« Home

Home » Politics » Hay & Menon: European Politics » Student resources » Member States' relationship to the EU » Germany

Hay & Menon: European Politics

Germany

West Germany was an original member of the European Community, being a signatory state to the Treaty of Rome in 1957. For West Germany, membership of the EC was a means to ensure its re-integration into the international economy and a return to respectability on the international political stage. Within the EC/EU, West Germany, in partnership with France, has often been seen as the driving force for the process of European integration. West Germany had an unusual relationship with the EC/EU, as its size and wealth made it one of the most powerful member states, yet it supported the upward cessation of national sovereignty to a degree more characteristic of smaller member states. This can in part be explained by the importance of West Germany's role within the process of European integration in both denouncing its mistakes under Hitler and in aligning itself with the west during the Cold War. This also perhaps explains its more independent role within the EU since reunification and the collapse of the USSR. Since the formation of the grand coalition Government in 2005, the leaders of both main European Parliamentary groups are from parties that form the German Government, leading to accusations that the latter has too much influence within the European Parliament.