre-échange? Fin XIXe siècle - années 1960 (Bruxelles: PIE Lang, 2007)Google Scholar.

3 Caldari, Katia, ‘From “Planning” to “Programming”: A Lost Opportunity for the European Project?’, Forum for Social Economics, 18 (2019), 1–17Google Scholar; Bussière, Eric, ‘Les tentatives d'une politique économique et monétaire’, in Dumoulin, Michel et al. , eds., La Commission européenne 1958–1972: histoire et mémoires d'une institution (Luxembourg: Publications Office, 2014), 405–22Google Scholar; Warlouzet, Laurent, Le Choix de la CEE par la France – L'Europe Économique en Débat de Mendès France à De Gaulle (Paris: Comité pour l'histoire économique et financière de la France, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nützenadel, Alexander, Stunde Der Ökonomen. Wissenschaft, Politik und Expertenkultur in der Bundesrepublik (Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: Göttingen, 2005)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Vauchez, Antoine and Mudge, Stephanie Lee, ‘Building Europe on a Weak Field: Law, Economics, and Scholarly Avatars in Transnational Politics’, American Journal of Sociology 118, 2 (2012), 449–92Google Scholar; also see Maes, Ivo, ‘The Ascent of the European Commission as an Actor in the Monetary Integration Process in the 1960s’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 53, 2 (2006), 222–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar. I. Maes’ work, however, mostly focuses on monetary issues.

5 Fourcade, Marion, Ollion, Etienne and Algan, Yann, ‘The Superiority of Economists’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 29, 1 (2015), 89–114CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

6 The documents used here mostly come from the Historical Archive of European Integration in Florence, in particular from the Medium Term Economic Policy Committee files and the Pierre Uri files. Other sources include the Archive of the European Parliament in Luxemburg and the virtual archives of the CVCE (https://www.cvce.eu) and of the University of Pittsburgh (http://aei.pitt.edu/).

7 Schumpeter, Joseph A., History of Economic Analysis (London: Taylor & Francis, 2006), 728CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Kuisel, Richard F, Capitalism and State in Modern France: Renovation and Economic Management in the 20. Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983)Google Scholar; Maier, Charles S., Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade After World War I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975)Google Scholar.

9 Hall, Peter A., ed, The Political Power of Economic Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 Amable, Bruno, ‘Dirigisme and modernism vs Ordoliberalism’, in Hien, Joseph and Joerges, Christian, eds, Ordoliberalism, Law and the Rule of Economics (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2017)Google Scholar; Denord, François, Néo-libéralisme version française: histoire d'une idéologie politique (Paris: Demopolis, 2007)Google Scholar.

11 Hayek, Friedrich A., The Road to Serfdom (London: Institute of Economic Affairs, 2013)Google Scholar.

12 Audier, Serge, Néo-libéralisme(s): une archéologie intellectuelle (Paris: Grasset, 2012)Google Scholar.

13 Allais, Maurice, L'Europe Unie, route de la prospérité (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 1960), 177Google Scholar. See also Sterdyniak, Henri, ‘Maurice Allais, itinéraire d'un économiste français’, Revue d'économie politique, 121, 2 (2011), 119–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Bruno Amable, ‘Dirigisme and Modernism vs Ordoliberalism’, in Joseph Hien and Christian Joerges, eds., Ordoliberalism, Law and the Rule of Economics (Hart Publishing (Oxford&Portland, 2017).

15 Maier, Charles S., ‘Between Taylorism and Technocracy: European Ideologies and the Vision of Industrial Productivity in the 1920s’, Journal of Contemporary History, 5, 2 (1970), 27–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Alphandéry, Claude and Fourquet, François, Les Comptes de la puissance: histoire de la comptabilité nationale et du plan (Fontenay-sous-Bois: Recherches, 1980)Google Scholar.

17 Armatte, Michel, ‘A History of Econometrics in France: From Nature to Models’, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought 16, 2 (2009), 384–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

18 Hall, The Political Power of Economic Ideas.

19 Fourcade, Marion, Economists and Societies: Discipline and Profession in the United States, Britain, and France, 1890s to 1990s (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

20 Coats, Alfred W., On the History of Economic Thought: British and American Essays, vol. II (London: Routledge, 1993), 393Google Scholar.

