Discuss The Reasons For European Integration

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The main vehicles for European integration were trade, investment, and integration through people, ideas and exchange of knowledge. The result of these vehicles being interconnectedness between different countries. The main motives that drove European integration were to raise efficiency in production, this was done through industrialised specialisation which was enhanced by increased competition. Another reason was to increase production levels due to a better exploitation of economies of scale and other dynamic effects. Finally, to improve international bargaining position, especially in the case of small open economies such as Ireland and Denmark when joining the Common Market. (Andreosso,2014) Many of these reasons were achieved by opening the economies to trade. There were also reasons such as defence against communist threat,…show more content…
We have seen many wars throughout history, WWII being the most devastating for Europe. The European powers realised what they were doing was wrong and it was not too late to re-establish peace and internal stability. They realised that it was essential to harmonize Germany and France to achieve this. In the “Schuman Declaration” he outlined that Germany would become economically interdependent with its European neighbours and would be physically unable to wage war in Europe. This actually helped Germany to become more peaceful and less aggressive. We see the attempt of rapprochement between Germany and France in the ECSC, they had to work together. In my opinion this was the first step in the right direction. If we look what Europe has achieved since WWII, there has been no major wars and in the present day there is free movement of people between countries. Now when passing the border from Germany to France, there was no border, you can pass directly. I’m sure this was something completely unimaginable at the time of

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