This article aims to cover ideas of

European unity The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated population of over 449million as of 2024. The EU is often desc ...

before 1948.

Early history

Ancient concepts of European unity were generally undemocratic, and founded on domination, like the Empire of

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon (; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), most commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the Ancient Greece, ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia (ancient kingdom), Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip ...

, the

Roman Empire The Roman Empire ruled the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia and North Africa. The Roman people, Romans conquered most of this during the Roman Republic, Republic, and it was ruled by emperors following Octavian's assumption of ...

, or the

Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

controlled by the

Pope The pope is the bishop of Rome and the Head of the Church#Catholic Church, visible head of the worldwide Catholic Church. He is also known as the supreme pontiff, Roman pontiff, or sovereign pontiff. From the 8th century until 1870, the po ...

in Rome. The first major phase of European unification can be traced to the

Greco-Roman world The Greco-Roman world , also Greco-Roman civilization, Greco-Roman culture or Greco-Latin culture (spelled Græco-Roman or Graeco-Roman in British English), as understood by modern scholars and writers, includes the geographical regions and co ...

. "

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

" as a cultural sphere is first used during the

Carolingian dynasty The Carolingian dynasty ( ; known variously as the Carlovingians, Carolingus, Carolings, Karolinger or Karlings) was a Franks, Frankish noble family named after Charles Martel and his grandson Charlemagne, descendants of the Pippinids, Arnulfi ...

to encompass the

Latin Church The Latin Church () is the largest autonomous () particular church within the Catholic Church, whose members constitute the vast majority of the 1.3 billion Catholics. The Latin Church is one of 24 Catholic particular churches and liturgical ...

(as opposed to

Eastern Orthodoxy Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

). The first mention of the concepts of "Europe" and "European" dates back to 754 in the Mozarabic Chronicle. The ''Chronicle'' contains the earliest known reference in a Latin text to "Europeans" (''europenses''), whom it describes as having defeated the Saracens at the

battle of Tours The Battle of Tours, also called the Battle of Poitiers and the Battle of the Highway of the Martyrs (), was fought on 10 October 732, and was an important battle during the Umayyad invasion of Gaul. It resulted in victory for the Frankish an ...

in 732. Military unions of "Christian European powers" in the medieval and early modern period were directed against Muslim expansion, namely during the

Crusades The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding t ...

and the

Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...

. A possible early attempt at European unity can be traced back to the

Fall of Constantinople The Fall of Constantinople, also known as the Conquest of Constantinople, was the capture of Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire by the Ottoman Empire. The city was captured on 29 May 1453 as part of the culmination of a 55-da ...

to the

Turks Turk or Turks may refer to: Communities and ethnic groups * Turkish people, or the Turks, a Turkic ethnic group and nation * Turkish citizen, a citizen of the Republic of Turkey * Turkic peoples, a collection of ethnic groups who speak Turkic lang ...

in 1453;

George of Podebrady George may refer to: Names * George (given name) * George (surname) People * George (singer), American-Canadian singer George Nozuka, known by the mononym George * George Papagheorghe, also known as Jorge / GEØRGE * George, stage name of Gior ...

, a

Hussite file:Hussitenkriege.tif, upright=1.2, Battle between Hussites (left) and Crusades#Campaigns against heretics and schismatics, Catholic crusaders in the 15th century file:The Bohemian Realm during the Hussite Wars.png, upright=1.2, The Lands of the ...

king of

Bohemia Bohemia ( ; ; ) is the westernmost and largest historical region of the Czech Republic. In a narrow, geographic sense, it roughly encompasses the territories of present-day Czechia that fall within the Elbe River's drainage basin, but historic ...

, proposed in 1464 a union of Christian states against the Turks. In the

Renaissance The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...

, medieval trade flourished in organisations like the

Hanseatic League The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...

, stretching from English towns like

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

and

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

, to

Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main () is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Hesse. Its 773,068 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the List of cities in Germany by population, fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located in the forela ...

