ABSTRACT
This chapter covers roughly two decades between two distinct periods of the history of the European integration. In the first period, the two decades immediately following the war, the destruction and the lessons of World War II strongly influenced devastated nation-states and federalist politicians, motivating them to reorganize Europe. During the long period of slower progress in integration, however, major global political and economic changes that characterized that time resulted in a new drive for further integration. A study group was set up explicitly to explore the possible forms of political cooperation and headed by the French diplomat Christian Fouchet, who eventually presented what came to be known as the Fouchet Plan. It proposed a confederation of European states with common foreign and defense policy, as well as cooperation in scientific research and cultural matters. West European communism dissolved, which strongly influenced East European communist intellectuals and even entire parties.
