ABSTRACT
Building European unity was never a simple or a linear process, nor a completely democratic one. However, a quick glance at the European twentieth century, split into two almost equal halves by the Schuman Declaration (1950), allows an understanding of the basic facts. Comparing the fi rst half of the century, meaning the Europe of nations based on national autarchy and national sovereignty, with the second half, characterized by the progressive development of a common economic market and supranational institutions, is expressive enough. The effects of nation-building and nationalism, in the fi rst case, and of federalism and regional integration, in the second one, reveal the progressive obsolescence of the national paradigm within an increasingly globalized world.
