Study On The Relationship Between The European Economic Integration And Economic Growth

After “World War II”, Western Europe’s economy depressed. It became an important task to revive the economy. The “cold war” game between the two superpowers ? The Soviet Union and America made Western Europe’s actual international status seriously squeezed and weakened, in this case, the necessity of the joint and cooperation in Europe became more prominent than ever before. In 1951, the six countries of Western Europe represented by France and West Germany created the European Coal and steel community through consultation, subsequently established a customs union, gradually abolished the barriers that restricted the free flow of commodity and market, and with rapid economic development, it has achieved remarkable good results. Since then, the process of European economic integration started. Then under the trend of agglomeration development, other European countries have joined the economic organization, in order not only to promote economic development, but also to maintain political stability. In 1993 a joint European Common Market-- the European Union was established, which resulted in more consolidated development situation of the European national integration and the reformation of the new world economic pattern. Although the development of the European economic integration lasted longer, and it has made great achievements, but in recent years under the strong impact of the international financial crisis,the sovereign debt crises broke out one after another in the eurozone countries, which gradually revealed the defects of the institutional framework of the European Union, and it was getting obvious day by day. Therefore, experts and scholars at home and abroad have cast doubt on the prospects for the development of the European economic integration, even some scholars believe that the euro zone is likely to disappear and the euro will collapse, and the process of economic integration is likely to keep still, whereas some other scholars have an optimistic attitude towards the development of European economic integration.For the above concerns, not only a correlation analysis on the degree of the European economic integration and economic growth of each member country was carried out but also the effect of economic integration on the economic development of member countries was tried to be interpreted in this article,in the perspective of regional economics theory. Through this research,we expected to provide beneficial reference case not only for regional economic integration study and the development of China domestic economic integration as well as the regional economic cooperation in Asia. Fifthly,the specific countermeasures and suggestions aimed at these problems were put forward. The suggestions for integrative organization are as follows. the first is to improve the framework of integrated system and to eliminate the doubt of Sovereignty transfer; The second is to promote financial integration policy and to establish the unified tax system; the third is to strengthen the financial supervision and to comprehensively promote financial integrative development strategy; The fourth is to advance the structural reform and to accelerate the pace of economic integration; The fifth is to based on the current situation and to promote the political integration comprehensively. the suggestions for Member countries are as follows : the first is to develop awareness of the overall situation,and actively integrate into the large group; the second is to promote the adjustment of industrial structure,and to improve the industrial competition; the third is to improve the business environment, and to develop the policy matching to EU policy actively; the fourth is to strengthen communication between the new and the old members and to speed up the development of domestic economy.This article is divided into 8 chapters all together, as follows:The first chapter is about the introduction. Firstly introduces the background, value of this topic, followed by combing the recent researches on European economic integration process done by domestic and foreign experts, finally the research purposes, research methods and technical route of this article are designed on the basis of the previous researches.The second chapter is the theory part of this article, mainly combing the relevant theories of regional economic integration, provides a solid theoretical foundation for the following chapters in which both the development of European economic integration and the influence of European economic integration on the European member countries are discussed.The third chapter mainly studies the evolution of European economic integration and it’s basic pattern. In this chapter the historical process of European economic integration which includes the formation and the development which have respective various stages is mainly interpreted systematically and comprehensively in the perspective of the historical development. The formation and evolution of European economic integrative organization experienced the initial stage whose main form was “coal and Steel Community”and the development stage in the form of “ European Community”and the deepening stage which had the main form of the “European Union”and finally came the expansion stage which is mainly in the form of “The EU’s eastward expansion”. Summarizing the development of European economic integration and grasping the internal link between the economic integration and economic development in the historical evolution will provide massive historical materials for further research on the coordination and the sustainable development strategy of the European economic integration countries.The fourth chapter mainly studies the economic growth in different stages of each member countries of European economic integration. With