ABSTRACT

When the European project was first initiated, the transport sector may logically have been envisaged as a key component of the integration process. The post-World War Two period heralded faster and cheaper modes of mass transport. For the first time, air, sea, rail, and road transport were accessible to everyone. Routes multiplied, travel time plummeted, and Europe became a much smaller and more harmonised place. A core aim of the European plan - the free (and increased) movement of people - appeared to hinge upon developments in the transport arena. Air transport was at the vanguard of this sector as it was here that some of the greatest developments were occurring. Thus, civil aviation had the potential to play an integral part in the political integration of Western Europe. Walter Hallstein, the European Commission’s first president noted that European transport was paradoxical in nature, having the potential to be a motor of integration through increasing the mobility of European citizens but, at the same time, proving to be a major obstacle to greater unity, due to its politicised, nationalist persona.2 States were not as willing to pool authority for transport (particularly civil aviation) as they were for other areas of economic activity (Sochor 1991, p. 186).