From Ludwigshafen to Longwy: Capitalism, Neoliberalism and Development in the European Project

This article interrogates different modalities of capitalism in the European Community from the late 1970s to the end of the 1980s. It does so via two case studies that offer disparate perspectives on the European project’s relationship to state aid. First, it follows the forced closure of the Alcan Ludwigshafen aluminium mill in 1986 as an early example of the stringent application of state aid policy that has become associated with the European Union’s (EU’s) neoliberal austerity regime, in particular following the EU’s draconian response to the Great Recession. The second example offers a developmentalist counterpoint to the bloc’s neoliberalism. Charting the construction of the European Development Pole – created in 1986 at the triangular border traced by Longwy (France), Aubange (Belgium) and Rodange (Luxembourg) – sheds light on the coexistence of austerity and development that structure the European project. Building on recent research that complicates the variegated history of neoliberalism,the article suggests using the alternative framework of ‘Eurocapitalism’ as a specific model of political–economic organisation grounded in the Brussels-guided disbursement of state aid. The concept thereby offers a path towards greater analytical specificity by moving beyond descriptions of the European project as either a neoliberal entity or a mix of many competing capitalisms.