Dollar Diplomacy: U.S. Views of the European Union

In 1946, Winston Churchill argued for a United States of Europe. There were too many disagreements among the victors and losers of the war for a fair hearing. It took another 12 years, until 1958, before delegates from various nations sat in Rome to form the European Economic Community (EEC). Some forty years later now, the EU is still a work in progress, not yet a country of its own, but much more than 15 separate countries. Those countries are Austria, Belgium, Denmark Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.

However, the American view, as seen in contemporary newspapers, journals, and magazines, sees the current EU in terms of economics, not diplomacy. In fact, the average American is blithely ignorant about foreign diplomacy. Chances are nearly no one would know who the president of Germany is for example (Gerhard Schroeder) or the premier of Italy (Silvio Berlusconi). American's interest lies in how the new EU currency, the euro, compares to the American dollar, and how much more the dollar buys these days.

However, there is renewed interest in the last several years about the behavior of officials of the EU, and, especially in the last several weeks, when a merger of General Electric and Honeywell was denied by EU's anti-trust chief, Mario Monti. "Monti believed that the combination of Honeywell's cockpit controls with GE's engines and powerful aircraft financing division would stifle competition." (Elliott 2001 41)