ABSTRACT
The beginning of the Cold War saw the world divided into two antagonistic camps. To delineate the divide, both sides of the conflict embarked on an alliance-building process. In the socialist camp the process led as early as 1949 to the establishment of an organization for economic cooperation, the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). The CMEA was established with extensive plans to create a system of socialist division of labour, but its tasks were soon degraded to handling practical questions of facilitating trade.1 In Western Europe, the integration process culminated in the establishment of the European Economic Community, the EEC, in 1957. In the late 1960s, economic and political integration gained new ground, as it became a key goal for European states on both sides of the Iron Curtain. In essence, the goal was to achieve economic growth and at the same time, in the face of the Cold War, to strengthen the unity of the alliances.
