An Ever Closer Union Among the Peoples of Europe: A Critical Legal History

Project Information

EPoCH

Grant agreement ID: 892766

DOI

10.3030/892766

Project closed

EC signature date 15 April 2020

Start date 1 February 2021

End date 4 March 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 219 312,00

EU contribution

€ 219 312,00

Coordinated by

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - EPoCH (An Ever Closer Union Among the Peoples of Europe: A Critical Legal History)

Reporting period: 2021-02-01 to 2023-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The European Union is meant to create ‘an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe’. But who are the peoples of Europe? The overall objective of the project EPoCH has been to answer this question by reading the archives of the drafting of the Treaty of Rome, the first EU treaty. In 1957 when the Treaty of Rome was signed, four out of six of the founding Member States were colonial powers. EPoCH has uncovered how the colonial legal politics of the time shaped the drafting of EU law and, specifically, how ‘peoples of Europe’, chosen as the subject of European integration, designates not citizens of the future Member States and not those who are subjected to its laws and institutions but, rather, those who belong to an ethnic and racial meaning of European nation. Understanding who was meant by ‘peoples of Europe’ is an important finding for society as it helps us reflect on who has been excluded from European integration, and going forward, on how to construct an ever closer union, which benefits all people who live in Europe.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project analysed the full collection of archival material from the drafting of the Treaty of Rome, the Intergovernmental Conference (IGC) of 1956-57. The research uncovered how colonial legal politics of the time influenced the drafting of the Treaty of Rome, which is new knowledge in the field of EU legal studies and European integration history. These field-changing findings have been published Gold Open Access in an article entitled ‘Peoples, Inhabitants and Workers: Colonialism in the Treaty of Rome’ in the leading international law journal, the European Journal of International Law (December 2023). The article has been discussed in blogs and podcasts and is being translated into French.
EPoCH has further used this new knowledge about how colonialism shaped the origins of EU law to organise a largescale multidisciplinary conference on how this history has impacted the development of European integration. The conference output will be published Gold Open Access by Cambridge University Press in 2025; H. Eklund (ed.), Colonialism and the EU Legal Order.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

During the past decade scholars from different disciplines have begun to draw connections between Europe’s colonial history and the construction of what became the EU. What has been missing is a comprehensive account of how EU law was shaped by colonial politics. Through peer-reviewed articles and the forthcoming edited volume, EPoCH has filled this pronounced research gap and showed how the original drafting of EU laws still in force today was shaped by colonialism. What is more, EPoCH has shown how this drafting history shaped the development of EU law and European integration, connecting the past with the current practise of EU law, which is completely novel in the field of EU legal studies. The results of EPoCH will be of practical importance in the next EU treaty reform (especially of Part 4 TFEU). In terms of wider societal implications, EPoCH brings knowledge of how the history of the EU is connected to Europe’s centuries spanning history of colonialism, and how that history still affects those of us living in Europe. It is of benefit for our European society to properly understand this history, learn from it and confront its repercussions in the EU law in force today.