유럽 소국들의 연대와 균열

Solidarity and Cleavage between Small Countries in Europe: Belgium and the project of European Political Community

This article analyses policies of Belgium for the first project of European political integration in the first half of 1950s. The first question raised in this article is how Belgium cooperated with Netherlands in regard to the project of European Political Community (EPC). Confronted with the EPC-talk, Netherlands tried to set a supranational customs union of Six community on the top of agenda. However, this new project did not meet the national interest of Belgium. That is why the two small countries could not cooperate in the EPC-talk as well as in the conferences for the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Defence Community. This shows that collaboration between small countries in European integration depends on issues. The second question of this article is about the relation between Belgian political parties and political parties of big three countries (France, West Germany, Italy) in regard to the EPC project. While social democratic parties of big three countries took a critical stand on supranational European integration including the EPC project in the first half of 1950s, Christian democratic parties in France, West Germany, Italy were its most powerful driving force. But things were different in Belgium. While the christian democratic party rejected the EPC project, the social democratic party supported it.