ABSTRACT
At the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe, the European Community was able to assert itself internationally for the first time as a "distinct entity with a common security policy”. Both the Economic Community and Europe of Nine with its humanitarian goals would become a political force which would be able to mediate between East and West. The Helsinki conference came at a specific historical and political time. The Community, the biggest commercial union in the world bringing together three of the oldest nations (France, Germany and Britain), might then have been a third force in the world, becoming, in the confrontation between the Super-Powers, "a force for peace, reason and freedom". The signing of the Final Document of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe by the Italian Prime Minister in his role as President of the Council of the European Community must also be considered to be the actual recognition of the Community by the East.
