Charles Grant: Europe's Choice: Monnet vs de Gaulle

Charles Grant is director of the Centre for European Reform

The euro crisis is transforming the balance of power in Europe. Germany is emerging, for the first time in the European Union’s history, as the unquestioned leader. France is having to adjust to a subordinate role. The euro countries are likely to integrate more closely, leading to a two-speed Europe. Britain is moving to the margins. One other key shift has attracted less attention but is just as significant: the European commission is becoming weaker vis-à-vis the member-states.

In the 1950s and 1960s, two great Frenchmen, Jean Monnet and Charles de Gaulle, had rival visions for Europe. Jean Monnet understood that national governments, left to their own devices, would never agree to significant steps of political or economic integration. He wanted effective institutions to cajole them and the rule of law to constrain them. The commission incarnates Monnet’s philosophy and can take much of the credit for achievements such as the single market and the enlargement of the union.

But Charles de Gaulle wanted a Europe des Patries, with national governments - and especially those from big countries - calling the shots. On returning to power in 1958 he almost scrapped the just created European Economic Community, only keeping it in the hope that it could act as a counterweight to the United States. But he blocked the extension of majority voting and treated the commission with disdain.

The European Union has always been a compromise between supranationalism - represented by the EU’s commission, court of justice and parliament - and intergovernmentalism. The commission’s influence peaked when Jacques Delors was its president, from 1985 to 1995: the period when the EU extended majority-voting and laid plans for the euro. But the larger member-states have been trying to shackle the commission ever since....