The age of (Western) European integration: A history of trial and error

Abstract

In this article the process of post-war European integration has been analyzed against the background of an explanation of the Council of Europe in 1950 that political and economic unification should be developed simultaneously. History shows that in order to realize this objective, the ‘gradualist’ approach believing primarily in a functional economic integration was preferred to the more radical method of taking immediate steps towards a full political union. The establishment of the European Communities formed the embodiment of the gradualist approach. Though these Communities — and the European Economic Community in particular - have fostered economic and monetary cooperation between the Western European countries, they could not, however, take the necessary steps towards the political ideal due to different views of the member states regarding the process of European integration. With the Treaty of Maastricht, coming into force on 1 November 1993, a new European elan has been born but the question posed by the Council in 1950 still has to be solved. One of the main lessons of European integration in the past fifty years may well be that economic and monetary unification will not proceed without some kind of prompting of a political nature.