Francesco Petrini THE HISTORIOGRAPHY ON INDUSTRIAL MILIEUX AND EUROPEAN INTEGRATION.

BRINGING THE SOCIAL CONFLICT BACK IN The historical reflection on European integration moved its first steps thanks to the contribution of two historiographical schools, very distant from each other1. On the one hand, in the field of the history of international relations, the study of European integration began in the 1980s to amend itself form an almost exclusive dependence on the interpretative schemes of the historiography on the Cold War and the bipolar conflict. In the wake of a research project on the decline of the European powers, which had involved an international group of scholars, European integration began to be considered not only as a side product of the hegemonic action of the American superpower and of the demands of the dawning confrontation with the Soviet Union, but rather as an autonomous initiative by a Continent trying to respond to its own decline2.

1 For a recent, synthetic, critical overview of the historiographical characters on European integration, cf.: M. Gilbert, Narrating the Process. Questioning the Progressive Story of European Integration, in Journal of Common Market Studies, n. 3, 2008, pp. 641-662. For a broad review of the development and the various historiographical tendencies on European integration, see the essays in W. Kaiser, A. Varsori (eds), European Union History. Themes and Debates, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010; in particular, on the genesis of European integration history as an autonomous field of research see the contribution by A. Varsori, From Normative Impetus to Professionalization: Origins and Operation of Research Networks, in ibidem, pp. 6-25. 2 This research project originated numerous volumes, among which: J. Becker, F. Knipping (eds), Power in Europe? Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany in Post-War World (1945-1950), Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1986; E. Di Nolfo (ed.), Power in Europe? Great Britain, France, Italy and Germany and the Origins of the EEC 1952-1957, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1992.

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On the other hand, some scholars, pushed by a strong ideal and political commitment towards the promotion of Europes unity, started to reconstruct the origins and the first steps of European integration stressing the action of individuals and groups of federalist orientation3. Both these perspectives contained the potentiality to develop in depth the study of the role played by the business circles in European integration. On the one hand, amongst the historians of international relations, particularly those more influenced by the Annales school and its emphasis on the forces profondes 4, soon became evident the necessity to go beyond traditional analyses of the diplomatic game insufficient to explain such a complex phenomenon as the integration of Western Europe and to take into account the interaction between economic, social and demographic structures and eventually to consider the interest groups acting inside the nation State and their influence on international politics. On the other hand, federalist scholars approach, with their attention on the influence of pressure groups that today would be defined as transnational, albeit of a particular kind like the federalist ones5, represented a welcome counterweight to the State-centric prejudice of international relations history. However, the uneasy evolution of the two points of view and the lack of dialogue between them did not permit to fully develop their potentialities. Even if the international historians have been able, in a few cases, to free themselves
3 See, for ex.: W. Lipgens, Die Anfnge der europischen Einigungspolitik: 1945-1950, Stuttgart, Klett, 1977; L. Levi, Lunificazione europea. Trentanni di storia, Torino, SEI, 1983. For a general overview cf. D. Pasquinucci, Between Political Commitment and Academic Research: Federalist Perspectives, in W. Kaiser, A. Varsori (eds), European Union History, cit., pp. 66-84. 4 In particular it is worth citing Ren Giraults work. On his conception of the International relations historians craft, see R. Girault, tre historien des relations internationales, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1998. 5 W. Lipgens, W. Loth (eds), Documents on the History of European Integration, vol. 4, Transnational Organizations of Political Parties and Pressure Groups in Western European Countries 1945-1950, Berlin-New York, De Gruyter, 1991.

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from the traditional framework emphasizing the political and institutional aspects, this has often been done, as we shall see below, in a perspective that has transported in the new fields the hoary methodological assumptions of diplomatic history, i.e. the centrality of the nation State and the assumption of the primacy of foreign politics. On the federalist side, the normative stance, that has traditionally characterised this approach and its teleological interpretation of the integration process as a winding but unrelenting path towards the United States of Europe, has prevented the broadening of its research borders beyond the narrow limits of the federalist circles, whose effective influence on the mechanisms of integration has never been clearly demonstrated6, and by consequence have blocked the development of the innovation potential they contained. These missed developments did not totally prevent the growth of an historical literature on the business circles and the European construction, but it has for sure blocked its full development and the elaboration of complete and original interpretative hypotheses. 1. Studying the 1940s and the 1950s: the years of concerted integration Despite these weaknesses, the study of the relation between industrial milieux and European integration has produced a consistent body of work regarding the 1940s and the 1950s, the starting period of the European Communities, in which it is possible to enucleate some common lines of interpretation. The analysis has developed by intertwining two lines of inquiry: on the one hand, it has attempted to investigate the influence of the employers groups on governments action, especially in the case of the negotiations for the different Communities starting (or
6 W. Kaiser, From State to Society? The Historiography of European Integration, in M. Cini, A. K. Bourne (eds), Palgrave Advances in European union Studies, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, pp. 190-208.

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failing) in this period. On the other hand, some scholars have tried to understand if, and on what bases, it was possible to identify, amongst the European economic circles, a common identity. Between the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s, the first historical studies on industrialists and integration began to appear, mainly by the Francophone school of international relations history7. In 1989, the distinguished Sorbonne historian Ren Giraults launched a large research project on European identity aiming to identify and define the characteristics of such an identity in a long term perspective, with the purpose of overcoming the chronological and methodological limitations that, until that moment, had characterised the history of European integration8. In this context, the studies on the patronat found a wide space: in 1993 there was the first edited volume dedicated to economic circles views on European integration9. Introducing the book, Girault pointed out the core issues to be investigated:
Trois principales questions peuvent tre poses sur le plan thorique: 1) Les patrons europens ont-ils jou un rle dans llaboration des Constructions europennes, telles que la CECA, la CEE, lEuratom, lOCDE avant leur constitution effective? 2) Une fois ces constructions cres ces patrons ont-ils vraiment particip la vie propre de ces entreprises, cest--dire leur gestion, ce qui diffre de la simple adaptation aux nouvelles crations ? 3) Quelle fut lad7 Obviously there had been earlier studies on European integration, written by sociologists, political scientists or journalists, in which some attention was paid to business positions representing a current useful source of data and facts. Cf. R. J. Lieber, British Politics and European Unity: Parties, Elites and Pressure Groups, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1970; F. Roy Willis, Italy Chooses Europe, New York, Oxford University Press, 1971. 8 R. Girault (dir.), Identit et conscience europenne au XXe sicle, Paris, Hachette, 1994. 9 M. Dumoulin, R. Girault, G. Trausch (dir.), LEurope du Patronat. De la guerre froide aux annes soixante, Bruxelles, Peter Lang, 1993. The volume presented the proceedings of a conference held at Louvain-laNeuve in May 1990.

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hsion des patrons europens aux principes, aux effets des constructions europennes, cest--dire leur adhsion (ou refus) certains principes prcis, comme les lois anti-trusts, la supra-nationalit, la fixation des prix, labaissement des cadres douaniers, etc10.

