The European Union, the Soviet Union, and the End of the Cold War

1. The European Union, the Soviet Union, and the End of the Cold War Presenters: Daviti Gachechiladze Mariam Zuliashvili Diana

2. Introduction • Main reasons for European integration project: • Avoiding next possible beginning of war by Germany • Creation of “bulwark” against Soviet threat • Questions to be discussed: • If not the Soviet-dominated Eastern bloc, would West European elites have moved towards the common market with supranational political aspirations? • How were seismic processes (collapse of the Berlin Wall; German unification; the end of the cold war…) happening in Europe connected? • Did the weakening and then abrupt disappearance of the Soviet Union shape the trajectory of the European project at it sought to intensify integration?

3. East-West relations in Europe, 1945-85 • Twin Events of East and West: • Warsaw Pact alliance – North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) • Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA known as Comecon, 1949) – Marshall Plan • Unlike the EC, the CMEA did not rest on an explicit or even implicit principle of supranationality • Lacking the capability of formulate common foreign economic objectives, the EC did not seek to stand in for its member states in their evolving economic relations with the Soviet Union and its satellites

4. View from the East • From the vantage point of the CMEA, the view to EC was openly hostile • 1962, EC addressed by Soviets as “an economic and political reality” – attempt to convince the allies in the wisdom of deepening the CMEA’s level of integration. • Members of Soviet bloc begin to see the economic inefficiencies with respect to the Western democracies • Doctrinal qualms of Soviet allies caused by foreign trade and economic cooperation • Deal between Moscow and its satellites

5. View from the East Incising trade between the Western and Eastern Europe

6. The EC’s response • Western Europe gaining trust from the Soviet bloc • Helsinki Accords – the final agreement • “Change through Trade” • Finally EC made the Eastern Europe trade profitable for itself and it made it increasingly difficult for the individual CMEA members to shun the EC

7. EAST AND WEST

8. 1980 –a decline in trade between EC & CMEA countries • Less significant growth of trade with East Europe • Steady fall in East countries' share of Western imports  cut imports from West • Ratification of SEA (sig European act) • The procedural innovations in council of ministers. • Debates about Sea

9. Contributors agreed that the initiative was driven by elites and that the impetus for the far-reaching internal reforms came largely from beyond the European continent

10. PERESTROIKA

11. Reform movements in Poland, Hungary and soviet Union, shaped by achievements of Western capitalism • Psychological Shock of Soviet Union • Gorbachov’s programme of perestroika • The closer ties between Soviet Union And west Germany

12. Soviet Union’s Hopes About • Swaying European public opinion on issues like conventional disarmament • stationing of short-rage nuclear missiles • Seeking to unleash a process of normalization in Europe • Eventual reunification of the continent on terms that transcended the cold war divide

13. Perestroika, or economic reformed aimed the complete modernization of the socialist economy depended on improved access to and utilization of Western technology. Soviet Union worried that Europe won’t construct the “common house”

14. Germany reacted with great enthusiasm, seeing in Gorbachov’s reforms a clear path to a reduction in East-West tensions. • British Government reacted with acute mistrust and speculated that they were up to their old tricks of sewing divisions within the West • The French worried bout the Germans and the possibility that they would forsake Western Europe for a chance at eventual reunification

15. German Unification

16. connection between integration in the West and Disintegration in the East • Demonstrations in Bonn • 8th of November-calling all German dialogue

17. With the unexpected fall of Berlin Wall on 9th of November 1989, the issue of German unification jumped to the top of the East-West agenda. The gradualist approach to unification seemed especially wise in light of uncertainty about Moscow’s reaction. Yet, by the end of November East Germany started to provoke Bonn by disquiet.

18. The failure of gradualism • Abortive searching for a “third way” was aimed to avoid unification by saving unique and valued components of the East German economic model. • “Ten point plan for German Unity” By Helmut Kohl • Democratic national elections in east Germany

19. 5 New states of Germany • Brandenburg, • Mecklenburg, • Saxony, • Saxony-Anhalt, • Thuringia

20. Thatcher cautioned against the “rush” resolution of German question • Francois Mitterrand described the unification as “a legal and political impossibility”