the deepening of economic integration, not only the integration of economic organization was gradually increased but also the economic growth of each member countries changed more or less.So research on this chapter laid the foundation to the following empirical analysis.The fifth chapter is the empirical analysis part.In this chapter quantitative analysis of the process of European economic integration and economic development(GDP) is done with the SPSS17.0 software. First of all,a theoretical framework between the European economic integration and economic development is established;Then, index of measuring the degree of economic integration and economic development is made according to the relevant theories. Last before the brief summary, correlation analysis between them is performed by using the software SPSS17.0.The sixth chapter mainly analyzed both the problems and it’s causes existing in the process of the European economic integration and relationship of economic growth in member countries. Problem existing in the process of European economic integration is as follows: each member countries’ integrative degree was not balanced,there was an incoordination between the depth and breadth of integration, the integrated system framework was limited by itself,integrative economic structure was unreasonable; there are also some problems in the economic development of each member countries, namely economic growth was widely slowdown, the domestic regional economic disparity of each member country was getting more serious,the dependence on international trade was too high, the unemployment rate remained high.Meanwhile, the main reasons for the formation of these problems are given in this chapter.The seventh chapter is the suggestion part. some concrete countermeasures and suggestions are put forward for the problems existing in the European economic integration and economic growth of member countries.The eighth chapter is the conclusion part. The main conclusions of this paper are as follows: firstly, from the point of view of historical development, the process of European economic integration can be divided into four stages, namely initial stage, the development stage,deepening stage and advanced stage.overall it was a dynamic process gradually improving from the lower economic organizations to senior complex one. Secondly,the deepening of the process of European economic integration should be the continuous improvement of the process of the institutional framework,and it should be the gradually moving process from the economic field to the political field. Therefore, the system arrangement of each various integrative stages is analyzed detailly in this paper. Thirdly, the empirical analysis shows that the economic integration of Europe has brought a positive effect on the economic development of member countries. Especially the long-term economic integration has a positive effect on the economic development of member states. This is due partly to the deepening of the integration have eliminated the obstacles of the free flow of the four elements gradually, and partly to reduce the cost of foreign trade, bringing motivation to the economic development of member countries. Fourthly, this study found that, there are still some problems exisiting in the process of European economic integration and in the economic development of member countries.Namely: each member countries’ integrative degree was not balanced,there was an incoordination between the depth and breadth of integration, the integrated system framework was limited by itself,integrative economic structure was unreasonable and economic growth of each member countries was widely slowdown, the domestic regional economic disparity of each member country was getting more serious,the dependence on international trade was too high, the unemployment rate remained high. Fifthly,the specific countermeasures and suggestions aimed at these problems were put forward. The suggestions for integrative organization are as follows.the first is to improve the framework of integrated system and to eliminate the doubt of Sovereignty transfer; The second is to promote financial integration policy and to establish the unified tax system; the third is to strengthen the financial supervision and to comprehensively promote financial integrative development strategy; The fourth is to advance the structural reform and to accelerate the pace of economic integration; The fifth is to based on the current situation and to promote the political integration comprehensively. the suggestions for Member countries are as follows : the first is to develop awareness of the overall situation,and actively integrate into the large group; the second is to promote the adjustment of industrial structure,and to improve the industrial competition; the third is to improve the business environment, and to develop the policy matching to EU policy actively; the fourth is to strengthen communication between the new and the old members and to speed up the development of domestic economy. In conclusion, the experience and the existing problems of the European economic integration and both outbreak and spreading of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe will make a valuable and significant reference not only for China to promote the economic cooperation with it’s neighbor countries but also for the Asian Regional Economic Cooperation in future. In addition, the further advance and deepening reform of the European economic integration have a great effect on the further development of the international political and economic situation. Therefore,the top priority is that combining with own national conditions and the actual situation, our country should attach a great importance to China- EU economic cooperation, should expand China – EU bilateral cooperation, working together to create a better future.