This research programme was carried on by a series of works finding a synthesis in a volume edited by Michel Dumoulin and Eric Bussire and published in 199811. As Bussire pointed out, it was time to overcome the institutional approach (dpasser lapproche institutionnelle12) largely prevailing in the study of European integration, both of its diplomatic aspects and of the economic ones, with the goal of investigating if and in what forms it was possible to talk about a common identity of the economic elites of the Old Continent. Actually, the research for a European identity of the business groups did not bring forth any clear and definitive answer. Ruggero Ranieri, introducing the section of the 1998 volume dedicated to industrial companies, aptly synthesized the results achieved by the research:
Neither of the two opposing ends of a potential spectrum of Europeanness can be said to apply to the industries in question and to their leaders. In other words neither was a strong feeling of a common European identity, which led to a common set of values and strategies, nor on the other hand were there irreconcilable differences and contrasts which inhibited common actions and the development of closer ties. The pendulum seemed to fall

10 R. Girault, Europe du patronat ou patrons europens?, in M. Dumoulin, R. Girault, G. Trausch (dir.), LEurope du Patronat, cit., pp. 11-15 (quotation p. 11). 11 E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin (dir.), Milieux conomiques et intgration europenne en Europe occidentale au XXe sicle, Arras, Artois Presses Universit, 1998. 12 E. Bussire, Les milieux conomiques face lEurope au XXime sicle, in Journal of European Integration History, n. 2, 1997, pp. 5-21 (quotation p. 5).

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somewhere in the middle, often in an indecisive, muddled and uncertain way13.

However, the research widening and refining produced some substantial historiographical progresses. The main achievement of the studies, conducted in the context of the identity project, is having placed at the centre of the stage a long term reading of the Europe integration, emphasizing the continuity factors with the period preceding the Second World War, going back to the 1890s, when with the first wave of globalization emerged some of the issues, the integration of the second half of the XX century attempted to respond. In Eric Bussires words, a scholar whose contribution has been fundamental in this respect:
Lun des rsultats des travaux des dernires annes a t de montrer que loin dtre simplement dtermines par le seul contexte institutionnel, la rflexion et la stratgie des acteurs sancrent dans un temps plus long que la seule seconde moiti du XXe sicle. Une approche spcifique et consciente des ralits europennes merge en fait la fin du XIXe sicle ds lors que la concurrence dautres centres simpose aux acteurs europens14.
13 R. Ranieri, Introduction, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin (dir.), Milieux conomiques, cit., pp. 163-166 (quotation p. 164). 14 E. Bussire, Lintgration conomique de lEurope au XXe sicle: processus et acteurs, Entreprises et Histoire, n. 2, 2003, pp. 12-24 (quotation p. 13). See also : E. Bussire, Les milieux conomiques franais et la question de lunit conomique de lEurope des annes vingt aux annes cinquante, in A. Ciampani (a cura di), Laltra via per lEuropa: forze sociali e organizzazione degli interessi nellintegrazione europea 1947-1957, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 1995, pp 53-65; M. Dumoulin (dir.), Plans de temps de guerre pour lEurope daprs-guerre 1940-1947, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 1995. As for the sectoral studies the search of continuities has been developed mainly with regard to the steel sector. The more recent general overview of the ECSC experience which underscores its traits of continuity with the interwar period is: J. Gillingham, Coal, Steel and the Rebirth of Europe, 1945-1955. The Germans and French from Ruhr Conflict to Economic Community, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991. As far as the industrial milieux are specifically concerned, see the pioneering H. Rieben, Des ententes des matres de forges au plan Schuman, Lausanne, Centre de recherches europeennes, 1954. For more recent developments cf. the contributions by Franoise Berger, for instance: F. Berger, Les patrons de lacier en France et Allemagne

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In short, at the roots of this continuity, there were essentially two phenomena. On the one hand, the need to overcome the division of the Old Continent in order to respond to the challenges coming form outside Europe, first form the United States then, in the last quarter of the XX century, from Asia, thus trying to chase off the decline spectre of a civilization. Depuis les origines la prise de conscience de lEurope conomique peut tre assimile la prise de conscience dun double dfi. Dfi interne dans la mesure o il sest dabord agi pour le continent de surmonter ses propres divisions, dfi externe pour une Europe confronte de nouvelles concurrences, dabord les Etats-Unis dAmrique, plus rcemment le Japon, et affecte par langoisse collective de son propre dclin15. If, in this perspective, the thrust towards the creation of a great European market has been interpreted as a defensive reaction to foreign competition, from another point of view, it has been emphasized it was mainly an internal logic pushing the industrial capitalism to accept economic integration. Thus, in the case of West German industry, Werner Bhrers work has stressed that, at the roots of its favourable positions towards the Rome treaties, there was the perspective of exploiting the Common Market to deploy the renewed German economic power16. In a simiface lEurope (1930-1960), in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin (dir.), Milieux conomiques, cit., pp. 179-195. See also: C. Barthel, Les matres de forges luxembourgeois et la renaissance des ententes sidrurgiques internationales au lendemain de la seconde guerre mondiale, in G. Trausch et al., Le Luxembourg face la construction europenne, Luxembourg, Centre dtudes et de recherches europennes Robert Schuman, 1996, pp. 175-201. 15 E. Bussire, Les milieux conomiques face lEurope, cit., p. 5. 16 W. Bhrer, The Federation of German Industry and European Integration, 1949-1960, in M. Dumoulin, R. Girault, G. Trausch (dir.), LEurope du Patronat, cit., pp. 17-28. For a more recent analysis: Id., Le Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie, le ministre fdral de lconomie et lintgration europenne, 1958-1972, in Le rle des ministres des Finances et de lconomie dans la construction europenne, Paris, Comit pour lHistoire conomique et Financire de la France, 2002, pp. 53-69. On West German industry positions see also T. Rhenisch, Europische Integra-

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lar vein, Ruggero Ranieri, in the wake of Alan Milwards observation on the German economy centrality in the modernization process of Western European industry17, has emphasized the importance of the expansion perspectives on the German market, and on the French too, in determining the positive attitude of Italian industrialists in the second half of the 1950s18. Furthermore, some authors have pointed out the importance of the microeconomic dynamics too, stressing the need to create an economic space fit for the adoption of the American system of production and the exploitation of economies of scale as one of the main reason underlying the choice for integration by many entrepreneurs19.
tion und industrielles Interesse: die Deutsche Industrie und die Grndung der Europischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft, Stuttgart, Franz Steiner, 1999. 17 See A.S. Milward, The European Rescue of the Nation-State, London, Routledge, 1992, pp. 134-167. Milward wrote: It was German industry which re-equipped Western European industry from 1949 onwards. But German manufactured exports grew in a modernizing symbiosis with the exports of other Western European economies to Germany; the German market was as important to modernization as German supply (p. 154). 18 R. Ranieri, Lintegrazione europea e gli ambienti economici italiani, in R.H. Rainero (a cura di), Storia dellintegrazione europea, vol. I: Lintegrazione europea dalle origini alla nascita della Cee, Milano, Marzorati, 1997, pp. 285-329. Id., Italian industry and the EEC, in A. Deighton, A.S. Milward (eds.), Widening, Deepening and Acceleration: the European Economic Community 1957-1963, Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlag, 1999, pp. 185-198. See also: F. Fauri, Italys Industrial Forces and European Economic Integration (1950s-1960s), in R. Perron (ed.), The Stability of Europe. The Common Market: Towards European Integration of Industrial and Financial Markets? (1958-1968), Paris, Presse Universitaires de Paris-Sorbonne, 2004, pp. 63-77. For an analysis stressing the positive expectations towards the creation of the Common Market of large parts of the Italian industrial sector cf. P. Tedeschi, Les industriels lombards et les nouvelles rgles du March Commun dans les annes 50: risques et opportunits, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (eds.), Europe des marchs libres ou Europe du libre change? Fin XIXe sicle Annes 1960, Bruxelles, Peter Lang, 2006, pp. 107-147. 19 J.-C. Defraigne, Lintgration europenne et la dynamique technologique des grands entreprises, in M. Moguen-Toursel (dir.), Stratgie dentreprise et action publique dans lEurope intgre (1950-1980). Affrontement et apprentissage des acteurs, Bruxelles, PIE-Peter Lang, 2007, pp. 47-86.

