In 1945, London and Washington were politically supreme in Western Europe as they were the two major vintners of the Second World War. They could easily have taken lead in the formation of new European institutions, or indeed in opposing their drift to the Soviet bloc. Somehow they did neither. The in fact had no special vision for Europe at the time. The OECD which acted as the conduit for Marshal aid seemed to be the first step in the direction of European intergration.Only in 1949-50, when the Marsha laid was running down, did the limits of Americana s well as British interest become clear.

The first persona of stature to identify the direction in which Europe was moving was Winston Churchill. Rejected by the British electorate in July 1945 for his anti-progressive views on relinquishing parts of British Empire, he wrote about Europe. “Form Stettin on the Baltic to the Trieste on the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across Europe. being that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of central and esteem Europe- Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest,Belagade, Bucharest and Sofia. This is certainly not the liberated Europe which we fought to build up.”

On September 19, 1945, in Zurich, Churchill appealed for ‘a kind of United States of Europe’. The time, he said, might be short; thespread of atomic weapons might reinforce existing divisions. The first step had to be a partnership between France and Germany.
“If we are to form a United States of Europe,” he declared,” we must begin now”. The future of the European family’ depended on the resolve’ of millions to do right instead of wrong’. While there was criticism of his suggestion, the founder of the pre-war European Movement, Coundenhove Kalergi was one of the few to congratulate Churchill for rising the European Question which he thought could no longer be ignored by the governments of the continent.       

Churchill’s views made him the natural choice for chirring the congress of Europe which was confidentially organized at the Hague on 7-10 My 1948. Some 800 invitees gathered to ponder the question/problems of European disunity. A strong German delegation attended, with Conrad Adenauer at their head. The Conference recognized the principle of supranational, the need for the states to surrender part of their sovereignty in the interest of common institutions. Churchill said; “we must proclaim the mission and the design of audited Europe whose moral conception will wing the respect and gratitude of making, and whose physical strength will be and gratitude of mankind, and whose physical strength will be such that none will dare molest their tranquil sway... I hope to see a Europe where men and women of every country will think of being European as of belonging to their native land.”

By the end of 1947, Churchill’s mention of iron Curtain tended to become reality in Eastern Europe. The three events which confirmed the iron curtain were : (1) The creation of COM inform, (2) February coupon Prague and (3) The Berlin Blockade. Meeting at the Polish mountain resort Skylarks Probe in October 1947, Communist delegates form the USSR, Eastern Europe, France, and Italy founded the Communist Information Bureau in order to coordinate the strategies of fraternal parties. TO the outside world if looked like a harbinger of a new ideological offensive.

Post-war Western Europe consisted of the countries which were not occupied broth Soviet Army, and which did not fall under communist control. These countries who stated outside the various military and economic association of the era; larger group was made up of those who became members either of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization ( NATO) or of the European Economic Community (EEC) or broth.

Western Europe was distinguished by the fact that in 1945 it was still the home base of the world’s colonial empires. With the exception of the USA and the Soviet Union, whose imperialisms did not conform to the traditional type, there were no imperial powers that were not West European. Germany had neon stripped of its overseas colonies in 1919. Italy suffered the same fate in 1946.But the British, the Dutch, the French, the Belgian and The Portuguese empires were largely intact. The dissolution of these empires in the early post-war decade, constituted a fundamental element in the early posy-war decade, continued a fundamental element interchanging European scene. Decolonization was a necessary pre-condition for the emergence of a new European Community of equal, demarcate partners.

The British Empire occupied an area roughly 125 times larger than Britain; the Dutch empire was 55 times larger than the Netherlands; the French empire was 19 times larger than France; the Belgian empire was 78 times the size of Belgium. All these countries lost their empires a little after the Second World War; Portugal held not to Angola till 1975, the era of Francois Mitterrand existed in 1970s and 1980. In West Germany too the SDP, whose Goldberg Programmed of 1959 broke with its totalitarian traditions, remained in opposition until the late 1960s. The British Labor Party was regarded as a ‘broad church’ of variegated tendencies.

Western Europe’s greatest success lay in the realm of economic performance. The speed and scale of economic resurgence after 1948 was unprecedented in European history. Marshal aid was no doubt a pump-priming exercise, which supplied the cash to sustain European trade and industry after the initial pos-war upsurge. Science and Technology moved into an era of huge state and international funds. The infrastructure of transport was expanded beyond all recognition .State railway networks were electrified and rationalized. With its Sniff’s train Grande Vitas’ (TVG), introduced in 1981, France moved into an era of super trains equaled only in Japan. The German Autobahns were extended to serve as the model for magnificent auto trade, auto routes and motorways anywhere. International waterways with huge capacity linked the Rhine with the Rhone, Rotterdam with Marseilles. The Euro port near Rotterdam, the largest in the world, was the focus of the ambitious Rhine Delta Plan of reclamation and flood control completed in 1981. Air travel progressed to the point that no West European businessman needed to think twice abuts doing a day’s work in any European city of his choice and returning the same evening.

