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[Joe]

http://www.economist.com/news/essays/europe

Between the borders
The idea of European unity is more complicated than its supporters or critics allow

After 1814 Germany invaded France five times. After 1914 the antagonisms and ambitions of European nation-states with colonies on almost every continent twice dragged the whole world into war. Far-fetched as it seems today, the dread in 1945 was that Germany would rise up yet again, as a Fourth Reich. Fear of Germany was compounded by fear of Russia

This, then, was the context for the Treaty of Paris. All across Europe states had failed their people. Some European countries had embraced Fascism. Others had crumbled. War had become total. The very idea of Europe had failed.

Beset by hunger, exhaustion and fear, governments desperate to ensure peace sought to extend their care of ordinary people.

It was from this need to prevent war and safeguard the state that the European communities arose. The link was clearest in France. Prosperity required West German raw materials; France had depended on German coal since the 1890s, and by the 1930s had become the world’s largest coal importer. At the same time Germany had to be kept from renewed aggression. In 1945 Charles de Gaulle felt the best way to meet these goals would be to put the coal and steel industries in the Ruhr and Rhineland permanently under French control. France would guarantee its own safety by keeping West Germany as an agrarian state.

This was vetoed by the Americans and the British, partly because they worried that a poor, suppressed West Germany would either rebel or fall under Soviet influence.

So it was that in 1949 France’s foreign minister, Robert Schuman, resorted to what European mythmaking casts as a bold new vision and history records as a third choice close to a last resort: Monnet’s plan for a Coal and Steel Community. It created a High Authority, which stood above the six governments, to administer its provisions. All the participants were equal and the pact was open to new members.

American encouragements for European institution-building were more deliberate. Writing in 1948 the diplomat George Kennan summed up the view in Washington: if Germany was restored without European integration, there would be a German attempt to dominate. If Germany was not restored, there would be domination by Russia. America required a strong, prosperous Europe that settled the German question, and worked to that end. Without its support the enterprise might have failed.

These are just some snippets I found interesting. I highly suggest reading the whole thing, it's pretty great.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Yep, great essay. Will be fascinating to see where Europe heads in the next 10 to 20 years.