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The second factor of continuity laid in the idea, widely shared by a large portion of the top European executives, of an economic integration hinging upon the building of a continent-wide network of cartels and market ententes. Such an idea plunged its roots into the debates started up at the end of the XIX century20, and it was concretely implemented in the interwar period with a series of industrial agreements aiming to regulate concurrence and sharing markets21 which, on the national plan, was accompanied by a corporatist system of collaboration between employers and governments with, in some cases (Germany and Great Britain), the involvement of the trade unions. In this frame, the preference of business went to a particular kind of integration which ought to be concerted through direct dealings between producers, and the complete rejection of the supranational dirigisme, seen as an undue interference by the public authorities into the preserve of market and private initiative, a position expressing itself more vigorously during the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) negotiations and in the period immediately before them22. The diffusion amongst the employers of this particular attitude towards the problems posed by the management of the economic interdependence is attested by the few existing comparative studies regarding the first decade of European integration, such as Andreas Wilkens work
20 S.A. Marin, Zollverein, cartels ou coalition? Rflexions allemandes sur lorganisation des marchs europens (1880-1914), in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), Europe organise, Europe du libre-change? Fin XIXe sicle Annes 1960, Bruxelles, PIE-Peter Lang, 2006, pp. 13-45. 21 Cf. the sources quoted in the footnotes 34-35. 22. As Philippe Mioche states on the positions defended by Pierre Ricard, vice President of the French Conseil national du patronat franais, at the 1949 European Economic Conference, held at Westminster: Le CNPF nest pas contre lEurope, il est pour lEurope faite par les industriels (P. Mioche, Le patronat franais et les projets dintgration conomique europenne dans les annes Cinquante, in G. Trausch (hrsg.), Der Europische integration vom Schuman-Plan bis zu den vertrgen von Rom, Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlag, 1993, pp. 241-257 (quotation p. 242).

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on employers positions in the FRG and France23, and the wider investigation that was later carried out by Marine Moguen-Toursel on the same subject24. However, the centrality of this model on concerted integration emerges even from the analyses carried out in a national sphere, such as, for example, Philippe Mioches inquiry on the French iron and steel industry25, Ruggero Ranieri on the British one26, Francesco Petrini on the Italian Confindustria (the main Italian employers association)27. Sigfrido Ramirez has showed this model was still alive at the beginning of the 1960s in the debate on the definition of the Communitys competition policy, when the representatives of the French automotive sector and the Italian Fiat tried to impose a technocratic solution pas influence par le pouvoir politique28. As for the 1970s, Ramirez has once again emphasized the main European auto makers, combined in the Committee of Common Market Automobile Constructors, born in 1972, sponsored, with the support of part of the Commission, a neo-corporatist project of

23 A. Wilkens, LEurope des ententes ou lEurope de lintgration? Les industries franaise et allemande et les dbuts de la construction europenne (1948-1952), in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin (dir.), Milieux conomiques, cit., pp. 267-283. 24 M. Moguen-Toursel, Louverture des frontires europennes dans les annes 50. Fruit dune concertation avec les industriels?, Bruxelles, PIE-Peter Lang, 2002. 25 P. Mioche, Ladaptation du patronat de la sidrurgie franaise lintgration europenne, in M. Dumoulin, R. Girault, G. Trausch (dir.), LEurope du Patronat, cit., pp. 63-75. 26 R. Ranieri, Lindustria siderurgica britannica e lintegrazione europea (1930-1954), in A. Ciampani (a cura di), Laltra via per lEuropa, cit., pp. 82-97. Ranieri argues that at the core of the hostility of the British steel industry towards the ECSC there was essentially the fear of a European intervention in the cartelized system of production set up in the 1930s. 27 F. Petrini, Il liberismo a una dimensione. La Confindustria e lintegrazione europea 1947-1957, Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2005. 28 S.M. Ramirez Perez, Antitrust ou anti US? Lindustrie automobile europenne et les origines de la politique de la concurrence de la CEE, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), Europe organise, cit., pp. 203-228 (quotation p. 225).

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industrial policy which could be seen, under many aspects, in continuity with the ideas on concerted integration29. However, these aspects of continuity have to be tempered by introducing two caveats. First, the existence of a common position regarding a particular problem (as in the case of the birth of the ECSC) did not imply the obliteration of the several fracture lines characterising the employers world, divided between public and private, big and small, along production lines, or following national borders, etc... As Matthias Kipping has written on the ECSC debate:
les entreprises, prises individuellement, dfendent parfois des positions clairement divergentes. Donc, au moins entre les branches industrielles concernes, et mme au sein dune seule et mme branche, il peut exister des points de vue diffrents, voire opposs, sur les meilleures mesures prendre30.

Secondly, the emergence of a common stance inside different national employers circles does not imply by itself the necessity to adopt a transnational analysis system in order to understand their attitudes in the 1940s and the 1950s. In this period, the regulation and intervention capacities by the nation State attained their apogee; for this reason, the national plan remained the privileged horizon of the action of the lobbies representing the employers interests31. As Wolfram Kaiser has pointed out, the transnational forces, contributing to shape European integration during these starting decades, were not the socio-economic
29 Id., Transnational business networks propagating EC industrial policy. The role of the Committee of Common Market Automobile Constructors, in W. Kaiser, B. Leucht, M. Rasmussen (ed.), The History of the European Union. Origins of a Trans- and Supranational Polity 1950-72, New York, Routledge, 2009, pp. 74-92. 30 M. Kipping, La France et les origines de lUnion europenne. Intgration conomique et comptitivit internationale, Paris, CHEF, 2002, p. 21. 31 For a concrete example of the divisions between national industrial interests, see the analyses of the debate inside the UNICE during the EEC negotiations in F. Petrini, Il liberismo a una dimensione, cit., pp. 280-283. See also below in this article.

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interest groups, that kept on acting on the national plan and were too divided to manage a working compromise: European integration was definitely an anti-communist project, but this does not automatically make it a capitalist project controlled by a relatively cohesive transnational class32. 2. Europe du march, Europe organise: an attempt to a global synthesis Moving from the assumption that there were strong elements of continuity in the conception that the Old Continent economic elites nurtured about the modernization process and the international division of labour, Eric Bussire has elaborated a general interpretative hypothesis about the relation between economic interests and European construction, and more generally about the whole history of the European integration. This hypothesis is focused on the dialectic between two models of integration: on one side, the Europe of the ententes and cartels (Europe organise) while, on the other one, the Europe of the free market (Europe du march)33. As expected, ententes and cartels had not been created with the idea of integration, but rather they were born as a means of defence of national market and as an offensive weapon against others markets. In the interwar years, through them, there was the attempt to stabilise markets and to prevent the establishing of a ruinous competition form, especially in the more capital intensive sectors of
32 W. Kaiser, Transnational Western Europe since 1945, in W. Kaiser, P. Starie (eds), Transnational European Union. Towards a Common Political Space, New York, Routledge, 2005, pp. 17-35 (quotation p. 20). 33 See E. Bussire, Les milieux conomiques face lEurope, cit.; Id., Conclusions, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), Europe organise, cit., pp. 251-254. For an extension of this hypothesis to the whole of the European integration see: E. Bussire, Lintgration conomique de lEurope au XXe sicle, cit.

