The weak response: The Eec and the shipbuilding crisis in the 1970s

Abstract

During the 1960s, the first European shipbuilding crisis manifested itself in peculiar forms, which European institutions failed to interpret correctly. In the following decades, the many players active within the maritime market faced the transition towards a market post-fordist organization by following different, and partly conflicting, paths. At the same time, strong local interests in maritime regions began to react to the liberalist approach adopted by the EEC, and each nation-state dealt with the social consequences of the crisis differently. In practice, the different projects developed by the European Economic Community in an attempt to manage the shipbuilding crisis within a unified framework produced the opposite effect, when the strength of local interests succeeded in pushing some national governments to implement sector policies not only divergent from the Community’s indications, but also in opposition to those adopted by other member states.