Search results

Even before the end of the first world war, during the inter-war years and right up to the outbreak of the second world war, a vein of political thought ran through Europe, which condemned national sovereignties and set up against them the idea of a European federation.In reality, the federalist trend of thought in the inter-war years remained marginal to the main political currents, and partook more of the nature of prophecy than of politics. In the 1920s and 1930s politics in Europe were both tense and varied, culminating in the emergence of many political-ideological tyrannies. But in spite of the violent divergences over political problems in those years, politics itself, of the right and of the left, of moderates and radicals, of conservatives and revolutionaries, was based on the profound experience which the peoples had lived through during the first world war, namely of the solidity of the nation state. This experience led to the conviction that only on this rock could anything be built.

National trade unions in Europe have created the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) to represent their European interests. This organization, however, has accepted a fundamentally dependent position in relation to agencies of the European Economic Community (EEC). Ideological convergence is emerging out of a previous situation of extreme ideological diversity. The ETUC, however, has been organized along regional rather than industrial lines, limiting its ability to work toward European collective bargaining. The EEC now seeks to extend the level of participation in all member countries to that of those whose participation is most advanced, but despite ETUC support for these proposals they have largely been stalled; labor seems unwilling to take the initiative. The gearing of European trade union policies to an esentially reformist program may prove to be a liability in the long run. W. H. Stoddard.