Stockholm Stockholm (; ) is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in Sweden by population, most populous city of Sweden, as well as the List of urban areas in the Nordic countries, largest urban area in the Nordic countries. Approximately ...

and

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

. These traders developed the , spreading basic norms of

good faith In human interactions, good faith () is a sincere intention to be fair, open, and honest, regardless of the outcome of the interaction. Some Latin phrases have lost their literal meaning over centuries, but that is not the case with , which i ...

and fair dealing through their business.

Modern era

Democratic ideals of integration for international and European nations are as old as the modern

nation state A nation state, or nation-state, is a political entity in which the State (polity), state (a centralized political organization ruling over a population within a territory) and the nation (a community based on a common identity) are (broadly ...

. In 1517, the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

triggered a hundred years of crisis and instability.

Martin Luther Martin Luther ( ; ; 10 November 1483 – 18 February 1546) was a German priest, Theology, theologian, author, hymnwriter, professor, and former Order of Saint Augustine, Augustinian friar. Luther was the seminal figure of the Reformation, Pr ...

nailed a list of demands to the church door of

Wittenberg Wittenberg, officially Lutherstadt Wittenberg, is the fourth-largest town in the state of Saxony-Anhalt, in the Germany, Federal Republic of Germany. It is situated on the River Elbe, north of Leipzig and south-west of the reunified German ...

, King

Henry VIII Henry VIII (28 June 149128 January 1547) was King of England from 22 April 1509 until his death in 1547. Henry is known for his Wives of Henry VIII, six marriages and his efforts to have his first marriage (to Catherine of Aragon) annulled. ...

declared a unilateral split from Rome with the

Act of Supremacy 1534 The Acts of Supremacy are two acts passed by the Parliament of England in the 16th century that established the English monarchs as the head of the Church of England; two similar laws were passed by the Parliament of Ireland establishing the En ...

, and conflicts flared across the

Holy Roman Empire The Holy Roman Empire, also known as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation after 1512, was a polity in Central and Western Europe, usually headed by the Holy Roman Emperor. It developed in the Early Middle Ages, and lasted for a millennium ...

until the Peace of Augsburg 1555 guaranteed each principality the right to its chosen religion (''

cuius regio, eius religio () is a Latin phrase which literally means "whose realm, his religion" – meaning that the religion of the ruler was to dictate the religion of those ruled. This legal principle marked a major development in the collective (if not individual) ...

''). This unstable settlement unravelled in the

Thirty Years' War The Thirty Years' War, fought primarily in Central Europe between 1618 and 1648, was one of the most destructive conflicts in History of Europe, European history. An estimated 4.5 to 8 million soldiers and civilians died from battle, famine ...

(1618–1648), killing around a quarter of the population in central Europe. The Treaty of Westphalia 1648, which brought peace according to a system of

international law International law, also known as public international law and the law of nations, is the set of Rule of law, rules, norms, Customary law, legal customs and standards that State (polity), states and other actors feel an obligation to, and generall ...

inspired by

Hugo Grotius Hugo Grotius ( ; 10 April 1583 – 28 August 1645), also known as Hugo de Groot () or Huig de Groot (), was a Dutch humanist, diplomat, lawyer, theologian, jurist, statesman, poet and playwright. A teenage prodigy, he was born in Delft an ...

, is generally acknowledged as the beginning of the nation-state system. Even then, the

English Civil War The English Civil War or Great Rebellion was a series of civil wars and political machinations between Cavaliers, Royalists and Roundhead, Parliamentarians in the Kingdom of England from 1642 to 1651. Part of the wider 1639 to 1653 Wars of th ...

broke out and only ended with the

Glorious Revolution The Glorious Revolution, also known as the Revolution of 1688, was the deposition of James II and VII, James II and VII in November 1688. He was replaced by his daughter Mary II, Mary II and her Dutch husband, William III of Orange ...

of 1688, by Parliament inviting

William William is a masculine given name of Germanic languages, Germanic origin. It became popular in England after the Norman Conquest, Norman conquest in 1066,All Things William"Meaning & Origin of the Name"/ref> and remained so throughout the Middle ...

and

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a female given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religion * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also called the Blesse ...

from

Hannover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

to the throne, and passing the

Bill of Rights 1689 The Bill of Rights 1689 (sometimes known as the Bill of Rights 1688) is an Act of Parliament (United Kingdom), act of the Parliament of England that set out certain basic civil rights and changed the succession to the Monarchy of England, Engl ...

