I suppose both postwar necessity and prewar intellectuals all influenced the ideas which would lead to European integration, culminating in the European Union. The search for strength in unity is certainly the simplest way to characterize the general Europeanist feeling dominant in the high offices of Western European governments in the aftermath of the Second World Wa. But it's also true that the intellectual roots of European Unity predate the Cold War. Nationalistic fascism of wartime Europe had spawned an intellectual opposition which instead favored the elimination of national borders in favor of some sort of a unified European federation. As the leaders of this opposition emerged from exile and incarceration and found themselves in charge of postwar reconstruction, the economic necessity of coordinated European reconstruction process was easily integrated with the political desire for lasting European unity. Consequentially, European Integration was fueled not only by the search for prosperity, but also by an aversion to authoritarian oppression. The forces behind European integration, then, appear as a series of juxtapositions: prewar ideas penned by antifascist idealists were adopted by postwar anticommunist pragmatists who resolved to compromise national sovereignty to maintain national relevance.

The seeds of European integration had already been sown by Europe’s antifascist intelligentsia immediately prior to the outbreak of the Second World War. As early as 1931 the French Foreign Minister Arstide Briand proposed a Pan-European federation, right as the German Nazi party was getting ready to win a plurality in the following year’s elections. In 1936 the socialist English writer Henry Noel Brailsford proposed a league which bore a strong resemblance to the structure eventually adopted by one of the predecessor institutions of the European Union, the European Coal and Steel community. After the rapid fall of France following the outbreak of the Second World War, Great Britain emerged as the primary pluralistic antifascist force in Europe, and consequentially the most fertile intellectual environment for ideas regarding a Pan-European federation to ferment. Proponents tended to emerge from the leftist camp, and included socialist London School of Economics professor Harold Laski, influential Fabian Society member and Oxford lecturer George Cole, as well as Times writer and former diplomat Edward Hallett Carr. These proposals did not go unnoticed by the opponents of fascism on the continent, and in 1941 an influential Europeanist manifesto was penned by Altiero Spinelli, an Italian communist organizer interned on the Island of Ventotene, with the collaboration of fellow exile Ernesto Rossi, a socio-liberal newspaper editor.

By August 1943, Spinelli and Rossi’s ideas had inspired the first European federalist organization: the Italian “Movimento Federalista Europeo,” (M.F.E.) which counted among its members many prominent activists of the “Partito d’Azione,” Italy’s largest group opposing the ruling Fascist party. Following the war, the presence of a Europeanist Party in every Western European country as early as 1946 attests to the desire to break with fascism’s ultra-nationalism, an understandable feeling since the consequences of nationalistic extremism were all too clear. Indeed, just like advocacy for Pan-Europeanism united both the communist Spinelli and the liberal Rossi, so did European integration find wide consensus among the two principal forces in postwar European politics: the progressive Socialists and Social Democrats and the conservative Christian Democrats.

By 1947, the argument for a united Europe was further strengthened by the evident need of an economic policy that went beyond the scope of what the individual European states could achieve on their own. Indeed, in September of that year, under the strain of reconstruction, of the newly-constituted welfare system, and of its postwar military obligations, the British government found itself with no choice but to suspend the pound sterling’s convertibility to the U.S. Dollar, effectively going into default. With nearly all of Europe suffering from a deep balance of payments deficit with regards to the United States, the American State Department came to believe that Europe was on the brink of economic collapse, or worse — communist revolution. By the following year the United States Congress undertook to accelerate European reconstruction through the famous Marshall Plan, which I happen to have written about a few days ago here.

Understandably, economic unrest was quickly fermenting political unrest: traditionally poor Franco-German relations showed no sign of improving post-war, as the French government was bent on tightly controlling its occupation zones in Germany in order to obtain coal, particularly from the Saar region. In light of Europe’s economic and political tensions 1947 was a pivotal year for the movement in favor of European unity. Although relegated to Leader of the Opposition, following the election in the summer of 1945, Winston Churchill — perhaps to further diminish Labourist Prime Minister Clement Atlee’s scant successes in foreign policy — picked up the mantle of the champion of European integration, pushing British conservatives behind a concept that had previously been mostly in the purview of the left. In 1946 Churchill had already come out in favor of a “United States of Europe” at a talk in Geneva, while in 1947 at Albert Hall a meeting of the nascent “United Europe Movement” was held, with the participation of politicians, academics, and even clergymen (indeed, the meeting was presided over by the Archbishop of Canterbury).

By December of that same year, a meeting in The Hague appropriately dubbed the “Congress of Europe” brought together 1,200 representatives of the free nations of Europe who supported European integration (including several present and past heads of government). An agreement was struck to form a political and economic union, presided by a common European assembly. This union would work towards gradually abolishing restrictions on trade, coordinate economic planning, regulate the convertibility of currencies, provide for the free transfer of capital and labor, and even lay the groundwork to include Germany, at the time still under occupation. Proving that the currents supporting European federalism were still very much coupled with anti-totalitarianism, the union was also given the prerogative to foster cultural exchange, as well as establish a commission on human rights.

To this effect, the Brussels Treaty was signed in March of 1948. American authorities were enthusiastic about the prospects of a European Federation: in addition to an unrelenting faith in American-style federal democracy, a united Europe would be an additional bulwark against soviet aggression should Russian tanks cross the inner German border. In the American mind’s eye, Great Britain was to take a leadership position within this European Federation. However, the British were far more preoccupied with keeping their own empire together and had a different conception of what a united Europe would look like. Although the British Government was initially enthusiastic about a military and political union, there was a disinterest — if not outright aversion — with regards to establishing any sort of supranational authority, as well as a reluctance to jeopardize English industry by opening up economically.

But arguments on the structure of the union did not jeopardize the notion that a European Union was necessary. The consequences of being overly reliant on the United States were all but clear; Marshall plan money had come at the cost of submitting portions of economic policy to the intergovernmental Organization for European Economic Cooperation (O.E.E.C.), which was itself monitored by the European Cooperation Agency (E.C.A.), an agency mostly staffed by prominent American businessmen (incidentally, this agency was also given the second goal of promoting European unity, again revealing American enthusiasm for a united Europe).

Tellingly, in August of 1949 the Council of Europe and the European Assembly (established by the treaty of St. James Palace in the spring of that same year) opened to great acclaim and enthusiasm for Pan-Europeanism. The institution was less than perfect, and its participants were well aware of it; the Council of Europe was more a forum for debate than anything, since it lacked the authority to pass binding resolutions, while the Assembly only had the power to submit proposals to the Council. However, from there the European unity would only gain steam. Once the ball started rolling, it was never stopped, only occasionally delayed.