ABSTRACT
This concluding chapter argues that the ambition to study informality more systematically should not be allowed to obscure the fact that historians have often already looked into informal aspects of European integration, but refrained from claiming it openly. The point is thus not to start studying informal aspects of European integration, but instead to do it consciously, explicitly, and systematically. Based on the various contributions in this volume as well as further historiographical examples, this chapter surveys the ways in which informality can be defined, then provides some examples where informality can already be found in the historiography of post-war European cooperation and integration, appraises how the chapters in this volume can be categorised, and finally explores what this can indicate for future research.