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the so called Carolingian Europe34. As Franoise Berger writes in one of the more exhaustive contribution on the subject: La priode 1933-1939 constitue le vritable ge dor des ententes, cest celle du plus haut degr de coopration internationale35. However, the 1930s did not represent an exception, but rather they adversely continued and deepened a trend already in full motion since the half of the 1920s. The other pole of Bussires dichotomy, the Europe du march, was born as a counterweight to the idea of Europe organise, partly influenced by the US model, both by its idea of the creation of a great market and by its antitrust policies. In synthesis, on the one hand:
mthode contractuelle, fonde sur une logique cooprative impliquant des formes dintgration positive et la participation active des milieux conomiques la mise en uvre du projet.

On the other hand:

mthode librale, accordant la primaut au march et des formes dintgration ngative o lemporte la simple suppression des entraves aux changes. Dans le premier cas lintgration se veut matrise, dans lautre on laisse aux forces du march le soin de la raliser plus ou moins spontanment36.
The article 299 of the 1919 Versailles Treaty has already authorized the continuation of some the international cartel agreements involving German industries (such as, for instance, the Convention internationale des glaceries) comme des facteurs de stabilit, de coopration, voire de paix conomique. (E. Bussire, Conclusions, cit., p. 251). On this topics, see also E. Bussire, Le convenzioni economiche internazionali e la costruzione di unidentit economica dellEuropa: 1900-1930, in Grande mercato e diritti sociali nellEuropa del Novecento, monographic issue by B. Curli, Memoria e Ricerca, n. 14, 2003, pp. 19-34. 35 F. Berger, Les milieux conomiques et les tats face aux tentatives dorganisation des marchs europens dans les annes 1930, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), Europe organise, cit., pp. 71-105 (quotation p. 75). 36 E. Bussire, Lintgration conomique de lEurope auXXe sicle, cit., p. 16.
34

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According to these two models, Bussire writes: Loriginalit de la dmarche europenne consiste probablement dans la tentative de synthse entre Europe organise et Europe du march mme si les conflits furent permanents et les arbitrages difficiles entre les deux37. Though attractive but maybe marred by a degree of Franco-centrism38, Bussires hypothesis, while probably useful to describe the poles of the debate on international interdependence during the 1920s, does not permit to grasp exactly the dynamics of the years after 1945. Firstly, in the 1940s-1960s the dialectic was not so much between liberalism and market organization, but rather, and above all, between two different forms of market organization, one essentially entrusted to the action of the State, the other one to the action of private interests. As Bussire himself has evidenced, after the Second World War, the Europe des cartels returned to incarnate the reference model of the private industrial capitalism, which as we have seen viewed in a form of international economic integration, not directly managed by the private interests, a double risk both of a renewed Great Depression caused by unregulated competition and of an increased State intervention in the economic domain. It is not by chance that in Bussires scheme the Europe du march is much more vaguely defined than its counterpart, because of the difficulty to grasp the promethean character of the liberal ideology reflecting, in its turn, the many transformations underwent by Capitalism in the XXth century. In the opening decade of European integration, on the table, there
E. Bussire, Conclusions, cit., p. 252. At this regard, it comes to mind what Frances M. B. Lynch wrote in a collective review essay on some books on France and European integration, where she indentified: a long tradition of writing about France which focuses exclusively on the debate between the State and the Market, between dirigisme and liberalism, between autarchy and free trade. How to fit European integration into that debate is a critical issue for those writing about postwar France. F.M.B. Lynch, France and European Integration: From the Schuman Plan to Economic and Monetary Union, in Contemporary European History, n. 1, 2004, pp. 117121 (quotation p. 121).
37 38

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was not a purely liberal hypothesis, directly inspired by the Manchester school or la Hayek. In Germany too, whence came the more convinced support for a more liberal oriented European Community, the reference model was the ordo-liberal stance born during the Weimar Republic, very different from the classic liberal view. Indeed, there was a profound conflict between:
lordo-libralisme allemand et le no-libralisme radical, entre lacceptation de linterventionnisme tatique et son rejet, entre les partisans dune politique librale volontariste et les nostalgiques du laissez faire (). Quant la doctrine des ordo-libraux allemands, elle rhabilite laction tatique sous la forme dun interventionnisme juridique et dune politique de la concurrence39.

This marginalization of classic liberalism travelled on the long wave of Karl Polanyis Great Transformation, the transformation of a whole civilization in the thirties40. In this context, the appeal to liberalism was often launched by economic circles, as the private industrialists, preoccupied by the interference of the State power into their affairs, while at the same time supporting and putting into practice ententes and very discordant with the preached laisser faire verb41.
39 F. Denord, No-libralisme et conomie sociale de march: les origines intellectuelles de la politique europenne de la concurrence (1930-1950), in Histoire, conomie et socit, n. 1, 2008, pp. 23-33 (quotation pp. 26-27). On West German industrys positions regarding the British proposal for the creation of a Free Trade Zone, see M. Schulte, Challenging the Common Market Project: German Industry, Britain and Europe, 1957-1963, in A. Deighton, A. S. Milward (eds), Widening, Deepening and Acceleration, cit., pp. 167-183. Schulte argues that, while the Bundesverband des Deutschen Industrie was officially in favour of the British project, a good number of important industrial sectors had serious concerns about the FTA and British accession (quotation p. 182). 40 K. Polanyi, The Great Transformation. The Political and Economic Origins of Our Time, Boston, Beacon Press, 2001, p. 21. 41 For instance, with regard to the positions of the leading group of the Italian Confindustria, a staunch defender of Free Market, it has been coined the term privatismo, rather than liberalism, that is a form of ideology excluding the intervention of the State power into the functioning

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Furthermore, the other pole of the proposed dichotomy, i.e. the one represented by the Organised Europe, does not seem adequately explained. Within it, one can distinguish at least two different models of market organisation, in deep conflict between each other: on the one hand, the schemes of an integration guided by the business milieux; on the other one, the project of intervention by public authorities in the market mechanism42. The very fact, according to which the thesis and the antithesis are so difficult to be identified, casts a shadow on the actual consistency of the European synthesis Bussire speaks about. A shadow darkened by the difficulty to see that synthesis in operation after the European integration relaunch in the second half of the 1980s. In this case, it is possible to observe the persistence on the opinion according to which the supposed virtues of the European synthesis would not allow to see the actual rupture happened in this phase, with the gradual marginalization of the model of the Europe organise and the full affirmation of the self-regulating market where the European Union has become one of the main bearers43. 3. The Great Market years: the importance of transnational networks In the early phase of the historical study on European integration prevailed the research of answers to the more
of markets, but at the same time was ready to accept the intervention when it equated to a safeguard and a defence of the structures and interests of the private Capital. Cf. M. Legnani, Lutopia grande borghese. Lassociazionismo padronale tra ricostruzione e repubblica, in AAVV, Gli anni della Costituente. Strategie dei governi e delle classi sociali, Milano, Feltrinelli, 1983, p. 180. 42 Cf. S.M. Ramirez Perez, Antitrust ou anti US?, cit., which in the conclusion suggests that it is time to overcome the traditional dichotomy between liberalism and dirigisme and proposes six alternative models. 43 For a confutation of the presumed European alterity in relation to the US model, see P. Anderson, Depicting Europe, in London Review of Books, n. 18, 2007, pp. 13-21.