. In 1693,

William Penn William Penn ( – ) was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quakers, Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonization of the Americas, British colonial era. An advocate of democracy and religi ...

, a

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers ...

from London who founded

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

in North America, looked at the devastation of war in Europe and wrote of a "European dyet, or parliament", to prevent further war, without further defining how such an institution would fit into the political reality of Europe at the time. In 1713, Abbot Charles de Saint-Pierre proposed the creation of a European league ("

Perpetual Union The Perpetual Union is a feature of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, which established the United States of America as a political entity and, under later constitutional law, means that U.S. states are not permitted to withdra ...

") of 18 sovereign states, with a common treasury, no internal borders and an economic union. The project was taken up by

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...

, and

Immanuel Kant Immanuel Kant (born Emanuel Kant; 22 April 1724 – 12 February 1804) was a German Philosophy, philosopher and one of the central Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment thinkers. Born in Königsberg, Kant's comprehensive and systematic works ...

after him. Some suggestion of a European union can be inferred from Kant's 1795 proposal for an "eternal peace congress". After the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was the armed conflict that comprised the final eight years of the broader American Revolution, in which Am ...

the vision of a

United States of Europe A federal Europe, also referred to as the United States of Europe (USE) or a European federation, is a hypothetical scenario of European integration leading to the formation of a sovereign superstate (similar to the United States of America), ...

, similar to the United States of America, was shared by a few prominent Europeans, notably the

Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (), was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Conti ...

Henri de Saint-Simon Claude Henri de Rouvroy, Comte de Saint-Simon (; ; 17 October 1760 – 19 May 1825), better known as Henri de Saint-Simon (), was a French political, economic and socialist theorist and businessman whose thought had a substantial influence on po ...

, and

Tadeusz Kościuszko Andrzej Tadeusz Bonawentura Kościuszko (; 4 or 12 February 174615 October 1817) was a Polish Military engineering, military engineer, statesman, and military leader who then became a national hero in Poland, the United States, Lithuania, and ...

19th century

The concept of "Europe" referring to

Western Europe Western Europe is the western region of Europe. The region's extent varies depending on context. The concept of "the West" appeared in Europe in juxtaposition to "the East" and originally applied to the Western half of the ancient Mediterranean ...

or Germanic Europe arises in the 19th century, contrasting with the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, as is evidenced in Russian philosopher Danilevsky's ''Russia and Europe''. Europe 1812 map en

In the 1800s, a

customs union A customs union is generally defined as a type of trade bloc which is composed of a free trade area with a common external tariff.GATTArticle 24 s. 8 (a) Customs unions are established through trade pacts where the participant countries set u ...

under

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

Bonaparte's

Continental system The Continental System or Continental Blockade () was a large-scale embargo by French emperor Napoleon I against the British Empire from 21 November 1806 until 11 April 1814, during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree on 21 No ...

was promulgated in November 1806 as an embargo of British goods in the interests of the French

hegemony Hegemony (, , ) is the political, economic, and military predominance of one State (polity), state over other states, either regional or global. In Ancient Greece (ca. 8th BC – AD 6th c.), hegemony denoted the politico-military dominance of ...

. Felix Markham notes how during a conversation on St. Helena, Napoleon remarked, "Europe thus divided into nationalities freely formed and free internally, peace between States would have become easier: the United States of Europe would become a possibility." The French

socialists Socialism is an economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes the economic, political, and socia ...

Saint-Simon Saint-Simon or Saint Simon can refer to: Places Canada *Saint-Simon, New Brunswick, a settlement in Gloucester County, New Brunswick * Saint-Simon, Quebec, a municipality in southwestern Quebec on the Yamaska River in Les Maskoutains Regional Cou ...

and

Augustin Thierry Jacques Nicolas Augustin Thierry (10 May 179522 May 1856; also known as Augustin Thierry) was a French historian. Although originally a follower of Henri de Saint-Simon, he later developed his own approach to history. A committed liberal, his a ...

would in 1814 write the essay ''De la réorganisation de la société européenne'', already conjuring up some form of parliamentary European federation. Victor Hugo

In the conservative reaction after Napoleon's defeat in 1815, the

German Confederation The German Confederation ( ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved ...

