Henry Kissinger’s «Year of Europe» and transatlantic relations (1973-1974)

The article aims to analyze the American “Year of Europe” initiative in the context of transatlantic relations. By the early 1970s, significant structural changes had taken place in transatlantic relations. In order to revitalize the neglected transatlantic ties, the Nixon administration unilaterally decided to declare 1973 the “Year of Europe”. Instead of what Richard Nixon and his adviser Henry Kissinger had planned, the American initiative triggered one of the deepest crises in American-European relations. The leaders of Western European countries feared that the main goal of the “Year of Europe” was to assert the hegemonic domination of the United States over its allies. The American initiative prompted the countries of the European Community to engage in the first attempt to take a unitary foreign policy stance. The paper is based on available American (published documents, memoirs, press conferences, and public speeches of the President Richard Nixon and his Assistant for National Security Affairs Henry Kissinger) and European (European Community documents) sources. First, the author investigates the reasons and preconditions of the American initiative. Then the main ideas of the Kissinger’s “Year of Europe” speech are analyzed. The next part of the article reveals the negative and suspicious attitude of Europeans towards Kissinger’s speech (especially the reactions of France, Great Britain, and the Federal Republic of Germany) as well as the efforts of Western European countries to form a collective European response to Washington within the framework of the European Political Cooperation. The article then examines how external challenges, the Arab-Israeli war and the oil crisis, have undermined the European efforts and facilitated for the Nixon administration the task to re-establish American leadership in the Atlantic Alliance. The last part of the article discusses the outcome of the “Year of Europe”, its main lessons, and consequences in the short and long-term perspectives. The author concludes that if in the short-term the “Year of Europe” turned out to be a failed diplomatic initiative, then in the long-term it can be seen as a step in restructuring US relations with the major allies in the context of a rapidly transforming international system. American-European cooperation had developed successfully through the International Energy Agency, the G7 and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. The study contributes to our understanding of the evolution of transatlantic relations since the 1970s.

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