21 Cohen, Antonin, ‘Du corporatisme au keynésianisme. Continuités pratiques et ruptures symboliques dans le sillage de François Perroux’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 56, 4 (2006), 555–92CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

22 Denord, François, ‘French Neoliberalism and its Divisions From the Colloque Walter Lippmann to the Fifth Republic’, in in Mirowski, Philip and Plehwe, Dieter, eds., The Road from Mont Pèlerin: The Making of the Neoliberal Thought Collective (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009)Google Scholar.

23 Rosanvallon, Pierre, ‘The Development of Keynesianism in France’, in The Political Power of Economic Ideas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 190Google Scholar.

24 Brunet, Luc-André, ‘The Creation of the Monnet Plan, 1945–1946: A Critical Re-Evaluation’, Contemporary European History, 27, 1 (2018), 23–41CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Featherstone, Kevin, ‘Jean Monnet and the “Democratic Deficit” in the European Union’, JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies, 32, 2 (1994), 149–70Google Scholar.

26 Cohen, Antonin, ‘Le plan Schuman de Paul Reuter. Entre communauté nationale et fédération européenne’, Revue Française de Science Politique, 48, 5 (1998), 645–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 On their biographies, see Uri, Pierre, Penser pour l'action (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1991)Google Scholar; Marjolin, Robert, Le travail d'une vie (Paris: Robert Laffont, 1986)Google Scholar; Maes, Ivo et Dyson, Kenneth, eds., Architects of the Euro: Intellectuals in the Making of European Monetary Union (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016)Google Scholar.

28 Milward, Alan, The Reconstruction of Western Europe (London: Methuen & Co. Ltd., 1984), 395Google Scholar.

29 Melchionni, Maria Grazia and Ducci, Roberto, ‘Entretien avec Pierre Uri’, in La genèse des Traités de Rome (Paris: Economica, 2007), 262Google Scholar.

30 Michel Dumoulin, ‘Les Travaux du Comité Spaak (Juillet 1955–Avril 1956)’, in La Relance Européenne et Les Traités de Rome (Bruxelles/Milan/Paris/Baden-Baden, Bruylant/Giuffrè/LGDJ/Nomos Verlag: 1989).

31 Melchionni et Ducci, ‘Entretien avec Pierre Uri’, 272.

32 Paul-Henri Spaak, ‘Rapport des chefs de délégation aux ministres des Affaires étrangères’, 21 Apr. 1956, 3.

33 Cohen, Antonin, ‘Why Call It a “European Community”? Ideological Continuities and Institutional Design of Nascent European Organisations’, Contemporary European History, 27, 2 (2018), 326–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34 Pierre Uri, ‘Document de Travail n°7 : Pleine utilisation des ressources européennes’, 6 Dec. 1955, PU-53, Historical Archive of the European Union (HAEU), Florence; Compare with Spaak, ‘Rapport’, 36.

35 Pierre Uri, ‘Note de Pierre Uri pour la Haute Autorité’, 29 Oct. 1955, PU-53, HAEU, Florence.

36 Spaak, ‘Rapport’, 36. Emphasis added.

37 Bossuat, Gérard, Faire l'Europe sans défaire la France (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2005)Google Scholar.

38 Marjolin, Robert, ‘Pour une politique économique commune’, Revue du Marché Commun, 2, 19 (1959)Google Scholar.

39 European Commission, ‘Mémorandum de la Commission sur le programme d'action de la Communauté pendant la deuxième étape’, 24 Oct. 1962, Archive of European Integration, University of Pittsburgh (last accessed 15 July 2019 : aei.pitt.edu, http://aei.pitt.edu/41803/1/A5946.pdf), 6.

40 European Commission, ‘Mémorandum’, 59.

41 Robert Marjolin, ‘A Plan for Europe? Speech by Mr. Robert Marjolin, Vice-President of the Commission of the European Economic Community, at the Congress of the Confederation Nationale de la Mutualite, de la Cooperation et du Credit agricoles’, 25 May 1962, Archive of European Integration, University of Pittsburgh (last accessed on 15 July 2019: http://aei.pitt.edu/14820/).

42 European Commission, ‘Mémorandum’, 65–7.

43 Massé, Pierre, Le Plan ou l'anti-Hasard (Paris: Gallimard, 1965), 144Google Scholar.

44 European Commission, ‘Mémorandum’, 64–5.

45 Ibid., 10.

46 Commissariat Général au Plan, Quatrième Plan de Développement Économique et Social (1962–1965), (Paris: Commissariat général au Plan, 1962).

