Summary Institutions of Europe
CHAPTER 4
Key issues:
What were the major historical causes of European conflict and war?
- Religion: Latin against Orthodox churches.
- Language, culture: People with different culture and language were brought under
common governments, whose rules often resented(kwalijk genomen werden).
- States had struggles for national self-determination(bepaling) grew.
- States began to build oversees imperia.
- Nationalism and imperialism.
- Versailles 1919, League of nations, but Germany wasn’t involved, upcoming
Nazism.
Idealists explored ways in which Europeans might cooperate through regional
associations.
What had changed by 1945 to make Europeans more receptive(vatbaar) to the
idea of cooperation?
- Rebuilding of infrastructure
- Cold war: A war of words, ideas and ideologies between the US and its
surrogates, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and its surrogates on the
other. It lasted from the late 1940s till the late 1980s.
- Three urgent(dringende) priorities:
1. Economic reconstruction, but they couldn’t do it by themselves.
2. Europeans not only continued to be suspicious of each other, but also faced
the prospect of the battlefield in a war between the Americans and the
Soviets.
3. European Countries should get rid of nationalism.
Why were France and Germany so central to the interests of European
integration? Because several wars were between them.
How important was the Marshall Plan to the postwar recovery of Europe?
- The Bretton Woods system: the convertibility(inwisselbaarheid) of currencies,
free trade, non-discrimination, and stable rates of exchange.
- Creation of two international organizations:
International Monetary Fund would encourage exchange rate stability in
the interests of promoting international trade.
World bank would lend to European countries affected from war.
- Marshall Plan: A program under which the US offered financial assistance to
encourage postwar recovery in Europe. Often credited with providing the
investments needed to pave(bouwen) the way for regional integration.
- Beginning of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation(OEEC):
An international body set up to coordinate and manage Marshall aid, which some
see as the first significant step in the process of postwar European integratiom.
CHAPTER 4
Key issues:
What were the major historical causes of European conflict and war?
- Religion: Latin against Orthodox churches.
- Language, culture: People with different culture and language were brought under
common governments, whose rules often resented(kwalijk genomen werden).
- States had struggles for national self-determination(bepaling) grew.
- States began to build oversees imperia.
- Nationalism and imperialism.
- Versailles 1919, League of nations, but Germany wasn’t involved, upcoming
Nazism.
Idealists explored ways in which Europeans might cooperate through regional
associations.
What had changed by 1945 to make Europeans more receptive(vatbaar) to the
idea of cooperation?
- Rebuilding of infrastructure
- Cold war: A war of words, ideas and ideologies between the US and its
surrogates, on the one hand, and the Soviet Union and its surrogates on the
other. It lasted from the late 1940s till the late 1980s.
- Three urgent(dringende) priorities:
1. Economic reconstruction, but they couldn’t do it by themselves.
2. Europeans not only continued to be suspicious of each other, but also faced
the prospect of the battlefield in a war between the Americans and the
Soviets.
3. European Countries should get rid of nationalism.
Why were France and Germany so central to the interests of European
integration? Because several wars were between them.
How important was the Marshall Plan to the postwar recovery of Europe?
- The Bretton Woods system: the convertibility(inwisselbaarheid) of currencies,
free trade, non-discrimination, and stable rates of exchange.
- Creation of two international organizations:
International Monetary Fund would encourage exchange rate stability in
the interests of promoting international trade.
World bank would lend to European countries affected from war.
- Marshall Plan: A program under which the US offered financial assistance to
encourage postwar recovery in Europe. Often credited with providing the
investments needed to pave(bouwen) the way for regional integration.
- Beginning of the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation(OEEC):
An international body set up to coordinate and manage Marshall aid, which some
see as the first significant step in the process of postwar European integratiom.
