An earlier EU

Could the EU have been created during the Cold War, say during de Gaulle's time? That guy was always musing about uniting Europe. What kind of impact would it have on the Cold War?
 
Post WWI or post WWII?
Since America was picking up the bill for both wars we could have dictated any postwar arrangement we wanted. Why would America want a prosperous, peacefull, politically (and militarily) integrated Europe?
They did it on their own. God knows why they had that sudden outbreak of common sense. How would we make it happen after WWI?
Even the threat of Bolshevism wouldn't get the European establishment to buy into that after WWI in OTL.
 
If France doesn't oppose the creation of the CED ( mostly for internal french politics reasons ), you're likely to have a much earlier EU
 
If France doesn't oppose the creation of the CED ( mostly for internal french politics reasons ), you're likely to have a much earlier EU

I'm not really sure about that, but it would certainly have had interesting consequences, particularly for NATO and Atlanticism.
 

Hendryk

Banned
Could the EU have been created during the Cold War, say during de Gaulle's time? That guy was always musing about uniting Europe. What kind of impact would it have on the Cold War?
I think that if your aim is to have the EU come up earlier, then your best bet is to get rid of de Gaulle--and the most convenient way to do that is what I once called the "Fifty Magic Bullets" scenario: the assassination attempt against him on August 22, 1962 is successful. (In OTL, even though his car was sprayed with automatic fire, none of the bullets hit him). That would be late enough for him to die that the Algerian crisis has been solved, if at great human cost, and France can go back to business as usual; and it would be early enough that he wouldn't have time to start paralyzing EEC institutions with the "empty chair" policy. Assume, for the sake of the hypothesis, that Michel Debré succeeds him as president of the French Republic (after a stint by Gaston Monnerville, incidentally a colored man, as interim president).

So, de Gaulle is gone in 1962. When the president of the European Commission Walter Hallstein pushes for further political integration of the EEC along proto-federal lines, he gets his way circa 1965. In 1967, Britain applies for membership for the second time and is allowed to join in 1969, too late to derail the process. With some luck you could have something resembling the EU of OTL by 1972 or 1973, though my guess is that contrary to how things turned out in OTL political integration would be ahead of economic integration, and the single market and currency may have been put on hold until the 1980s because of the post-oil shock economic slowdown.
 
Could the EU have been created during the Cold War, say during de Gaulle's time? That guy was always musing about uniting Europe. What kind of impact would it have on the Cold War?

Technically, the EU was established during the Cold War by the Treaty of Rome in 1957. Churchill was an early advocate of a 'United States of Europe' abeit one which didn't include Great Britain. So Churchill, rather than de Gaulle, could have set thing in motion much earlier had he been re-elected in the general election of 1945.
The union of the French and German coal and steel industries could have been brought forward to 1946 or 47 and the Treaty of Rome could have been signed in the early 1950's.
However, the EU being founded a few years earlier is unlikely to have any significant effects on post-war Europe. But a scenario in which Britain becomes a member state in the late 50's or early 60's would certainly have a notable effect on British post-war history. The British economy would almost certainly have been stronger in the 70's and 80's. Perhaps European participation in NATO would have been stronger and the French may not have withdrawn in the 60's (can't remember exact date).
Also, it is worth speculating about how the nature of the 'special relationship' between Britain and America might have been effected had Britain become closer to Europe, especially after the Suez Crisis in 1956.
 
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