Külpolitika - A Magyar Külügyi Intézet folyóirata - 1997 (3. évfolyam)
1997 / 1. szám - ESEMÉNYNAPTÁR - Resumé
Resume Euro-atlantic integration. It is also of fundamental importance to maintain the existing parliamentary consensus related to integration, which is the backbone of our Euro-atlantic aspirations. European and Euroatlantic integration will determine the fate of Elungary in the long run and hence, will be a common task of many governments and legislatures to come. Thus, it is in the national interest to avoid subordinating the cause of integration to short term objectives, or to party policy considerations. Gábor Horvath: Unity and Division: Euro-Atlantic Relations at the 50th Anniversary of the Marshall Plan In his commencement speech at Harvard University, US Secretary of State George C. Marshall announced the Marshall Plan on June 5,1947. The European Recovery Program provided 13.5 billion USD between 1948 and 1952 for the economic reconstruction of Europe after the davastation of World War II, and at the same time aimed at containing Soviet expansionist influence on Western Europe. The Marshall Plan called for a coordinated European initiative to tackle the seriös economic, financial and social consequences of the war. The harmonization and allocation of assistance requirements as well as the coordination of economic policies among the 16 participating Western European countries, as conditioned by Secretary Marshall, contained the origins of today's Euro-Atlantic integration institutions. The Marshall Plan ushered political, economic and monetary cooperation among the Western European countries. Later, in view of the unfolding geostrategical situation characterized by Soviet and communist threat first in Europe, then in Asia, Western European coopereation also broadened to defense and security coordination. Today's European Union and NATO find their origins in the Marshall Plan. The Euro-Atlantic integration process that aims at enlargement by the end of century reinnforces the broadening scope of shared values, interests and objectives not only among the former member countries of these integration alliences, but also with the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, who commit their domestic and foreign policies to these shared values. Under the second Clinton presidency the United States accepted the role of „inevitable global leadership". The legacy and contemporary relevance of the Marshall Plan promotes the idea of a free, united and democratic Europe, enlargement of the Euro-Atlantic institutions, and also a bipartisan support for American commitment toward Europe, since the security and prosperity of the United States is indivisible from stability and peace in Europe. 152 Külpolitika
