The purpose of this paper is to analyse and discuss the role of transnational networks in European economic integration in the 1950s. Contemporary historians of European economic integration have largely ignored the transnational dimension of the history of European integration. However pro-European transnational pressure groups have played a crucial role in the European integration process. In order to understand these groups, this paper explores the following archives: The Archives of the European Movement from the European University Institute, the Archives de la Ligue Européenne de Coopération Économique and Papiers Paul van Zeeland.
Several active pro-European transnational groups set up the <i>Joint International Committee of the Movements for European Unity</i> on 14 December 1947. This Committee organised the Congress of Europe in The Hague in June 1948 and adopted the name, ‘The European Movement’ in October 1948. At the Hague Congress, The European League for Economic Cooperation (ELEC) largely determined the course of the Congress’s discussion regarding economic policy and draughted the economic resolutions of the Congress. The ELEC regarded itself as the Economic Branch of the European Movement.
The ELEC, which continues to be an active European lobby today, was founded in 1946 by Paul van Zeeland (former prime minister of Belgium) and Joseph Retinger (former personal secretary to the Polish prime minister, Sikorski) who had both been strong partisans of trade liberalisation since the inter-war period.
The association was a very elitist structure, from the start; it intended to remain small and not seek mass support. The ELEC wanted to exert direct pressure on decision-makers, rather than on public opinion. Members included business leaders, economists, trade unionists, and high-level politicians. Within the ELEC, there was one national section per participating country. The international institutions of the ELEC also included a central committee and a general secretariat.
The League was more influential than other pressure groups as it focussed on technical aspects and delivered well-documented publications written by economic experts. In addition, ELEC experts had strong personal contacts with decision-makers, to whom they proposed economic solutions. Its reports and proposals were largely adopted by early European institutions and national governments in the 1950s.
The ELEC supported a free-market economy and recognised European integration as a good means of promoting economic liberalisation and, thus, the competitiveness of European enterprises. The League’s liberal orientation took concrete shape in the form of the European Economic Community.
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