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elementary, but even more urgent question: were the industrialists for or against integration? Sometimes, even with a normative approach, directed more than to understand, to acquit or condemn, in the implicit assumption, that integration was good. The bulk of the studies concerned the attitude of the single national industrial confederation. The few sectoral studies concentrated, for obvious reasons, on the steel and the coal industries, maintaining in most of the cases a national perspective. In the subsequent wave of studies, starting to shift the focus of research towards the period after the signing of the Rome treaties, gradually emerged a different perspective, aiming to investigate the dialectic between the mechanisms of integration and single industrial sectors or even individual firms, both in an ascending way (i.e. the influence of these subjects on Communitys institutions and community law), and in a descending way. Therefore, there has been a shift of the analysis level from the interplay of national industrial systems and governments to the investigation of the interaction among companies, as well as between them and the new Community, a move dictated by the necessity of understanding how the coming into operation of the new Community concretely influenced the daily working of the European economy. Furthermore, there has been a tendency to pass from studies focused predominantly on the action of national industrial confederations to the investigation of particular sectors and often of single companies, in the conviction this was a necessary step to grasp the full complexity of the producing world. Consequently, the sectoral investigation widened beyond the traditional precinct of coal and steel, to include other key manufacturing branches, in primis the automotive one. At the same time, such a shift in the analysis level was accompanied by a widening of the inquiry field, from an almost exclusive emphasis on the industrys response to the removal of trade barriers, i.e. the dominant feature of the first phase of integration, to the impact on industry of the different Community policies (competition policy, fiscal policy, product standardization, etc.). It was not by chance that the field,
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which had first seen a predominance of international historians, came to see an increasing number of business historians involved in it. It was just one of them, Neil Rollings, through a study on the attitude of British business circles regarding European integration in the thirty years from the end of the Second World War to the entry of Great Britain into the EEC, who indicated how one can innovate the study of a national case in some fundamental methodological aspects44. First of all, according to the basis of the empirical observation of the extremely fragmented nature belonging to economic interests, Rollings affirms the necessity to go beyond the analysis of peak organization of business representation, adopting a line of inquiry as encompassing as possible: from the firm to the peak level45. Furthermore, as far as the relation between governments and economic interests, Rollings asserts the necessity to overcome the traditional interpretation of policy-making, dominating in studies inspired by diplomatic history, considering the government as a unitary actor, well distinct from society, and tending to relegate to the second place the other actors role. Instead, Rollings proposes to use the models based on the notion of Governance, according to which the assumption of the unity of the central government is abandoned and the borders between it and society are considered permeable by policy networks:
A governance approach seems more helpful given the way in which business played a role in policy-making. This was not just in times of uncertainty but reflected the strength of the network that business had on the continent and which allowed business organizations access to information unavailable to government46.

44 N. Rollings, British Business in the Formative Years of European Integration, 1945-1973, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2007. 45 Ibidem, p. 262. 46 Ibidem, pp. 262-263. The question on the complexity of the decision-making process is posed also by M. Kipping, La France et les origines de lUnione europenne, cit., pp. 19-21 and pp. 350-354.

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Finally, Rollings volume widens the field of inquiry to include other issues beyond the traditional ones of trade and duties, investigating business positions on the Communitys competition and fiscal policies or company law. On a quite similar line of inquiry places, another volume appeared in 2007, edited by Marine Moguen-Toursel47. In it, to cite only the contributions directly addressing to the action of industrial enterprises, the reactions to the entry into operation of the Common Market in a time frame between the early 1960s and the late 1970s, of the automotive sector are studied, with the case of Saviem48, a trucks producing firm belonging to the Renault group, the Fiat case49, the ones belonging to French and German automakers50, as well as the response of the business world to the Communitys attempts in regulating some keydomains such as fiscal harmonisation51 or the setting up of a European company statute52. The picture portrayed is a gradual setting up of a coordinating mechanism among companies to face the challenges posed by integration as well as, at the same time, continuing difficulty on behalf of European institutions to respond to the demands posed by these companies. The multinationals response to European integration represents, according to the very nature of these enterprises, a privileged domain of inquiry for those aiming to overcome a purely national approach and adopt a transna47 M. Moguen-Toursel (dir.), Stratgie dentreprise et action publique dans lEurope intgre, cit. 48 J.-F. Grevet, La coopration europenne, la meilleure solution face au March commun? La stratgie de la SAVIEM, constructeur franais de poids lourds et filiale Renault (1958-1973), in ibidem, pp. 193-232. 49 G. Maielli, Tariff Removal and Output-Mix Optimisation. The case of Fiat (1960s-1970s), in ibidem, pp. 143-162. 50 M. Moguen-Toursel, Lobbying, compromis, rapprochements transversaux. Les manuvres autour de la dfinition dun nouveau code europen pour le transport routier (1950-1980), in ibidem, pp. 165-192. 51 N. Rollings, Purchase Tax or Value-Added Tax. British Industry, Indirect Taxation and European Integration in the 1960s, in ibidem, pp. 127-142. 52 F. Mertens de Wilmars, La socit europenne. Les raisons dun blocage, in ibidem, pp. 105-124.

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tional and comparative point of view. In this perspective, amongst the most significant contributions is certainly to be included Geoffrey Jones and Peter Miskells study on Unilever, the big Anglo-Dutch company, one of the worlds most international businesses53. Though Unilever was, since the 1950s, overtly in favour of European integration since It was uniquely positioned to benefit from European integration , the study shows the multinational was not able to forge, for more than a decade, a coherent European strategy such as to take advantage of the growing market integration, because of a mechanism of path dependency:
for companies with operations long embedded in national markets across Europe, the cost of restructuring on a Europe-wide scale may have seemed greater than they appeared for new entrants to the European market54.

Summing up the two authors state: it was one thing for legislators to reduce trade barriers, and another for firms to restructure to make European integration a reality at firm and industry level55. Thierry Grosbois analysis, on the reaction of some multinationals to the creation of the common market, seems to reach the same conclusion:
Il ne faut pas surestimer limpact de la naissance du March Commun de 1957 sur la stratgie des multinationales. La crise
53 G. Jones, P. Miskell, European integration and corporate restructuring: the strategy of Unilever, c.1957c.1990, in Economic History Review, n. 1, 2005, pp. 113139. 54 Ibidem, p. 115. In this sense the essay puts in question even the degree of Americanisation of the European capitalism: US management practices were at best only partially transferred to Europe. Appropriately, one recent study dated Unilevers fulfilment of the Chandlerian ideal to the 1990s (p. 123). The abovementioned study is R. Whittington, M. Mayer, The European corporation: strategy, structure and social science, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 181. 55 G. Jones, P. Miskell, European integration and corporate restructuring, cit., p. 137.

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ptrolire de 1973 eut des consquences restructurant nettement plus fondamentales sur les activits des multinationales actives en Europe que la mise en uvre dune CEE limite six Etats membres56.

As a reaction to the State-centric bias of most of the literature on the history of European integration and under the influence of new Political Science paradigms, such as Constructivism and the Governance Studies, in the last decade, there has been a renewed interest on the part of historians for the influence of ideas, values, ideologies, as opposed to the traditional centrality of objectively defined interests. In this context, a new emphasis was placed on transnational networks as a medium of information exchange and socialization57. The change in perspective, implied by this new approach, has been aptly summed up by Michel Dumoulin:

T. Grosbois, La stratgie de quelques multinationales lgard des Traits de Rome et du March Commun 1957-1972, in A. Varsori (ed.), Inside the European Community. Actors and policies in the European Integration 1957-1972, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2006, pp. 227-254 (quotation p. 254). See also: C. Chanier, Entreprise et intgration europenne: le cas de la multinationale Philips, in M. Dumoulin, R. Girault, G. Trausch (dir.), LEurope du Patronat, cit., pp. 101-110, confirming, as for the 1950s and 1960s, the limited impact of the European Community on the working modes of the single firm. 57 On the recent development in European integration history, see M. Gilbert, A Polity Constructed: New Explorations in European Integration History, in Contemporary European History, n. 2, 2010, pp. 169-179; N. Piers Ludlow, History Aplenty: But Still Too Isolated, in M. Egan, N. Nugent, W. Paterson (eds), Research Agendas in EU Studies. Stalking the Elephant, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010, pp. 14-36, whose first paragraph carries the telling title From ideas to states and institutions and back again?. On the utility for integration history of the adoption of the interpretative schemes of transnational networks studies, cf. W. Kaiser, Transnational Networks in European Governance, in W. Kaiser, B. Leucht, M. Rasmussen (ed.), The History of the European Union, cit., pp. 12-33 and the volume: W. Kaiser, B. Leucht, M. Gehler (eds), Transnational Networks in Regional Integration. Governing Europe 1945-83, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
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Le questionnement nimplique donc plus, comme la fait et continue de le faire une certaine historiographie, les gouvernements, les diplomaties, les partis politiques, les fdrations patronales ou les syndicats mais bien des ensembles de relations plus complexes, de maillages des espaces sociaux, idologiques ou culturels entendant influencer une dcision, une attitude, une orientation concernant la gestion de la Cit europenne58.

