Europaåret 1973. USA og Europa – før og nu

Resumé

The Year of Europe 1973: USA and Europe – then and now

In 1973 the American government launched the European Year initiative. It was not well-received in Europe, especially not by the nine EC governments that stood at the centre of the American address. The reason was that the American intention aimed at recalibrating the Atlantic alliance by making the Europeans carry a higher load economically and in defense terms without granting them more political influence. The initiative strained relations between the US and the EC countries and was generally a fiasco, but it did not lead to a rupture of Atlantic relations. Rather, they were reconsolidated more or less along preexisting lines. Nonetheless, the European Year initiative produced long-lasting European results in the sense that it challenged and helped shape political cooperation among the EC states and led to the first profound formulation of a European identity in the form of The European Identity Declaration of 1973. Denmark had just joined the EC by 1973 and already in the autumn of that year took on the role as chairman of the EC and the political cooperation in the EPC. On the basis of hitherto unused sources in the Danish Foreign Ministry, it is shown how this role created challenges both at the European level and in Danish domestic politics. The European Year initiative is a key to understanding how Atlantic disagreements were handled during the Cold War, but it is also interesting in the longer historical perspective by revealing how differently Atlantic relations are now being handled in the Trump era. It is suggested that present day tensions unfold more dramatically because the discipline of the Cold War rationale that kept together the Pax Americana has evaporated.