ABSTRACT
WE have seen that the British Government was prepared to take an active part in new international institutions that were based on the principle of leaving executive responsibility to national Governments, but of incorporating institutional arrangements to ensure that the policies adopted were, as far as possible, such as would be acceptable to the other friendly countries concerned. On the economic side this was as far as either the Government would go or as Parliament and public opinion were likely to follow it. On the military side, a more radical rethinking of past positions had taken place, and the arrangements for a common command structure under NATO, as well as the precise undertakings given under WEU about the location of British forces on the continent, were substantial derogations from national sovereignty by any pre-1939 standards of comparison. Nevertheless, as we have also seen, there were people, mainly on the continent of Europe, for whom nothing short of a federal structure, with legislative and executive authority <?31D549>CE@B1>1D9?>1<9>CD9DED9?>CG?E<4CE6U356?B59D85BD85=9<9D1BI?BD8553?>?=93 needs of post-war Western Europe. We have already noted that despite the political attractiveness of preventing the rebirth of independent German military power, military plans along these lines had collapsed with the failure of France to ratify the EDC Treaty. This was followed by the abandonment of plans for a European political community. ,581F5>?G D? 7?213; 1>4 <??; 1D D85@<1>>9>7 9> D85 53?>?=93 U5<4?6 D85 C9H
countries that had accepted, in broad outline, the idea of a possible federal future for at least part of continental Europe.
