"The birth of Europe" : European integration during the 1950s

Abstract

This thesis is a case-study focusing on the crucial years of the 1950s during which today's European Union (EU) was born. 2010 marked the 60th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration of 1950 and this inspired me to carry out a study focusing on the birth of European integration. Among the EDRC collection of thesis, one can hardly find any dissertation with a historical dimension, for instance, looking at Europe pre- and post-Second World War. So I have tried to rectify this shortcoming by compiling a case study on the early stages of the European Union. The 1950s was a deciding decade for both Europe and the whole world. With many ideas and ideologies competing for influence - Communism, Soviet power, Americanism, Christian Democracy, Nationalism, Europeanism, and so on - the shape of things to come was far from clear. The immediate post-Second World War period was a testing ground for diverse tentative ideas about European integration. Prior to this, on several occasions, there had been ideas and attempts to unite Europe. The Nazi onslaught had only been the most recent. Franco-German enmity was a time bomb which exploded and created a major obstacle in the path towards European integration. The British "absence" during the early stages of the process was another pivotal factor. The founding countries of the modem European Union (EU) - France, West Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy- are referred to as "the Six". After 1945, the Six recast their nationalism not only to reject extremism, but also to embrace Europeanism: an emotive drive to create exceptional institutions of European unity. At the junction of their Europeanized nationalism, the Six set up the European Economic Community (EEC, 1957), the fore-runner of today's European Union (EU).