The European Coal and Steel Community (1951-1967) was the firstborn child of the Schuman Plan. It was designed to prevent the reappearance of a separate industrial base in each member country. Its first President, Jean Monnet, brought together the ‘six’- France, Germany, Italy and the Benelux. They agreed to operate free trade in coal and still, to abide by common regulations governing manufacture and competition, and if necessary to control prices and production .It was a manifest success. Britain did not participate.

The military cooperation encountered many obstacles. The Pleven Plan (1950) flatted a modified version of ht military clauses of the Schuman Plan, but its finalization dragged on for four years. The British did not sign as they were more interested in strengthening NATO. De Gaulle of France denunciated it. The French came out against a compromise organization, the European Defense Community (EDC). An eventual outcome was found in the West European Union (1955), an annual review body with no independent powers.

The Messina Conference of 1955 marked the moment when the European Movement was attuned to integration of the leading element in its strategy. Members decided that a strong and successful economic community world open up the surest path for pursuing the long-term political goals. The Treaty of Rome (March 27, 1957) embodied the determination of the ‘six’ to extend the success of the ECSC and Duration into all sects of their commercial and economic life. It gave rise to the European Economic Community (EEC) also known as the Common Market. Which came into being on January 1, 1958? Its main aims were to remove all internal tariffs, to formulate a common external de policy, to harmonies transportation, agriculture, a ndtaxatin, to eliminate barriers, to tree competition and to encourage the mobility of labor, capital and enterprise.

In order to achieve these aims, four new bodies were created: (i) The Council of Ministers to control and authorize all policy decisions;  (ii) a Subordinate Executive Commission in Brussels, with a permanent secretariat and a number of directorates for proposing policy; (iii) the European Court of Justice; and (iv) a European Parliament sitting alternately in Strasburg and Luxemburg. The venture was highly successful. Internal tariffs were abolished by 1968. The Common Agricultural Policy (1962), Thanks to the vast subsidies despite the protests of manufactures, brought a new lease of sturdy the life to millions of farmers. The omtrpdictopm of Value Added Tax (VAT) in 1967 raised important revenues which could be used to spread the community’s growing wealth into deprived social sectors and backward regions. The Presidents of the European Commissions were: 195 8 to 1967, Walter Hall stein of West German; Roy Jenkins of the United Kingdom (1968 TO 1984; 1985 onwards, Jacques Delores of France. Despite the criticism faced by the EEC, its members became prosperous while the centenaries which had stayed out continued at very slow pace of progress.

The European Free Trade Area (EFTA-1958-92) was created by the so-called ‘Outer Seven’ on the lines of the EEC, led by Britain, who had not been a party to the Treaty of Rome. Its interest was confined to the commercial sector and its long-term future was constantly clouded by the likelihood of defection to the EEC. It played valuable role until 1973, when Britain and Denmark became member of both organizations.

Britain’s membership proved a bone of contention that rankled for more than forty years. The UK government did not participate in the ECSC in 1951, and dropped out of negotiations preceding the Treaty of Rome. The inhibitions were both psychological and practical. Not having sufferer the sobering humiliation of national defeat at any poking of the Second World War, many Britons still harbored the illusions of sovereignty and self-sufficiency. They also had very real commitments to the commonwealth and its thorny problems of commercial preference. In political and military affairs, they gave priority to relations with the United States and NATO. In 1962-63 under Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, they made a belated application to join the EEC, Only you meet the shocking rebuff of De Gaulle’s veto , who was still nursing resentment for Briticism betrayal of French interests first in war time and then by the France Fourth Republic. French representatives boycotted proceedings at Brussels until the singing of the Luxemburg Compromise in 1966.

The first two decades of the EEC were crooned with many financial achievements. The European Monetary System (EMS) which began in 1979 tied the currencies of member states into the framework of an exchange rate mechanism (ERM) which was designed to dampen previous fluctuation. It was conceived as theistically stage on the long road to European Monetary Union (EMU). The appearance of the Monetary Currency Unit (ECU) promised later moves for a single currency. The European Social Fund and the European Development. Fund was both designed to redistribute wealth into areas of social and regional deprivation...

The Community’s economic success ensured a steady stream of new applicants. In 1973, under Edward Heath, Britain was admitted at the third attempt, together with Denmark and Leland. A British Referendum (1975) confirmed the permanence of the UK membership. The number of members poses from six to nine. In 1981, Greece was also admitted to raise the membership to ten. In 19 83, after long negotiations. Spain and Portugal were admitted. This raised the membership t Twelve. For the first time the Community embraced three developing economies, and, into the case of Greece, and Rats European country with no contiguous frontier.

The political and military unions of Europe had so far remained stalled. In early 1980s, the NATO was reactivated by the assertive Reagan-Thatcher effort, and the value of NATO was emphasized the controversy of Soviet and US missiles. The political and military role of the EEC was peripheral; it could not yet be expected to break out of the economic concerns. European Economic Community was changing itself to a voluntary association of equal nations- rich and poor, East and West, great and small. The main criteria for entry, apart form being European, were that applicants should have shed to nationalistic, imperialist and totalitarian traditions of the past.

