{"id":297,"date":"2023-03-21T16:25:15","date_gmt":"2023-03-21T16:25:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/?p=297"},"modified":"2023-03-21T16:25:16","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T16:25:16","slug":"european-union-and-european-disintegration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/2023\/03\/21\/european-union-and-european-disintegration\/","title":{"rendered":"European Union and European Disintegration"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Stemming from an initiative of French Prime Minister Aristide Briand, the Commission of Enquiry for European Union, set up by the League of Nations in September 1930, showcases how the Great Depression turned the mood of European politicians against Eastern Europe. Originally designed to promote a closer entanglement of European national economies and thus secure peace, its work quickly transformed into a blame game of finding culprits for Europe\u2019s failure to recover from the depression&#8217;s economic shock.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The commission posited the \u2018old\u2019 states of Western Europe against the \u2018new\u2019 states of Eastern Europe, that had emerged from the collapsed Habsburg and Russian Empires. It also showed the double standards deployed by the \u2018old\u2019 states: The protectionist policies introduced by Poland, Czechoslovakia, the Baltic States, Yugoslavia, etc. obstructed the continent\u2019s economic recovery, representatives of Germany, Britain and France claimed, while they defended their own countries\u2019 soaring tariffs at the same time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For the states of Eastern Europe, nothing less than their sovereignty seemed at stake as their markets disintegrated, making them vulnerable to the influence of states such as Germany that openly sought the revision of Europe\u2019s borders \u2013 and thus threatened the existence of these states. Yugoslavia&#8217;s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Vojislav Marinkovi\u0107, warned that the abolition of tariffs would to the destruction of domestic markets in Eastern Europe and, as a consequence, to mass emigration and famine:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">\u2018No prediction of catastrophe following upon a Customs war could daunt us. . . . We have in any case to choose between one of two catastrophes \u2013 the catastrophe of the present and that of the future.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/128\/2023\/03\/image-706x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-298\" width=\"258\" height=\"374\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/128\/2023\/03\/image-706x1024.png 706w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/128\/2023\/03\/image-207x300.png 207w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/128\/2023\/03\/image-768x1115.png 768w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/128\/2023\/03\/image-172x250.png 172w, https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/128\/2023\/03\/image.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 258px) 85vw, 258px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Vojislav Marinkovi\u0107 (<a href=\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/Category:Vojislav_Marinkovi%C4%87#\/media\/File:MarinkovicPrimerMInistroDeYugoslavia.jpeg\">Wiki Commons<\/a>)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Read more here: Richter, K. (2023). <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/journals\/contemporary-european-history\/article\/catastrophe-of-the-present-and-that-of-the-future-expectations-for-european-states-from-the-great-war-to-the-great-depression\/AFEA1476E9A4D58516843C2065B2B68B#article\">The Catastrophe of the Present and That of the Future: Expectations for European States from the Great War to the Great Depression<\/a>. <em>Contemporary European History<\/em>, 1-19. doi:10.1017\/S096077732200100X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stemming from an initiative of French Prime Minister Aristide Briand, the Commission of Enquiry for European Union, set up by the League of Nations in September 1930, showcases how the Great Depression turned the mood of European politicians against Eastern Europe. Originally designed to promote a closer entanglement of European national economies and thus secure &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/2023\/03\/21\/european-union-and-european-disintegration\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;European Union and European Disintegration&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions\/299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.bham.ac.uk\/interwarslump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}