ABSTRACT
Although the European idea has its roots in European political discourse, it was not until the aftermath of World War II that serious thought was given to the construction of a ‘permanent regime of joint responsibility’ for the management of inter-state relations, as suggested by Aristide Briand to the League of Nations in 1930. The shape of the Western European regional system that evolved between 1945 and 1960 was moulded by the priorities of the superpowers, the need to reach an accommodation on the ‘German Question’, and the imperatives of economic, social and political reconstruction. The states of Western Europe had strongly held but differing views about the kind of regional organizations they were willing to endorse. The tension between sovereignty and integration, still characteristic of European integration, was apparent in the early years of the post-war era. For Western Europe, however, there could be no return to the world before the war. There was a perceived need among West European political élites to establish formal institutions to manage inter-state relations. This chapter analyses the challenges facing Western Europe after the war, in the light of the new strategic landscape. These challenges were to establish a security system that could balance growing Soviet power, to deal with demands for some form of European unity and to achieve economic reconstruction.