() was established as a loose association of thirty-eight sovereign German states formed by the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon, Napol ...

. Napoleon had swept away the

and simplified the map of Germany. In 1834, the ''

Zollverein The (), or German Customs Union, was a coalition of States of the German Confederation, German states formed to manage tariffs and economic policies within their territories. Organized by the 1833 treaties, it formally started on 1 January 1 ...

'' ("customs union") was formed among the states of the Confederation, to create better trade flow and reduce internal competition. In spite of the allusion by

Fritz Fischer Fritz Fischer may refer to: * Fritz Fischer (historian) (1908–1999), German historian * Fritz Fischer (medical doctor) (1912–2003), Waffen-SS doctor * Fritz Fischer (biathlete) Friedrich "Fritz" Fischer (born 22 September 1956) is a former ...

in ''Germany's Aims in the First World War'' that an extension of this customs union may have become the model for a unified Europe, the ensuing

North German Confederation The North German Confederation () was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state (a ''de facto'' feder ...

established in 1866 drifted away from the inclusive multinational character of the preceding German Confederation and the early

Kingdom of Prussia The Kingdom of Prussia (, ) was a German state that existed from 1701 to 1918.Marriott, J. A. R., and Charles Grant Robertson. ''The Evolution of Prussia, the Making of an Empire''. Rev. ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1946. It played a signif ...

, taking instead the direction of staunch German nationalism and brutal subjugation of other nations living within the borders of the succeeding

German Empire The German Empire (),; ; World Book, Inc. ''The World Book dictionary, Volume 1''. World Book, Inc., 2003. p. 572. States that Deutsches Reich translates as "German Realm" and was a former official name of Germany. also referred to as Imperia ...

. The then current and influential German ideas of

geopolitics Geopolitics () is the study of the effects of Earth's geography on politics and international relations. Geopolitics usually refers to countries and relations between them, it may also focus on two other kinds of State (polity), states: ''de fac ...

and a

Mitteleuropa (), meaning Middle Europe, is one of the German terms for Central Europe. The term has acquired diverse cultural, political and historical connotations. University of Warsaw, Johnson, Lonnie (1996) ''Central Europe: Enemies, Neighbors, Friends' ...

later became increasingly degenerated due to their underlying principle of German national hegemony, a process culminating in the abhorrent vision laid out by the national socialists of European unity understood as universal servitude of the European nations to the Germans (''see below''), thus contradicting directly the current intellectual framework for European Union. On 3 May 1831 the Polish

polymath A polymath or polyhistor is an individual whose knowledge spans many different subjects, known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Polymaths often prefer a specific context in which to explain their knowledge, ...

Wojciech Jastrzębowski Wojciech Bogumił Jastrzębowski (; 19 April 1799 – 30 December 1882) was a Polish scientist, naturalist, and inventor; professor of botany, physics, zoology, and horticulture at Instytut Rolniczo-Leśny in Warsaw's Marymont district; a foun ...

published ''On Lasting Peace among the Nations'', framing a constitution for a Europe united as a single republic with no internal borders, with a unified legal system, and with institutions staffed by representatives from all of Europe's peoples. In 1843 the Italian writer and politician

Giuseppe Mazzini Giuseppe Mazzini (, ; ; 22 June 1805 – 10 March 1872) was an Italian politician, journalist, and activist for the unification of Italy (Risorgimento) and spearhead of the Italian revolutionary movement. His efforts helped bring about the ...

called for the creation of a federation of European republics. This set the stage for perhaps the best known early proposal for peaceful unification, through cooperation and equality of membership, made in 1847 by the

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo, vicomte Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romanticism, Romantic author, poet, essayist, playwright, journalist, human rights activist and politician. His most famous works are the novels ''The Hunchbac ...

