ABSTRACT
The idea of European unity had roots as far back as the eighteenth century, while the term ‘United States of Europe’ was coined in the nineteenth. During the inter-war period serious proposals for unity were advanced by the Austrian statesman Coudenhove-Kalergi and the French politician Aristide Briand. It was not, however, until after 1945 that integration exerted an appeal which was sufficiently widespread for it to become a feasible proposition. This was due largely to the cataclysmic experience of the Second World War and to the growing belief among politicians on the Continent that nationalism needed more constraints than had been the case in the past. Various forms of collaboration therefore developed.
