29th July, 2010

Peace can sometimes be bought

After the visit to the oldest city of Belgium, Tongeren I had realized that the history of Belgium has been plagued with wars beginning with the Romans in 600 A.D.(cross check with wiki) For Belgians, it has been a very difficult past where they have been unable to defend themselves and been left to mercy of their conqueror. Therefore, the concept of peace naturally has a very important place in their hearts. Keeping this in mind I started my day today. We took our first bus ride in the city to reach ‘Vrije Universiteit Brussel’ (University of Brussels) wherein we met with a Professor of European Law, Tony Joris. He gave us an overwhelming amount of information on the birth and development of the European Union we know today. Along with that, he also touched upon various governing bodies, their hierarchy, powers, regulations, and also few articles of the TFEU (Treaty on function of the European Union). After the Second World War an idea was conceived by France to protect European peace. Along with Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Italy this idea gave fruit to an economic community called ECSC (European Coal & Steel Community). The logic behind this was to control coal and steel which were then not only industrial products, but also war products. Thus, if they controlled these two commodities, they could prevent future wars. In 1951 the treaty was signed and came into force in 1952 as a supra-national organization (It meant that decisions made by the organizations, would be directly binding on the member states). This somehow baffled me, as I found it strange that countries especially amidst fragile world peace (cold war) were agreeing to give up part of their sovereignty. It signaled with brevity that peace was the most important goal. In fact, there was even an attempt to build a defense system (EDC-European Defense Community) like N.A.T.O. that would be controlled by the EPC (European Political Community). This meant that Europe would not only be a monetary union but also a political one that would be have one centralized supra-national governing body. I found this to be a very positive step because then there would have been very little scope left for war between European countries. However, this proposal failed in the French parliament, after which the entire concept was buried away. Nonetheless, the European Community for Atomic Energy was formed to promote Nuclear power as an alternative to oil and gas as a source of energy. Therefore, in 1957 there were two communities active i.e. the EEC and the ECAE (European Economic Community and European Community for Atomic Energy). The objective of the EEC was to work together and have free transport of goods, services, persons, and capital within the community member nations. Moving on, while I could write more about the history and development of the European Union, there was a couple interesting articles (Article no. 101-102) of the TFEU that Professor Joris touched upon. These dealt with the competition policies which prevent companies from colluding to make above-average profits, thus cheating the consumer of a fair price. I found his discussion on this topic very interesting, and the examples of Microsoft and Intel that he brought forward were very explanatory. In fact, while reading a newspaper the other day I saw this article in the newspaper that dealt with a similar topic. (use newspaper article here)

In conclusion, I found the lecture on history and development of the European Union very enlightening and informative. Peace, which forms the entire basis of the development of the Union is a very noble idea. Even though it could be said that the perspective we got today was very academic in nature. I would say just one thing to all the critics, which is that peace whether we like to put it this way or not, was/has been bought. The tough periods of the World Wars and Cold Wars which reflected on both our professors faces reflected a very harsh reality that our generation takes for granted. It is that peace is something that was very rare in those times, and as much as we may critize the European Union for bureachy and faulty policies, it has been able to achieve/buy peace which I believe is the best item on the any menu in the world.