. Hugo used the term ''United States of Europe'' () during a speech at the

International Peace Congress International Peace Congress, or International Congress of the Friends of Peace, was the name of a series of international meetings of representatives from peace societies from throughout the world held in various places in Europe from 1843 to 185 ...

organised by Mazzini, held in Paris in 1849. Hugo favoured the creation of "a supreme, sovereign senate, which will be to Europe what parliament is to England" and said: "A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood ... A day will come when we shall see ... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas." He was laughed out of the hall, but returned to his idea again in 1851. Hugo planted an

oak tree An oak is a hardwood tree or shrub in the genus ''Quercus'' of the Fagaceae, beech family. They have spirally arranged leaves, often with lobed edges, and a nut called an acorn, borne within a cup. The genus is widely distributed in the Northe ...

in the grounds of his residence on the Island of

Guernsey Guernsey ( ; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; ) is the second-largest island in the Channel Islands, located west of the Cotentin Peninsula, Normandy. It is the largest island in the Bailiwick of Guernsey, which includes five other inhabited isl ...

, saying that when this tree matured the United States of Europe would have come into being. The tree to this day grows in the gardens of Maison de Hauteville,

St. Peter Port St. Peter Port () is a town and one of the ten parishes on the island of Guernsey in the Channel Islands. It is the capital of the Bailiwick of Guernsey as well as the main port. The population in 2019 was 18,958. St. Peter Port is a small town ...

, Guernsey, Victor Hugo's residence during his exile from France. The Italian philosopher

Carlo Cattaneo Carlo Cattaneo (; 15 June 1801 – 6 February 1869) was an Italian philosopher, writer, and activist, famous for his role in the Five Days of Milan in March 1848, when he led the city council during the rebellion. Early life and education Cat ...

wrote "The ocean is rough and whirling, and the currents go to two possible endings: the autocrat, or the United States of Europe". In 1867,

Giuseppe Garibaldi Giuseppe Maria Garibaldi ( , ;In his native Ligurian language, he is known as (). In his particular Niçard dialect of Ligurian, he was known as () or (). 4 July 1807 – 2 June 1882) was an Italian general, revolutionary and republican. H ...

, and

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...

joined Victor Hugo at the first congress of the

League of Peace and Freedom The Ligue internationale de la paix (League of Peace and Freedom) was created after a public opinion campaign against a war between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia over Luxembourg. The Luxembourg crisis was peacefully resolved ...

in Geneva. Here the anarchist

Mikhail Bakunin Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin. Sometimes anglicized to Michael Bakunin. ( ; – 1 July 1876) was a Russian revolutionary anarchist. He is among the most influential figures of anarchism and a major figure in the revolutionary socialist, s ...

stated "That in order to achieve the triumph of liberty, justice and peace in the international relations of Europe, and to render civil war impossible among the various peoples which make up the European family, only a single course lies open: to constitute the United States of Europe". The French

National Assembly In politics, a national assembly is either a unicameral legislature, the lower house of a bicameral legislature, or both houses of a bicameral legislature together. In the English language it generally means "an assembly composed of the repr ...

, also called for a United States of Europe on 1 March 1871. As part of 19th-century concerns about an ailing Europe and the threat posed by the

Mahdi The Mahdi () is a figure in Islamic eschatology who is believed to appear at the Eschatology, End of Times to rid the world of evil and injustice. He is said to be a descendant of Muhammad in Islam, Muhammad, and will appear shortly before Jesu ...

, the Polish writer

Theodore de Korwin Szymanowski Theodore de Korwin Szymanowski ( ; ; 4 July 1846 – 20 September 1901) was a Polish people, Polish nobleman and impoverished landowner, an economic and political theorist writing in French. He was the author in 1885 of a strikingly original e ...

's original contribution was to focus not on nationalism, sovereignty, and federation, but foremost on economics, statistics, monetary policy, and parliamentary reform. His ''L'Avenir économique, politique et social en Europe'' (The Future of Europe in Economic, Political and Social Terms), published in Paris in 1885, was in effect a blueprint for a unified Europe with a

, a central statistical office, a

central bank A central bank, reserve bank, national bank, or monetary authority is an institution that manages the monetary policy of a country or monetary union. In contrast to a commercial bank, a central bank possesses a monopoly on increasing the mo ...

