Reassessing the historical dynamics of European business associations: The genesis of UNICE, late 1940s to 1970s

This article demonstrates that the Schuman Plan and the European Economic Community (EEC) challenged the unity of pre-existing European business associations. It emphasises the effects of coexisting European integration processes between the late 1940s to the 1970s on the development and the structuration of European business associations. The UNICE, the EEC’s main employers’ organisation, was first founded in 1952 as a committee of an employers’ organisation within the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), and was relaunched in 1958 within the EEC. Studying the shift from the OEEC to the EEC provides new insights into how European business associations adapted to the redefinition of European political spaces. Based on archives from European business associations, this article presents the forgotten structural development of UNICE, from its initial foundation in 1952 to its refoundation as the EEC’s representative European business organisation in 1958, and its later gradual structuring in the early 1970s.