640 Chapter 32
nounced as a backdoor route for socialism into Britain),
the increasing role of the European Parliament at Stras-
bourg (at the expense of Britain’s Parliament), and the
apparent birth of a European “superstate.”
The second trend encouraged by the new prosper-
ity was the growth of the welfare state and social bene-
fits. Most West European governments, following such
examples as Swedish state socialism or the policies of
Attlee’s Britain, devoted a significant share of new
wealth and production to public services and benefits.
In West Germany, both the socialist governments of
Willy Brandt (1969–74) and Helmut Schmidt
(1974–82) and the conservative government of Helmut
Kohl (1982–98) accepted high tax rates as the price of
social cohesion. And the benefits of European prosper-
ity have been great: Britain, France, and Germany all
established workweeks below thirty-eight or thirty-nine
hours for full pay. Britain, France, Germany, and Italy all
guaranteed employees and workers a minimum of five to
six weeks of paid vacation per year—compared with the
two weeks standard in the United States and Japan.
German workers had the most exceptional treatment: a
minimum of fifty-eight paid days off (eleven-and-one-
half weeks) per year in combined vacation days and paid
holidays. France and Italy established age sixty for re-
tirement at full pay, with age fifty or fifty-five the stan-
dard in some occupations. In 1996 Germans were
guaranteed 52 weeks of unemployment compensation,
or 128 weeks after age fifty-four, at 60 percent of salary.
All EU countries except Luxembourg granted pregnant
women a minimum of three months of paid maternity
leave, with Denmark granting six months. Many coun-
tries, led by France, have given free tuition to state uni-
versities to all students. And the entire EU is committed
to free, or low cost, medical care for all; some states,
led by Germany, include free nursing home care for
the elderly.
The price of such benefits has been high taxation.
European taxation has been so high that in the late
1980s it consumed one-third to one-half of the GNPCHRONOLOGY 32.1
1975 British referendum accepts EC membership
1975 Greece, Spain, and Portugal apply for EC mem-
bership
1979 First direct elections to the European Parliament
in Strasbourg
1979 Simone Veil elected first president of the
European Parliament
1979 The EC creates the European Monetary System
(EMS) and European Currency Unit (ECU)
1981 Greece begins five-year phased entry into the EC
as tenth member
1983 Governments of the ten EC members sign the
Solemn Declaration on unity
1984 European Parliament adopts treaty on creating
the European Union (EU)
1985 Spain and Portugal accepted into the EC as
eleventh and twelfth members
1985 Single European Act sets 1992 as date for open
frontiers and single market
1986 Single European Act adopted in parliaments of all
twelve member states
1987 Turkey applies for membership in the EC1988 Delors Plan outlines closer economic unity and a
common currency
1989 EC adopts draft Charter of Fundamental Social
Rights
1989 Austria applies for membership in the EC
1990 Cyprus and Malta apply for EC membership
1991 Sweden applies for membership in the EC
1992 Single European Act and Maastricht Treaty create
open frontiers and single market: EC becomes the
EU
1992 Norway and Finland apply for EU membership
1992 Twelve members of the EU agree to negotiations
to expand to sixteen members
1992 Switzerland applies for EU membership
1994 Sweden, Finland, and Austria reach agreements to
join the EU
1995 Norwegian national referendum again rejects EU
membership
1997 EU adopts plan for Estonia, Poland, Czech Re-
public, Hungary, and Slovenia to join
1997 Membership plans for Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia,
Romania, Bulgaria, and Turkey postponed