In the context of the studies on industrial milieux and European integration, a transnational stance had been present since the early phases, even though in a rather marginal position with regard to the mainstream literature focusing on as we have seen national associations and on the vertical relations between them and the governments. Michel Dumoulin and Anne-Myriam Dutrieue were the first ones to take such a new way with some studies dedicated to the Ligue europenne de coopration conomique (LECE) and to the Comit europen pour le progrs conomique et social (CEPES), which, they concluded, exercised an importante mais discrte influence on European questions, especially through their liaison role between American and European business circles59. In more recent years, Neil Rollings and Matthias Kipping have investigated the action of the Council of European Industrial Federations (CEIF) and of the more loosely organized Council of the Directors of European Industrial Federations (CDEIF) during the decade immediately following the end of the Second World War, pointing out the intertwining of relation network among industrial interests, such as to configure a system of private transnational
58 M. Dumoulin, Avant-propos, in Id. (dir.), Rseaux conomiques et construction europenne, Bruxelles, PIE-Peter Lang, 2004, pp. 17-18 (quotation p. 18). 59 M. Dumoulin, A.-M. Dutrieu (dir.), La Ligue europenne de coopration conomique (1946-1981), Berne, Peter Lang, Euroclio, 1993; M. Dumoulin, La Ligue europenne de coopration conomique (1946-1954), in M. Dumoulin, R. Girault, G. Trausch (dir.), LEurope du Patronat, cit., pp. 207-211; A.-M. Dutrieue, Le CEPES, un mouvement patronal europen? (1952-1967), in ibidem, pp. 213-230.

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governance, is not an entirely new phenomenon, attributable to the ascent of globalization in the last quarter of the XX century, but rather it had older roots in the dense transatlantic web of contacts among industrialists created after the Second World War which exercised its influence not only on economic and trade questions, but even in more political matters, playing an important role in the European integration process (even if they did not always achieve their aims in the negotiations with the other actors involved)60. However, this kind of interpretation tends to an excess of historical continuum, emphasizing aspects remaining secondary in a world characterised, as far as the viewpoint of the economic circles is concerned, by the prevalence of the national reference frame. In such a world, it was not an easy task for the different national interests to find a convergence point, as it has been pointed out by Luciano Segretos work on UNICE, the Union des industries de la Communaut europenne, whose activity in the first years of existence61 showed les grandes differences dapprciation dans le monde economique par rapport aux processus de libralisation conomique et commerciale62.
60 N. Rollings, M. Kipping, Private transnational governance in the heyday of the nation-state: the Council of European Industrial Federations (CEIF), in Economic History Review, n. 2, 2008, pp. 409-431 (quotation p. 411). 61 The UNICE was born in 1952 inside the CEIF, with the name Union des industriels des pays de la Communaut Europenne, as a coordinating institution of the industrial associations of the six ECSC countries and the United Kingdom. After a profound crisis, caused by the contrasts over the British proposal for a free trade area, the organisation was refunded in 1958, now renamed Union des industries de la Communaut europenne, outside the CEIF framework, with a membership limited to the industrial confederations of the six EEC countries. 62 L. Segreto, LUNICE et la construction europenne (1947-1969), in A. Varsori (ed.), Inside the European Community, cit., pp. 195-208 (quotation p. 199). The existence during the 1950s of a profound split inside the business world in matters regarding the economic integration is confirmed by the study of the coal sector, cf. R. Perron, Divergences, front uni: lOrganisation europenne des producteurs de charbon (le CEPCEO) face la Haute Autorit de la CECA de 1952 1958, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin (dir.), Milieux conomiques, cit., pp. 245-261.

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In a similar way, Paolo Tedeschi has shed light on the fragmented nature of the LECE in the 1950s, showing the existence of divergent viewpoints between the Central Committee of the organisation and the Italian section63. Moguen-Toursel stresses the dynamisme extraordinaire du processus de multiplication des contacts et de cration de structures automobiles during the 1960s and 1970s, but at the same time she warns that les stratgies des membres de ces nouvelles structures sont souvent divergentes64. Even the investigation of what appears, at least till the end of the 1970s, the pressure group par excellence of the Transatlantic business world, the Bilderberg group, comes to the conclusion that as for the European integration its importance resided more in representing a discussion forum than a real promoter of a political action: Bilderberg reste donc un cadre gnraliste, dont le but est de rendre accessibles des problmes complexes, non de proposer des plans prcis65. Thus, the more recent contributions on the transnational networks during the first two decades of integration seem to suggest their role was more than a way of socialization to the European issues, as a multilateral arena for the exchange of information and experience and, ultimately as pointed out by Kipping and Rollings as a crucial means to reduce uncertainty in post-war Europe, rather than a channel with effective influence and political
63 P. Tedeschi, Une nouvelle Europe construire. La section italienne de la LECE de 1948 la cration du March Commun, in Journal of European Integration History, n. 1, 2006, pp. 87-104. 64 M. Moguen-Toursel, Structures de reprsentation de lindustrie automobile en Europe. Un foisonnement de rseaux aux stratgie multiples?, in M. Dumoulin (dir.), Rseaux conomiques, cit., pp. 235-251, p. 251. On the same subject cf. S.M. Ramirez Perez, Transnational business networks propagating EC industrial policy, cit., which underscores the role of the Comit des constructeurs dautomobiles du March commun as a precursor of the European Round Table of industrialists. 65 V. Aubourg, Le groupe de Bilderberg et lintgration europenne jusquau milieu des annes 1960. Une influence complexe, in M. Dumoulin (dir.), Rseaux conomiques, cit., pp. 411-429 (quotation p. 428).

