ベネルックス3国と欧州統合の50年

抄録

The purpose of this paper is to examine the European integration policy of the so-called Benelux countries: Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg.
In the first part, the author summarizes each of the three countries' European policy as follows: Belgium has tried to safeguard her economy, to create a wider market, to avoid Franco-German rivalry and to keep her political influence through European integration; the Netherlands also pursues her economic interests, but she is more Atlanticist and federalist; Luxembourg has been trying to keep her position as a State among the EU and to find a compromise, especially for the time when she takes presidency of the EU.
In the second part, the author outlines the historical development of Belgium's European policy from the end of the Second World War until now. One can observe that Belgium has had a consensus among her citizens to build a federal Europe since the establishment of the EEC although a few confrontations were seen in some circles in the 1950s. Belgium's European policy has had a tendency to shift between orthodox European federalism and a realist attitude: in the 1960s, Belgium fought against General De Gaulle to keep her orthodoxy; from the 1970s, a more realistic approach appeared in her European policy, but she did not forget to pursue her federalist goal. In the 1990s, after the end of the Cold War, the only thing different for Belgium was that she had no more enemies in Eastern Europe. But her desire to build a federal Europe is even more imperative than before now that the EU is enlarging to the east and south and the number of EU member countries may reach more than thirty in the foreseeable future. Because of this new situation, Belgium confronted against France at the Nice European Council, which was held in December 2000, to advocate a more federalist approach and to avoid the supremacy of the big four States in the EU. Belgium is, in a sense, in a paradoxical position between her orthodoxy as a federalist and her realism in accepting the intergovernmental approach in European politics.
Finally, the author argues that the framework of Benelux has become already obsolete in economic terms as economic integration within the EU has progressed considerably. However, Benelux may be still useful for the three small States as a political consultative framework in the enlarging EU despite the Nice European Council having decoupled Netherlands and Belgium for their number of votes in the Council.