Page 10 - Demo

become one nation, the central authority should be paralleled by a commonparliament and other necessary institutions needed to guarantee thesovereignty of one state. The main objectives of an integrated area in Europe could be seen in (1)facilitating cross-border domestic and foreign business activity, (2) reinforcingEuropean business opportunities abroad, (3) giving Europe and its corporationsa positive role internationally, and (4) supporting collaboration on complexchallenges for a healthy, safe, and prosperous region. On the basis of theseobjectives, one aim of integration in Europe was to annihilate nationalism inEurope. Another aim was to deal with the geo-political and economicaspirations of both the USA and the Soviet Union, which subsequently led tobipolarity in Europe. This bipolarity was present in Europe until post-1989 andled to the shaping of all aspects of the socio-economic environment. In general, it should be further pointed out that integration can producepositive, as well as negative effects. Positive effects include: trade creation(resources allocated according to comparative advantage), trade diversion,reducing monopoly power, reducing the level of X-inefficiency (overmanning,excessive holding of stock, and other types of slack management practices),economies of scale, learning effects, strengthened bargaining position withexternal partners, etc. On the other hand, the opponents of integrationassert the following drawbacks: integration hurts third countries, the %u201cspaghettibowl%u201d effect of various principles, regional industry-specific lobbies,administrative costs, trade wars among regional trading blocks, increasingprotection of business areas, etc. Opposition to European integration can leadto the negative concept of Euroscepticism. Eurosceptic movements can operateeffectively at regional, national, and European levels across the continent. Tocombat these movements, one of the recurring aims is to bring the EU closerto its citizens.n 1. 1. 2. Brief historical overview of European integrationThe oldest postwar experiment in regional integration in western Europe wasthe agreement between Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands creatingBENELUX (1943). It is acknowledged that the start of the process of European integration canbe identified in the so-called Schuman Declaration representing an importantinstitutional innovation. Robert Schuman, the French foreign minister, in hisspeech on 9 May 1950, proposed that France and Germany, and any otherEuropean country wishing to join them, pool their coal and steel resources. Thisdeclaration was a way to guarantee peace in Europe and to allow economicrecovery. Coal and steel were not only important economic resources, but they101 Citizen Commitment