WI The EEC stay's the EEC?

As Europe is so integrated today with a parliament, commission and courts, let alone the Euro. Is there away to make the EEC stay the EEC. By which I mean trade and just trade. Yes it would not have the same political clout, but is that not what NATO is for? Over to you.
 
As Europe is so integrated today with a parliament, commission and courts, let alone the Euro. Is there away to make the EEC stay the EEC. By which I mean trade and just trade. Yes it would not have the same political clout, but is that not what NATO is for? Over to you.

The EEC was always supposed to lead to greater integration later. It was never a secret in mainland Europe. Only in the UK did the leading political parties tell their people it was just a trading zone and that future political integration was scaremongering by anti Europeans etc.

NATO's original purpose was designed to tie the United States to the defence of Europe and co ordinate military strategy against the Soviet Union. It was never the plan to create an integrated trans Atlantic state or a common army with merged militaries.

The EEC was designed to bring Europe close together and make everyone so inter dependent that war would be impossible.
 
As Europe is so integrated today with a parliament, commission and courts, let alone the Euro. Is there away to make the EEC stay the EEC. By which I mean trade and just trade. Yes it would not have the same political clout, but is that not what NATO is for? Over to you.

Nato is a military thing - some EU members are still outside the NAto and don't want to join.
 
It was right there is the Schuman Declaration "It would transform Europe by a 'step by step' process (building through sectoral supranational communities) leading to the unification of Europe democratically, including both East and West Europe separated by the Iron Curtain". As Devolved said it was only in Britain that people thought the EEC was anything other than a temporary stop on the road to a United Europe.
 

GarethC

Donor
The EEC is summed up by an old joke:

German: Is the EEC working?
Frenchman: Where are the panzers?
German: Still in their laagers, why?
Frenchman: Then the EEC is working.

If someone changes the language of the treaty of Rome to not include the phrase "ever-closer union", then there will be a de jure justification to not progress with currency union, tax harmonization, and legal unification.

However, it will still be in the interests of the bureaucrats in Brussels (as in any bureaucracy) to extend the scope over which their institutions have authority, so that their organization will need to increase in headcount creating more management positions for them to be promoted into.

It's probably impossible to maintain a balance though - if there are pan-European institutions that oversee any aspect of the EEC's remit, they will likely continue to slowly expand their areas of competence until there is either a federal European state, or nations withdraw from the treaty of Rome.
 
If the EEC continues the EEC and dont become the EU it will affect sports since then there will be no Bossmanverdict and the maximum of 3 international players per team in most leagues would still be in effect.
 
Well, one obvious factor is the timing of German reunification. It's commonly argued that Maastricht was the other side of the bargain of allowing East and West Germany to come together--the EU being the mechanism that would balance out the (perceived) power of the recreated state. If the Soviets collapse a decade earlier, Euro-wide integration isn't far enough along for a Maastricht to be a realistic compensation. If East Germany stays in the Warsaw Pact for longer than OTL, the UK and especially West Germany are going to continue to be reluctant to give up their national currencies.

But previous posters are right, that even without economic integration, the EEC is still on track for greater social and political convergence.
 
I think you need a radically different outcome to WW2, one of the drivers behind European integration was the desire of France and other countries to bind Germany to them so tightly that another war would not be possible. So perhaps Germany is permanently broken up into 4-6 smaller states that lack the resources to wage war on its neighbours meaning that they don't feel concerned at the prospect of a future resurgent Germany?

I almost saw something recently that Jean Monnet had tried to be on the Titanic for its maiden voyage but the ship was booked up, so perhaps he makes the trip and is one of the poor unfortunates who perish. He is credited as being the real architect of the Schuman Plan, maybe someone else might have come up with it but it may have taken a few years longer and develops in a different way?

EDIT The All Along The Watchtower TL features an EEC that gets strangled at birth.
 
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HJ Tulp

Donor
The thing is that to get a true common market you need to synchronize things. The Parlement facilitates that. It all grows out of the economy because the economy is the basis of our society.
 
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