Neutrality was a feature of the European scene throughout the 20th century. Eleven neutral states existed in 1945. Four countries which had avoided involvement in First or the Second World War, also decline tube drawn into the post-war military blocs. Two countries achieved neutral status in the early post-war years. There was high co-relation between neutrality ands affluence, and most neutrals did not make haste to join the European Economic Community. Switzerland benefited greatly from the proximity of northern lately and soothes Germany, both regions of massive economic growth in the post-war period, ehilst playing the special role in banking and tourism. Switzerland shunned the Council of Europe till 1963. Its association with the EEC was limited to a free-trade agreement signed in 1972. Several adjoining territories also claimed the status of free customs zones. Sweden had prospered dicing war-tie and continued to do so in peacetime. It was the centre-piece of the regional Baltic Council, but remained aloof from both NATO and the EEC.

Spain remained a political pariah so long as Framer lived. With Portugal a member of NATO, Spain agreed to receive American bases, but rejected any greater involvement. Its tourism, however, declined owing its isolation. The re-establishment of the constitutional monarchy in 1975 opened the way for its EEC membership, granting remarkable economic resurgence of the 1980s. However, Basque terrorism in the north-west, Catalan separatism in Barcelona, and dispute with Great Britain over Gibraltar complicated Spanish revival.

The Republic of Leland had survived the threat of British occupation during World War ll, and it left the Commonwealth at the end of it. But economic dependence on Great Britain remained a reality. The Irish constitution treated the British Ulster as an integral part of the Republic but the IRA (Irish Republican Army) was regarded as an illegal organization on both sides ofhteborder.But the relations between London and Dublin were not a major obstacle to a settlement.

Finland which had joined the German side in the war against the Soviet Union in 1941-44 , came under Soviet control, ceding territory notably of Viper (Vyborg). In 1947, however peace treaty fronted sovereignty to Finland. Henceforth Finland was required to be completely neutral, to pursuer a foreign policy concordant with Soviet interest’s ad to accept the permanent presence of Soviet bases. After this treaty the economy of Finland boomed, and Helsinki became one of Western capitalism on the doorstep of Leningrad. Finlandisation was a status which many Soviet-occupied countries coveted and which none, except Austria, ever obtained.

Austria benefited from the allied fiction that it had been the Nazis’ first victim. Divided like Germany into four occupation zones, the republic succeeded on regamoomg pverogmty on the basis of and treaty (1955) singed by all four occupying powers. The conditions included complete neutrality plus the maintenance in perpetuity Vienna’s vast Soviet War Memorial. The restoration of independence was followed by a period of unprecedented prosperity.

San Marino, Europe’s oldest state, recognized as independent since 1631, surrounded on all sides by Italy functioned after the World War ell as a tax haven for rich Italians, ruled by local government alternately by Communists and Christian Democrats. The Grand Duchy of Liechtenstein had ceded its foreign policy to Switzerland. Its 27,000 citizens had the highest per captain GNP in Europe in 1980.

Andorra (area 495 sq km and population 43,000) independent country and The Isle of Man (area 194 sq km and population 134,000 in 1981) both British dependencies, were tax havens. Gibraltar was the only British dependency outside the British Isles to join the ECC.

Eastern Europe interpose-war era had two distinct meanings. It could reasonably be referred to any part of the continent which lay on the soviet side. It included to European countries which had been incorporated into the Soviet Union and others which had not. More usually, however, these others were the satellites of the USSR in East Central and South Eastern Europe, as distinct form the USSR itself. These states had in actuality no independence but followed the dictates of the Communist movement.

Despite its high ambitions, the Communist movement ran its successful five year plans of development only during the ferule of Stalin. The lack of personal freedom to individuals and those called dictatorship of the Communist Party gave no hopes to its individuals to enjoy material benefits which could have resulted form increased productin.There was general mismanagement which often created conditions of scarcity. The standard of living of ht common people did not even to a small extent match the one prevailing the West. During the forty years after the Second World War, most to the workers in Europe and America started living with all modern amenities of life like the television, ditcher electric equipments, cars etc. They had every freedom in their day-to-day life but the workers in the Soviet bloc had little amenities, despite their slaving to testate ate the cost of very many curbs on personal freedom. In order to keep their workers in state bondage, the CPUS discouraged knowledge about the progressive living in the West. No wonder by the early 1980s, the internal operation years of corrosion had sapped their strength. On the surface revering was in place; underneath little was working well. In the age anointer-continental missile (ICBM), the territory of the Warsaw Pat could no longer serve as an effective security buffer. In the age hang oil prices, the CMEA was draining more form the USSR than it was putting in. In the age of television, the golf between East and West was evident in state. Important sectors of the communist elite were losing ht will to rule.

Hence the Soviet bloc did not seek any participation in the movement for the unity of Europe. It was only after a decade that many of the East European states first sought and achieved membership of the NATO and many of them began to aspirate members of the EEC. It may perhaps take another decade or so before the unification of Europe in social and economic fields can be duly achieved. It already militarily unfired under NATO.