[A-List] EU integration: European Round Table

[Michael Keaney]

Right now I'm wading through Bastiaan van Apeldoorn's "Transnational
Capitalism And The Struggle Over European Integration" (Routledge 2002) and
it's an interesting, if dense, discussion of the role of the European
Roundtable of Industrials (as they call themselves). We've covered this
outfit here before:

http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2001/msg04486.htm
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w26/msg00039.htm

Its home page can be found here:

http://www.ert.be/pc/enc_frame.htm

Van Apeldoorn makes the sensible case that much of what exists of the EU
today is because of the efforts of hegemonic fractions of European capital,
including especially the dominant power bloc within the ERT. After a lot of
theoretical mumbo-jumbo he cuts to the chase by tracking the evidence,
examining the activities of ERT members, the composition of the ERT, and the
policies it has advocated, up to the eventual triumph of what he calls the
neoliberal policy, personified at the moment by competition commissioner
Mario Monti.

Pehr Gyllenhammer, a Swede and then boss of Volvo, founded the ERT in 1983,
although it was 1995 until Sweden formally joined the EU. Today, the ERT has
a similarly eclectic mix of representatives, including those from Norway,
Hungary, Switzerland and Turkey. Perhaps Sabri can tell us a bit about Jak
Kamhi, chief executive of Profilo Holding.

Another noteworthy item in this connection is that the person responsible
for the drafting of a new corporate governance code for Germany, Gerhard
Cromme, CEO of ThyssenKrupp, is also the person responsible for heading the
ERT.

See http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2001/msg04869.htm

Michael Keaney