The creation of highly developed and integrated economic zones for the pursuit of trading interests is not a uniquely modern phenomenon. One of the world's earliest free-trade zones, and a predecessor of the European Union (EU), was the Hanseatic League, which dominated commercial activity in northern Europe from the 13th to the 17th century. The federation, officially designated as the Hansa (the medieval German word for "association") in 1343, had a membership fluctuating between 70 and 200 cities and communities. To this day its spirit influences the Baltic region and gives it a mutual basis for the future.
Protecting interests
The League was founded with the goal of protecting the mutual trading interests of its members in the Baltic. The rationale behind the League was to organize and control this trade, a step rendered necessary because of big upheavals in the countries of Scandinavia at the time, causing disruptions. Yet, the League was neither a society nor a corporation, it owned no joint property, and had no executive officials of its own; it was a close alliance of many communities with similar needs and interests in securing their trade and guarding their profits. The League's only governing body was a congress made up of merchants from the various cities which met regularly in the city of Lubeck, but it had no formal constitution. Thus the League was not ruled by merchants, each town rather having its individual rulers and rules. These cities, furthermore, were powerful in their own right, with their own armies and warships. They could therefore make war against those who threatened their interests, and join in the mutual defense of other members.
Winning monopolies
At its height the Hanseatic League made the Baltic the center of a trade stretching from Greenland to Muscovy. It attempted to protect shipping convoys and caravans in this vast area by devoting its combined might to quelling pirates, as well as by building lighthouses and training pilots. The League's most important work, however, was to seek to organize and control trade throughout northern Europe by winning wider commercial privileges, establishing more trading bases overseas and developing a universally binding system of maritime and commercial laws and practices. Thus the main weapons of the League were commercial boycott and commercial monopoly. If a city refused to join the league, the merchants of that city would be denied access to the extensive and lucrative network of markets of member cities.
End of the league
The 30-Years War in Europe, in conjunction with numerous other factors, accelerated the decay of the Hanseatic League. The cities were in danger because Sweden had joined the war in 1630 and the political balance was shifting in Scandinavia. Furthermore, the budding Danish and English maritime powers, and the discovery of the Americas, had slowly eroded the League's international reach and market. In 1645 the Hanseatic negotiators managed to be included in the Swedish-Danish peace, but by the end of the war in 1648 Sweden controlled several Hanseatic cities.
Nowadays
The Hanseatic League was very instrumental in the economic development of northern Europe in medieval times, being for a long time the most important political power factor in the Baltic area. It also left a significant imprint in its member cities in terms of a rich legacy in art, building and maritime tradition. Dominating the city centers still today are soaring brick-built Gothic churches -- glories of medieval architecture. Moreover, the north German cities of Hamburg, Lubeck, Bremen and Rostock keep in contact styling themselves as members of the Hanseatic League, using the official title of "Free and Hanseatic cities." Similarly, a lot of the citizens of these cities are proud to be "Hanseatics," which they associate with independence and a liberal approach to politics and economics.
But nowadays the Hanseatic League serves also as a model for cooperation between different parts of a region with the same fundamental interests. As a precedent of decentralized organization respecting the authority of the individual member, yet smoothing cooperation and bringing benefits, the memory of the League has spurred several efforts to renew the spirit of that organization in the northern part of Europe. The states in the region of the Baltic Sea are thus on the way to improving their cooperation in economic, political and cultural affairs. In this connection these historical links serve to facilitate the entrance of former Eastern Bloc nations into the world community and the EU, to the extent that many people believe that the vision of the "Europe of the regions" could be realized in an exemplary way, in the former area of the Hanseatic League.
Taiwan Representative of Hamburg Business Development Corp: German Trade Office Taipei, 4F, No. 4, Minsheng E. Rd, Sec. 3, Taipei, Taiwan, Tel: +886-2-2506-9028 ext. 302, Fax: +886-2-2506-8182.
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