47 James Foreman-Peck, ‘European Industrial Policies in the Post-War Boom: Planning the Economic Miracle’, in Christian Grabas and Alexander Nützenadel, eds, Industrial Policy in Europe after 1945 Wealth, Power and Economic Development in the Cold War (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 13–47; Silvia Pochini, ‘Economic Programming in the European Community Countries (1962–1967): Elements for a Comparison’, History of Economic Ideas, 16, 1/2 (2008), 185–206.

48 Pier Luigi Porta, ‘Europe and the Post-1945 Internationalization of Political Economy: The Case of Italy’, in A. W. B. Coats, ed., The Development of Economics in Western Europe Since 1945 (London: Routledge, 2005), 149; Pochini, ‘Economic Programming’, 199.

49 A feeling shared by those involved in this project. See ‘Entretien avec Michel Albert par Éric Bussière, Ghjiseppu Lavezzi et Émilie Willaert’ (Histoire interne de la Commission européenne 1958–1973, 2003), HAEU Florence.

50 Alexander Nützenadel, ‘Die Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Frankreich und Die Debatte Über Eine Europäische Wirtschaftspolitik 1957–1965’, Francia: Forschungen Zur Westeuropäischen Geschichte, 2008, 71–95.

51 European Parliament, Compte-rendu intégral des débats au Parlement Européen, 20 Nov. 1962 (Brussels: Office des publications officielles des Communautés européennes), 51–6.

52 Consiglio Nazionale dell'Economia e del Lavoro (CNEL), La programmation économique européenne et la programmation économique nationale dans les pays de la CEE (Rome: Vallecchi, 1962).

53 Ibid., 41.

54 Cited in Warlouzet, Le Choix de La CEE Par La France, 348.

55 Parenti, Giuseppe, ed., Modelli Econometrici per La Programmazione (Firenze: Scuola di statistica dell'universita Firenze, 1965)Google Scholar.

56 Ibid., 389–90.

57 Hirsch, Etienne, ‘French Planning and Its European Application’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 1, 2 (1962), 117–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

58 Monnet, Jean, ‘A Ferment of Change’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 1, 3 (1963), 203–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

59 See ‘Les Perspectives de Développement Économique dans la CEE de 1960 à 1970 – Aspects Structurels’ (1962) BAC-062/1980_0007, HAEU Florence.

60 Pierre Uri, ‘La Planification entre les Nations pour Construire l'Europe, VIème Congrès International de l’économie Collective, Rome, 8–10 Avril 1963’, PU-201, HAEU Florence.

61 Bajon, Philip, ‘The European Commissioners and the Empty Chair Crisis of 1965–66’, Journal of European Integration History, 15, 2 (2009), 105–24CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

62 European Parliament, Compte-rendu intégral des débats au Parlement Européen, 21 Jan. 1964 (Brussels: Office des publications officielles des Communautés européennes, 1964), 25–6.

63 For example, Plitzko, Alfred, Planung ohne Planwirtschaft: Frankfurter Gespräch der List Gesellschaft (Basel: Kyklos-Verl., 1964)Google Scholar; Langfristige Programmierung innerhalb der Marktwirtschaft (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1963).

64 Eric Bussière, ‘Les tentatives d'une politique économique et monétaire’, 413.

65 Robert Marjolin, ‘Politique économique à moyen terme de la Communauté’, 10 Jul. 1963, BAC-003/1978_1067 – Vol. 1., HAEU, Florence.

66 ‘Conjoncture économique de la CEE et d'Euratom: composition, règlements, réunions du CPEMT. Vol.1.’, BAC-118/1986_1875, HAEU, Florence.

67 European Commission, ‘Premier programme de politique économique à moyen terme – 1966–1970’ (Brussels: Office des publications officielles des Communautés européennes, 1967).

68 ‘Prises de position sur la politique économique à moyen terme’, CM2/1964-438, HAEU Florence.

69 Cited from the Commissariat Général au Plan, ‘Troisième Plan de Modernisation et d’équipement (1958–1961)’ (Paris: 1959).

