Suchergebnisse

The desire for unification is deeply rooted in European thought, & the concept has gained in importance & acceptance over the cent's. At the close of WW II, Europe lay in shambles which were the culmination of strife, misrepresentation, & hatred. Separated from its eastern portion & faced with the Communist menace, Western Europe had the choice of cooperation or going under. Co-operation was chosen. Obstacles to practical unification, some of them formidable, remain, but they can be overcome. The divisive forces which exist - & which Communist leaders hope to exploit in order to break Western solidarity - include geography, racial myths, language barriers, history, religion, cultural diff's, psychol'al factors, nat'lism, econ competition, problems of minorities, & divergent foreign-policy objectives. The split of Europe into East & West means that unification can be discussed in immediate terms only for Western Europe &, indeed, for only a part of that. Expecting too much too fast in Europe can only lead to disillusionment, yet the progress toward European community since WWII has been little short of phenomenal, & the obstacles which challenge unification are no cause for despair. AA.

The desire for unification is deeply rooted in European thought, and the concept has gained in importance and acceptance over the centuries. At the close of World War II, Europe lay in shambles which were the culmination of strife, misrepresentation, and hatred. Separated from its eastern portion and faced with the Communist menace, West ern Europe had the choice of co-operation or going under. Co- operation was chosen. Obstacles to practical unification, some of them formidable, remain, but they can be overcome. The divisive forces which exist—and which Communist leaders hope to exploit in order to break Western solidarity—include geogra phy, racial myths, language barriers, history, religion, cultural differences, psychological factors, nationalism, economic com petition, problems of minorities, and divergent foreign-policy objectives. The split of Europe into East and West means that unification can be discussed in immediate terms only for Western Europe and, indeed, for only a part of that. Expect ing too much too fast in Europe cannot but lead to disillusion ment, yet the progress toward European community since World War II has been little short of phenomenal, and the obstacles which challenge unification are no cause for despair. —Ed.

My contribution presents a possibility to unify Europe based on newly emerging political units focused on solving problems rather than on historically given nation states. These Endogenous Political Entities (EPE), as they shall be called, are better suited to reach the goals of European unification as they strengthen the fundamental European values of variety and freedom. I make three propositions: to base the unification of Europe on nation states is unfortunate as the latter are responsible for the political disaster of the two World Wars; the unification must proceed in a problem-oriented manner. The constitution of Europe must allow and promote EPE to emerge specifically to deal with particular problems; the new political units can be introduced in marginal steps. Over time, a flexible and dynamic net of political entities will arise taking care of the large economic, social and cultural diversity in Europe.

The success of the European Economic Community often has been hailed as the most important development of international relations in the West in the last century. Even if the EEC does not progress beyond the point it has already reached, it is probably the most integrated union ever to have been formed among nation-states. Moreover, observers have been impressed by the momentum the EEC has had until recently, leading most of them to expect that its level of integration will continue to rise and its scope of unification to grow. Much of the credit for the success of the EEC is often attributed to "background" factors, to the fact that the member countries share the same European tradition, have a sizable Catholic population, are in a similar stage of economic development, have a similar civilization, and so forth.