, and a

single currency A currency union (also known as monetary union) is an intergovernmental agreement that involves two or more states sharing the same currency. These states may not necessarily have any further integration (such as an economic and monetary union, ...

H. G. Wells Herbert George Wells (21 September 1866 – 13 August 1946) was an English writer, prolific in many genres. He wrote more than fifty novels and dozens of short stories. His non-fiction output included works of social commentary, politics, hist ...

' 1901 book ''

Anticipations ''Anticipations of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon Human Life and Thought'', generally known as ''Anticipations'', was written by H.G. Wells at the age of 34. He later called the book, which became a bestseller, "the keys ...

'' included his prediction that by the year 2000, following the defeat of German

imperialism Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultura ...

"on land and at sea," there would come into being a

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

Between the World Wars

Das Neue Europa Mit Dem Dauernden Frieden

Former Flag of the International Paneuropean Union

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

devastated Europe's society and economy, and the Treaty of Versailles, Versailles Treaty failed to establish a workable international system in the League of Nations, any European integration, and imposed punishing terms of World War I reparations, reparation payments for the losing countries. Following the war, thinkers and visionaries from a range of political traditions again began to float the idea of a politically unified Europe. In the early 1920s a range of internationals were founded (or re-founded) to help like-minded political parties to coordinate their activities. These ranged from the Communist International, Comintern (1919), to the Labour and Socialist International (1921) to the Radicalism (historical), Radical and Democratic Entente of centre-left progressive parties (1924), to the International Agrarian Bureau, Green International of farmers' parties (1923), to the centre-right International Secretariat of Christian democracy, Democratic Parties Inspired by Christianity (1925). While the remit of these internationals was global, the predominance of political parties from Europe meant that they facilitated interaction between the adherents of a given ideology, across European borders. Within each political tradition, voices emerged advocating not merely the cooperation of various national parties, but the pursuit of political institutions at the European level. With a conservative vision of Europe, the Austrians, Austrian Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-Europa movement in 1923, hosting the First Paneuropean Congress in Vienna in 1926, and which contained 8000 members by the time of the Wall Street crash of 1929, 1929 Wall Street crash. The aim was for a specifically Christian, and by implication Catholic, Europe. The British civil servant and future Conservative minister Arthur Salter, 1st Baron Salter, Arthur Salter published a book advocating ''The'' ''United States of Europe'' in 1933. In contrast the Soviet commissar (minister) Trotsky, Leon Trotsky raised the slogan "For a Soviet Union, Soviet United States of Europe" in 1923, advocating a Europe united along communist principles. Among liberal-democratic parties, the French centre-left undertook several initiatives to group like-minded parties from the European states. In 1927, the French politician Emil Borel, a leader of the centre-left Radical Party and the founder of the Radical International, set up a French Committee for European Cooperation, and a further twenty countries set up equivalent committees. However, it remained an elite venture: the largest committee, the French one, possessed fewer than six-hundred members, two-thirds of whom were parliamentarians. Two centre-left French prime ministers went further. In 1929 Aristide Briand gave a speech in the presence of the League of Nations Assembly in which he proposed the idea of a federation of European nations based on solidarity and in the pursuit of economic prosperity and political and social co-operation. In 1930, at the League's request, Briand presented a ''Memorandum on the organisation of a system of European Federal Union''. The next year the future French prime minister Édouard Herriot published his book ''European Federation, The United States of Europe''. Indeed, a template for such a system already existed, in the form of the 1921 Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union, Belgian and Luxembourgish customs and monetary union. Support for the proposals by the French centre-left came from a range of prestigious figures. Many eminent economists, aware that the economic race-to-the-bottom between states was creating ever greater instability, supported the view: these included John Maynard Keynes. The French political scientist and economist Bertrand de Jouvenel, Bertrand Jouvenel remembered a widespread mood after 1924 calling for a "harmonisation of national interests along the lines of European union, for the purpose of common prosperity". The Spanish philosopher and politician, José Ortega y Gasset, Ortega y Gasset, expressed a position shared by many within Second Spanish Republic, Republican Spain: "European unity is no fantasy, but reality itself; and the fantasy is precisely the opposite: the belief that France, Germany, Italy or Spain are substantive & independent realities.''”'' Eleftherios Venizelos, Prime Minister of Second Hellenic Republic, Greece, outlined his government's support in a 1929 speech by saying that "the

will represent, even without Russia, a power strong enough to advance, up to a satisfactory point, the prosperity of the other continents as well". Between the two world wars, the Polish statesman Józef Piłsudski envisaged the idea of a European federation that he called ''Międzymorze'' ("Intersea" or "Between-seas"), known in English as ''Intermarium'', which was a Polish-oriented version of