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co-ordination of the interest groups in their relations with State authorities. This picture has been slightly modified by the works on the following periods. The Europeanization of some key political areas, such as for example the competition policy66, represented a decisive stimulus for the interest groups to develop their own action at the supranational level and to coordinate at a transnational level67. The historical studies on the European relaunch of the second half of the 1980s, though largely still in an embryonic phase, have evidenced a quantum leap in the action of the business groups. The watershed role played by the 1980s is confirmed, for instance, by Sophie Chauveaus research on the pharmaceutical industry that in this decade, responding to the challenge posed by the globalization of markets and by the rise of new health threats, started the construction of a common European market for medicines, after a decade long delay68. At a more general level, Jean-Christophe Defraigne argues the adoption of the post-fordist production model by the big European companies has been one of the key-reason of the strategy abandonment of the national champions and of the push towards the creation of the single European market69.
66 On the positions of the French patronat on this subject cf. L. Warlouzet, La France et la mise en place de la politique de la concurrence communautaire (1957-1964), in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), Europe organise, cit., pp. 175-201 and 187-190, showing the CNPF, trying to influence the fledgling Community competition policy, followed not only the traditional lobbying on the national government, but inaugurated even une voie nouvelle, communautaire, par lintermdiaire de lUNICE. For a study on the influence of the European auto-makers on the definition of the European competition policy, cf.: S.M. Ramirez Perez, Antitrust ou anti US?, cit. 67 W. Kaiser, Transnational Networks, cit., p. 24. 68 S. Chauveau, LEurope de lindustrie pharmaceutique. Entreprises, marchs et institutions, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), La relance des annes quatre-vingt (1979-1992), cit., pp. 297-314. 69 J.-C. Defraigne, De labandon progressif de la stratgie des champions nationaux la vague de fusions de 1986-2001: lorigine du changement de stratgie des entreprises europennes vis--vis de la construction europenne

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The 1980s turn, seems to elicit different conclusions about the political effectiveness of business groups action. The studies on the beginning of the single market program, through which we enter a ground still frequented mainly by political scientists, have particularly stressed the political role played by transnational groups70, first of all the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), the business co-ordinating group born in 1983, on the initiative of Volvo president Pehr Gyllenhammar and of the Commission vice-president Etienne Davignon, reuniting the leading executives of some of the more relevant European companies. As Maria Green Cowles shows, the ERT played a key-role in establishing the contents and the mode of application of the 1986 Single European Act71. The ERT objective was not according to Cowles to support a Thatctherite deregulatory programme, but rather to promote a recalibration of the social and political relations to create a unified market that would be conducive to the reindustrialization of Europe72.
dans les annes 1980, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), La relance des annes quatre-vingt (1979-1992), cit., pp. 277-296. 70 By the way, even the conclusion of the essay on the Bilderberg group pointed out: Une piste de recherche intressante consisterait, bien sr, analyser lvolution de Bilderberg dans les dcennies suivantes [after the 1960s] propos de la construction de lEurope (V. Aubourg, Le groupe de Bilderberg, cit., p. 429). 71 M.G. Cowles, Setting the Agenda for a new Europe: the ERT and EC 1992, in Journal of Common Market Studies, n. 4, 1995, pp. 501-526; Idem, LERT (European Round Table of Industrialists). Les grands industriels et la promotion du grand march europen, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), Milieux conomiques et intgration europenne aux XXe sicle. La relance des annes quatre-vingt (1979-1992), Paris, Comit pour lhistoire conomique et financire de la France, 2007, pp. 233-240. For an opposing viewpoint, that stresses the centrality of national governments, cf. A. Moravcsik, The Choice for Europe: Social Purpose and State Power from Messina to Maastricht, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1998, pp. 314-378. 72 M.G. Cowles, Setting the Agenda for a new Europe, cit., p. 503. For a different point of view, cf. B. van Apeldoorn, Transnational Capitalism and the Struggle over European Integration, London, Routledge, 2002, in particular on the genesis and the action of the ERT, see the chapters 3 and

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In general, it seems to me that this recent transnational turn, while it is to be welcomed as a much needed correction of some important shortcomings of the earlier research, is however not entirely satisfying. In my opinion, there are two more problematic areas. The first one has to do with an insufficient appreciation of the prime causes of the rise of the transnational networks and of the discontinuities by which this story is marked. In order to understand this point, we should look at the change occurred in the European societies since the end of the 1960s when the tripartite social compact between the State, business and the Unions that had governed at the national level the growth during the so called Golden Age of Western Capitalism, broke down73. The increasingly unsatisfactory character, from the employers point of view, of the social framework of post-war growth74, induced Capital to accentuate its transnational character, trying to find a new equilibrium in the place of the older one75. In the second place, the particular focus of such an analysis often leads up to an accentuation of the individuals role and their networks of relationships76, at the expense of social structures, both of material and of immaterial nature, and to a disregard of the asymmetries in power and influence between the different social groups. At this regard, one cannot help but recall the criticisms Thomas J.
4; B. Balany et al., Europe Inc. Regional and Global Restructuring and the Rise of Corporate Power, London, Pluto Press, 2003, chapter 3. 73 For an interpretation of the Golden Age crisis insisting more on the endogenous causes, inherent to the development model of the advanced capitalist countries, rather than on the exogenous factors such as the energy crisis, cf. P. Armstrong, A. Glyn, J. Harrison, Capitalism Since 1945, Oxford, Blackwell, 1991, in particular the chapters 11-13. 74 See further reasons of the Capitals unsatisfactoriness in the Conclusion. 75 G. Arrighi, A Crisis of Hegemony, in S. Amin, G. Arrighi, A. G. Frank, I. Wallerstein, Dynamics of Global Crisis, London, MacMillan, 1982, pp. 55-108. 76 See T. Grosbois, Le rle de quelques rseaux dans la stratgie europenne des multinationales, in M. Dumoulin (dir.), Rseaux conomiques, cit., pp. 351-370.

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McCormick levelled against the model of American pluralism he labelled an American Dream paradigm, inasmuch as it was characterised by the view that decision-making is the end product of numerous private, voluntary, democratic groups competing with each other in a relatively coequal way in an open society77. What a large part of the research on business groups and European integration seems intent on doing, almost thirty years after McCormicks admonition, is applying such a muted vision to its field of inquiry, thus producing watered-down analyses according to which, to make just one example, representative of a more general trend:
la cration de leuro doit beaucoup aux efforts cohrents et continus dune cinquantaine de patrons dentreprise, Europens convaincus, pour influencer les dcideurs politiques dans le sens de lintrt gnral des Europens78.

Do we really have to consider the general interest of the Europeans, provided that such a concept could be defined in any meaningful way, as overlapping with the interests of the leading executives of the bunch of large companies like Philips, Fiat, Total, etc., which gave birth to the Association pour lUnion montaire de lEurope? Or instead, as Peter Gourevitch affirms, is it correct to assume there is not only one objectively determined solution to an economic crisis, but rather a range of policies to choose among, and this choice will be the end result of a political fight?79 If this is true, it would not be preferable to better contextualize
77 T.J. McCormick, Drift or Mastery? A Corporatist Synthesis for American Diplomatic History, in Reviews in American History, n. 4, 1982, pp. 318-330 (quotation p. 321). 78 L. Moulin, LAssociation pour lUnion montaire de lEurope: un groupe dentrepreneurs contribue la cration de lEuro, in E. Bussire, M. Dumoulin, S. Schirmann (dir.), La relance des annes quatre-vingt (1979-1992), cit., pp. 241-255(quotation p. 255). For a critical position on the role of the AUME see B. Balany et al., Europe Inc., cit., chapter 6. 79 P. A. Gourevitch, Politics in Hard Times. Comparative Responses to International Economic Crises, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1986.

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the topics under investigation, wondering where some proposals, ideas, conceptions come from, which interests they are representing, bearing in mind that in the analysis of any society we are facing a conflictual reality in which very seldom something like a general interest actually exists, but as an ideological fiction serving to legitimize the objectives of a particular group or class? In other words, it seems to me necessary to engage certain hard problems that lie at the core of any effective system for historical analysis. Who exercises power? How? Why?80. As stated by Bastiaan van Apeldoorn, the Dutch political scientist who has produced some of the more interesting contribution on transnational business, it is important:
() not only to establish that the politics of big business matter (), but also to analyse and explain the politics or political strategies of big business. If it can be established that ideas promoted by an emergent European transnational business elite matter, then it seems pertinent to shift the focus to these ideas themselves analysing and explaining their origins and development81.

