ABSTRACT
During the latter half of the twentieth century, the history of Western
Europe and increasingly of the rest of Europe was written in the
mundane terms of treaties, regulations, directives, minutes of meetings
and ministerial memos rather than in the more historical terms of the
alliances, mass unemployment, war, slaughter and inhumanity that had
defaced Europe in the first half of the century. A major contribution to
this change was made by the process known as European integration.
The institutional embodiments of that movement have been the European Communities (EC) and its successor, the European Union (EU).
This move from dark poetry to dense prose in the framing of Europe
may provide a less dramatic story, but it is nevertheless one that has
wider lessons for political development. It has not been a straightfor-
ward glide from war and destruction to peace and construction, neither
have the methods used by members of the EC and EU to regulate their
relations been without controversy.