, though devised according to the principle of cooperation rather than subjugation. The Great Depression, the rise of fascism and communism and subsequently World War II prevented the interwar movements from gaining further support: between 1933 and 1936 most of Europe's remaining democracies became dictatorships, and even Ortega's Spain and Venizelos's Greece had both been plunged into civil war. One of the more prominent politicians supportive of pan-European ideas during this time was Milan Hodža, who served as the Prime Minister of First Czechoslovak Republic, Czechoslovakia from 1935 to 1938. While in exile during World War II, Hodža published a book titled ''Federation in Central Europe'', envisioning a federation of countries between Nazi Germany, Germany and the Soviet Union, similar to Piłsudski's Intermarium. Hodža was a member of the Czechoslovak Republican Party of Farmers and Peasants, Agrarian Party and his ideas were largely supported by other agrarian parties of Eastern Europe and the Balkans, which were members of the International Agrarian Bureau. Many of the pan-European social democratic and liberal politicians that lost influence in the 1930s would rise to prominence once again after the end of World War II in the 1940s and 1950s.

World War II

In Britain the group known as Federal Union was launched in November 1938, and began advocating a Federal Union of Europe as a post-war aim. Its papers and arguments became well known among resistants to fascism across Europe and contributed to their thinking of how to rebuild Europe after the war. Among those who were early advocates of a union of European nations was Hungarian Prime Minister Pál Teleki. Hungary had lost over two-thirds of its territory at the end of World War I in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon. In early 1941 during World War II, he was striving to keep Hungary autonomous. Internally, he tried to satisfy national pride which demanded a restoration of the lost territories, which Germany had supported in the First Vienna Award of 1938 and the Second Vienna Award of 1940. Externally, he was striving to preserve his country's military and economic independence in the face of Germany's coercive pressure to join in their invasion of Yugoslavia. In the book, ''Transylvania. The Land Beyond the Forest'' Louis C. Cornish described how Teleki, under constant surveillance by the German Gestapo during 1941, sent a secret communication to contacts in America. Journalist Dorothy Thompson in 1941 supported the statement of others. "I took from Count Teleki's office a monograph which he had written upon the structure of European nations. A distinguished geographer, he was developing a plan for regional federation, based upon geographical and economic realities." Teleki received no response from the Americans to his ideas and when German troops moved through Hungary on 2–3 April 1941 during the invasion of Yugoslavia, he committed suicide. In 1943, the German ministers Joachim von Ribbentrop and Cecil von Renthe-Fink eventually proposed the creation of a "European Confederation (1943), European confederacy" as part of a New Order (Nazism), New Order on the continent. The proposal, which attracted little support from the Nazi leadership, would have had a single currency, a central bank in Berlin, a regional principle, a labour policy and economic and trading agreements, but left all states clearly subordinated to Nazi Germany. The countries proposed for inclusion were Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden, Greece and Spain. Such a German-led Europe, it was hoped, would serve as a strong alternative to the Communist Soviet Union and the United States. It is worth noting that Austria, the Benelux countries, the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovenia and Switzerland, the Baltic states, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine were omitted from the list of proposed countries: plans or ''faits accomplis'' already existed for their integration into a Greater Germanic Reich or for colonial status (). The later Foreign Minister Arthur Seyss-Inquart (in office: April to May 1945) said: "The new Europe of solidarity and co-operation among all its people will find rapidly increasing prosperity once national economic boundaries are removed", while the Vichy France, Vichy French Minister Jacques Benoist-Méchin said that France had to "abandon nationalism and take place in the European community with honour". These pan-European illusions from the early 1940s were never realised because of Germany's defeat. Neither Hitler, nor many of his leading hierarchs such as Goebbels, had the slightest intention of compromising absolute German hegemony through the creation of a European confederation. Although this fact has been used to insinuate the charge of fascism in the EU, the idea is much older than the Nazis, foreseen by John Maynard Keynes, and later by Winston Churchill and by various anti-Nazi resistance movements. Spinelli Ventotene

