One of the reasons that European nations finally set aside their individual preferences with regards to defense was that the United States had largely succeeded in its efforts to convince Europe that the Soviet Union was a threat to world peace, and that the Communist nation was a particular menace to Europe, given that Europe was geographically proximal compared to the United States (Ellwood, 1992). Thus, the momentum for unification efforts gained speed once again. By the late 1940s and early 1950s, various European nations were engaged in talks with one another on a variety of subjects, including reducing and lifting trade tariffs and consolidating or sharing certain functions, such as customs and border patrol (Ellwood, 1992). While such talks represented significant tangible advancements, the effectiveness and reach of their outcomes were limited by the fact that the talks were often limited to tightly defined regional interests, such as agreements between the Northern European states of Norway and Sweden, or between Greece and Turkey. Thus, while unity was occurring on a small and partial scale, a larger plan for unification still seemed to elude Europe as a whole (Ellwood, 1992).
As a result, energy and enthusiasm for unification stalled a bit in the mid 1950s. The Council of Europe, the body invested with the confidence and authority to oversee unification strategies, was largely impotent (Ellwood, 1992). The larger European powers, including Britain and France, were competing to have the greatest say in the direction, tone, and content of the unification process (Ellwood, 1992). Perhaps somewhat surprisingly, it was Britain—the originator of the unification idea—that presented the most stringent and uncompromising set of expectations. As Ellwood (1992) remarked, Britain insisted that there could be “no derogation of national sovereignty in favor of over-arching bodies” (p. 127), it privileged its relationships with Commonwealth countries over expanding and nurturing ties with non-Commonwealth countries, and, perhaps most shocking of all, articulated and embodied a stance that seemed entirely contrary to the most fundamental constructs of unification. Britain, “it turned out,” wrote Ellwood (1992), was “not interested in the logic of interdependence, least of all in the form of supranational institutions with pan-European political ambitions” (p. 127). George (1992) referred to Britain as operating from a posture of semi-detachment; it turned out that its idea of unification was not what other countries had in mind.
Thus, one sees how the first two decades of European unification efforts were characterized by fits and starts of activity, first a burst of enthusiasm and concentrated effort, followed by a spate of resistance, marked by each country’s insistence that its own ideas and needs were superior to those of its neighboring countries. As Ellwood (1992) reflected, the early unification process was notable for each country’s effort to “defend its own national priorities, traditions, and practices….” (pp. 170-171). Given this stance, there was little common ground claimed for a unified Europe. Instead, a “complex set of regulations [arose] from the careful balancing and adjustment of the interests of the various nation states to allow them to achieve particular national objectives” (Ellwood, 1992, p. 171). The greatest challenge that lie ahead, then, seemed to be for national interests and needs to be balanced effectively—and, occasionally, compromised—against regional, continental interests, needs, resources, and possibilities. Overcoming this challenge would take time.
From the late 1950s to the early 1970s, hopes for unification and tangible, concrete efforts toward unification lay largely dormant. Perhaps the rancor over competing national interests left a bitter trace in the memories of those countries that were willing to compromise their own interests in order to achieve unification; in any event, this particular period was not marked by significant efforts or advancements in the dream of unification. It was not until 1972 that both hope and effort were resuscitated (Burgess, 2000). It was at the 1972 Paris Summit that the articulation of a goal of constituting what was referred to as the “European Union” by the end of the decade was renewed; however, at this particular juncture, the call to union remained vague, lacking in both a clear goal and attainable, feasible strategies for accomplishing it (Burgess, 2000, p. 101).