4. Conclusion In conclusion I would like to concentrate on what I think are the most visible deficiencies of historiography on the relation between business circles and European integration. According to my opinion there are two main weaknesses belonging to such literature, presently obstructing the possibility of opening new investigation perspectives of investigation, as well as deepening and refining the interpretative hypotheses on the table.
T.J. McCormick, Drift or Mastery?, cit., p. 323. B. van Apeldoorn, Transnational Capitalism, cit., p. 5. The reference contained in the quotation is to M.G. Cowles, Setting the Agenda for a new Europe, cit.. On van Apeldoorns positions see also: Id., Transnational Business: Power Structures in Europes Political Economy, in W. Kaiser, P. Starie (eds), Transnational European Union, cit., pp. 83-106.
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First, a striking feature of this literature, especially of the francophone school headed by Bussire and Dumoulin, is the nearly total lack of dialogue with Alan Milwards theses. This is all the more surprising, if one considers that the British historian has been one of the harshest critics of the narrowness of European integration history which, he wrote at the beginning of the 1990s, is to all intents and purposes a history of diplomacy and one of the staunchest supporter of the need to enlarge its domain to issues different from the analysis of the foreign policies of the member States: It is the post-war economic and social forces which have shaped the European State which therefore need to be analysed if the origins and purpose of the Community are to be explained82. In spite of their weaknesses, pointed out by many83, Milwards hypotheses remain the only overall historical interpretation of some consistency and strength advanced so far. In my opinion, their weakest point is not, as stated by many84, his excessive state-centric bias, but instead his disregard for a precise definition of the identity of the nation State, that is of the subject that would have to be rescued by the European integration. In other words, which rescue is Milward speaking about? If it is now difficult to accept the idea of an objectively defined national interest, a concept largely criticised in the theoretical debate about International Relations85, the problem is to deconstruct the concept of nation State to identify the concrete political, economic and social structures that have been guaranteed by the inteA.S. Milward, The European Rescue, cit., p. xi. Cf. W. Kaiser, Bringing People and Ideas Back in: Historical Research on the European Union, in D. Phinnemore, A. Warleigh-Lack (eds), Reflections on European Integration, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, pp. 22-39. 84 N. Rollings, British Business, cit., p. 5. It has to be pointed out that Milward himself criticized the erroneous elitist historiographical tradition that it is states and institutions that mould events (A.S. Milward, The European Rescue, cit., p. xi). 85 J.N. Rosenau, The Study of World Politics. Vol. 1, Theoretical and Methodological Challenges, New York, Routledge, 2006, pp. 246-254.
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gration. Then, the task is to reflect on how the European Rescue of the Nation State has been articulated in each single national case and in determining the modes of declination of Milwards idea the business circles have surely played a decisive role86. Secondly, even more striking and macroscopic, since it is a common trait of practically the whole of the literature we are dealing with here, is the absence of any reference to the conflict between Capital and Labour, as if this was an irrelevant issue in order to understand business positions. Once again, this omission derives, at least partially, from the fact that an important part of this literature finds its roots, as we have said at the beginning this article, in the diplomatic history tradition. Hence, there is an interpretation of business motives and actions focused on the rivalries and the dialectic between national, or sometimes continental, industrial system, in a rehash, in a certain sense, of the classic conception of the primacy of foreign politics. In this perspective, it is correctly assumed the basic motivation of business action is to be found in the search for profits, but in this view this search essentially translates into a relentless competition for wider markets, whereas the question of the relation with Labour is considered of secondary relevance and in any case useless to understand the logic of business international relations. Thus the integration is seen exclusively as a function of the trade expansion, in the frame of a mercantilist point of view, in which the accent is put on the increase of export and on the necessity to respond to external challenges (first, at the end of the XIX century, the US, then, in the second half of the XX century, Japan, the Asian tigers, globalization). Even the more recent research, which, as we have said, has abandoned the earlier exclusive concentration on trade and tariffs matters, that is the privileged ground of a diplomatic history concep86 I have tried to develop this idea in F. Petrini, Grande mercato, bassi salari: la Confindustria e lintegrazione europea, 1947-1964, in P. Craveri, A. Varsori (a cura di), LItalia nella costruzione europea. Un bilancio storico (1957-2007), Milano, FrancoAngeli, 2009, pp. 233-258.

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tion, to expand its investigation to Community policies, has maintained an exclusive attention to the impact of these policies on competition, in the assumption that the object of the game was essentially to create a level playing field 87. However, European integration has not actually been only that; furthermore, it has historically represented an important element of stabilization of the European societies, as well as a containment of the social conflict, first in the framework of the post-war trilateral social compromise, trying to create the environment where it would be possible to reconcile the building of national welfare systems with the expansion of international trade (a situation well synthesized by the motto: Keynes at home, Smith abroad88), then in the frame of the neo-liberal counterrevolution of the end of the century, when it became the major promoter of an increasingly pervasive deployment of market forces. The European construction has been directly or indirectly invested in all these passages, by the conflict between Labour and Capital, and used as an instrument to its solution. Therefore, the social conflict issues cannot be expunged from the analysis of the business circles action, all the more if one considers, as Micha Kalecki wrote in 1943 in a famous essay on the political aspects of full employment: discipline in the factories and political stability are more appreciated than profits by business leaders89. In concrete terms, to take the case where the heuristic consequences of such an exclusion are more evident, we cannot understand the motives of the action of the industrial capitalism after the beginning crisis of the Golden Age if we fail to take into consideration the social conflict. As it has been noted, at the roots of the second wave of globalization, set in motion at the end of
N. Rollings, British Business, cit., p. 261. R. Gilpin, The Political Economy of International Relations, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1987, p. 355. 89 M. Kalecki, Political Aspects of Full Employment, in Political Quarterly, n. 4, 1943, pp. 322-331 (quotation p. 326).
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the 1970s, there was even above all in some scholars opinion the Capitals response to a crisis of profitability determined by a profit squeeze induced by the rise in workers contractual power, in its turn consequent to the attainment of a regime of full employment in the Capitalist worlds core countries90. The answer to this was manifold, but in the production realm it assumed mainly three aspects: a restructuration towards the overcoming of the Fordist model taking place in the countries of older industrialization; furthermore, such a restructuration assumed the form of a delocalization of industrial production from the centre to the semi-periphery of the system in search of a more docile and cheaper manpower91; in parallel went on a massive shift of investments from manufacturing production to financial markets92. These are developments the European construction was fully invested by, not only as a passive bystander, as it is assumed in much of the literature we reviewed here, but as an active promoter, through the program for the Single Market and the enlargement of the geographical borders of the European Union. Therefore, it is clear, that, for those wanting to really delve into the dialectic between industrial milieux and European integration, there is here a vast ground which cannot be ignored.

90 P. S. Jha, The Twilight of the Nation State: Globalisation, Chaos and War, London, Pluto Press, 2006. On the profit squeeze hypothesis, the seminal text is A. Glyn, B. Sutcliffe, British capitalism, workers and the profits squeeze, London, Penguin, 1972. For an overall analysis of the 1970s stressing the social conflict as one of the main originating factors of the systemic crisis, cf. G. Arrighi, Adam Smith in Beijing. Lineages of the Twenty-First Century, London, Verso, 2007, chapters 4 and 5. 91 Cf. B.J. Silver, Forces of Labor. Workers Movements and Globalization since 1870, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003. 92 For a general interpretation of the meaning and logics of the financial expansions, see G. Arrighi, The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power, and the Origins of Our Times, London, Verso, 1994.

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