One of the most influential figures in this process was Altiero Spinelli, author of the Ventotene Manifesto entitled "Towards a Free and United Europe" and smuggled out of an internment camp – on the island of Ventotene – as early as 1941, well before the outcome of the war was safely predictable, and widely circulated in the resistance movements. Spinelli, Ursula Hirschmann and Colorni, Rossi and some 20 other established, as soon as they were able to leave their internment camp, the European Federalist Movement, Movimento Federalista Europeo (MFE). The founding meeting, secretly held in Milan on the 27/28 August 1943, adopted a "political thesis" which, ''inter alia'', stated: "if a post war order is established in which each State retains its complete national sovereignty, the basis for a Third World War would still exist even after the Nazi attempt to establish the domination of the German race in Europe has been frustrated". In 1943, Jean Monnet a member of the National Liberation Committee of the Free French government in exile in Algiers, and regarded by many as the future architect of European unity, is recorded as declaring to the committee: "There will be no peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty ... The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development. The European states must constitute themselves into a federation ...". Winston Churchill called in 1943 for a post-war "Council of Europe". Towards the end of World War II, the Allies of World War II, Three Allied Powers discussed during the Tehran Conference and the ensuing Moscow Conference (1943), 1943 Moscow Conference the plans to establish joint institutions. This led to a decision at the Yalta Conference in 1945 to include Free France as the Fourth Allied Power and to form a European Advisory Commission, later replaced by the Council of Foreign Ministers and the Allied Control Council, following the German surrender and the Potsdam Agreement in 1945.

Postwar developments (1945-1948)

After the war on 19 September 1946 Churchill went further as a civilian, after leaving his office, at the University of Zürich, calling for a

. Coincidentally parallel to his speech the Hertensteiner Cross, Hertenstein Congress Weggis, in the Lucerne Canton was being held, resulting in the Union of European Federalists. Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, who successfully established during the interwar period the oldest organization for European integration, the Paneuropean Union, founded in June 1947 the European Parliamentary Union (EPU). To ensure Germany could never threaten the peace again, its heavy industry was partly dismantled (See: Allied plans for German industry after World War II) and its main coal-producing regions were either awarded to neighbouring countries (Province of Silesia, Silesia), managed as separate directly by an occupying power (Saarland) or put under international control (Ruhr area).French proposal regarding the detachment of German industrial regions
8 September 1945

http://www.ena.lu?lang=2&doc=465 Letter from Konrad Adenauer to Robert Schuman] (26 July 1949) Warning him of the consequences of the dismantling policy. (requires Flash Player)
Letter from Ernest Bevin to Robert Schuman
(30 October 1949) British and French foreign ministers. Bevin argues that they need to reconsider the Allies' dismantling policy in the occupied zones (requires Flash Player) The growing rift among the Four Powers became evident as a result of the rigged 1947 Polish legislative election which constituted an open breach of the Yalta Agreement, followed by the announcement of the Truman Doctrine on 12 March 1947. On 4 March 1947 France and the United Kingdom signed the Treaty of Dunkirk for mutual assistance in the event of future military aggression in the aftermath of World War II against any of the pair. The rationale for the treaty was the threat of a potential future military attack, specifically a Soviet one in practice, though publicised under the disguise of a German one, according to the official statements. Immediately following the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, February 1948 coup d'état by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the London Six-Power Conference was held, resulting in the Soviet Union, Soviet boycott of the Allied Control Council and its incapacitation, an event marking the beginning of the Cold War. The remainder of the year 1948 marked the beginning of the institutionalised modern European integration.

Early history

Modern era

19th century

Between the World Wars

World War II

Postwar developments (1945-1948)

See also

References

Further reading