70 European Commission, ‘Projet de programme de politique économique à moyen-terme’, 13.

71 European Parliament, Compte-rendu intégral des débats au Parlement Européen, 21 Jan. 1964 (Brussels: Office des publications officielles des Communautés européennes, 1964), 39.

72 Nützenadel, Stunde Der Ökonomen, 239sq.

73 ‘Réunion du 09/12/65’, Conjoncture économique de la CEE et d'Euratom. Vol.1., BAC-118/1986_1875, HAEU Florence.

74 Bajon, ‘The European Commissioners and the Empty Chair Crisis of 1965–66’.

75 Ludlow, N. Piers, The European Community and the Crises of the 1960s: Negotiating the Gaullist Challenge (London: Routledge, 2006), 71Google Scholar.

76 Ludlow, The European Community and the Crises, 121 and more generally 118–32. For a discussion of the consequences of the compromise, see Fiona Heyes-Renshaw and Helen Wallace, ‘Changing the Course of European Integration – or Not?’, in Jean-Marie Palayret, Helen Wallace, and Pascaline Winand, eds., Visions, Votes and Vetoes (Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006), 301–20. See also Wilfried Loth, ed., Crises and Compromises: The European Project 1963–1969 (Baden-Baden: Nomos-Verl.-Ges., 2001).

77 Vauchez, Antoine, Brokering Europe: Euro-Lawyers and the Making of a Transnational Polity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

78 See Ulf Sverdrup, ‘Administering Information: Eurostat and Statistical Integration’, in Morten Egeberg, ed, Multilevel Union Administration (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 103–23.

79 Medium-Term Economic Policy Committee, ‘Quatrième réunion du CPEMT’, 27 Apr. 1965, BAC-118/1986_1875, HAEU, Florence.

80 ‘Réunion du CPEMT’, 25 June 1965, BAC-118/1986_1875, HAEU, Florence.

81 ‘Réunion du CPEMT’, 9 Dec. 1965, BAC-118/1986_1875, HAEU, Florence.

82 European Commission, ‘Premier programme de politique économique à moyen terme’, 14.

83 European Commission, ‘Projet de programme de politique économique à moyen-terme présenté par la Commission au Conseil’, 29 Apr. 1966, COM(66).

84 European Parliament, Compte-rendu intégral des débats au Parlement Européen, 30 Nov. 1966 (Brussels: Office des publications officielles des Communautés européennes, 1966), 111.

85 W. Langer, ‘Allocution de Départ de M. W. Langer,’ 20 Jan. 1967, BAC-118/1986_1875, HAEU, Florence.

86 European Commission, ‘Projet de programme de politique économique à moyen-terme’, 3–4.

87 Pierre Drouin, ‘Une nouvelle phase du Marché commun’, Le Monde, 24 Dec. 1966.

88 Paul Fabra, ‘Les ministres de l’économie cèdent la place à leurs collègues des affaires étrangères et de l'agriculture’, Le Monde, 22 Dec. 1966.

89 However, he was not entirely hostile to some kind of planification. ‘Entretien Avec Raymond Barre par Marie-Thérèse Bitsch, Éric Bussière et Ghjiseppu Lavezzi’ (Histoire interne de la Commission européenne 1958–1973, 2004), HAEU Florence.

90 Canihac, Hugo, ‘Walter Eucken in Paris? The Introduction of German Ordoliberalism into French Economic Debates (1945–65)’, Revue Européenne Des Sciences Sociales, 55, 2 (2017), 237–63CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 Brigitte Gaïti, ‘L’érosion discrète de l’État-providence dans la France des années 1960: Retour sur les temporalités d'un “tournant néo-libéral”’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 201–2, 1 (2014), 58–71.

92 Caldari, ‘From “Planning” to “Programming”’; Maes, ‘The Ascent of the European Commission as an Actor in the Monetary Integration Process in the 1960s’.

93 Official Journal L 063, 05/03/1974, 74/122/EEC, Council Decision of 18 Feb. 1974 setting up an Economic Policy Committee.

94 Maes, ‘The Ascent of the European Commission as an Actor in the Monetary Integration Process in the 1960s’.

95 On these continuities see Warlouzet, Governing Europe in a Globalizing World; Warlouzet, , ‘The EEC/EU as an Evolving Compromise between French Dirigism and German Ordoliberalism (1957–1995)’, Journal of Common Market Studies, 57, 1 (2019), 77–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.