Abstract
The article discusses the United Kingdom’s policy towards the first postwar
integration initiatives of Western Europe and the United States. The
initiators and authors of projects to unite Europe were various political
organizations of Western Europe and the government of the United States.
The United Kingdom was a world superpower at that time and because of
various reasons it had to take an ambivalent stand on the issue of Western
European integration. On account of the specificity of its international
interests, which are thoroughly analyzed by the author, this state could not
actively participate in the European integration trend. However, it was not in
the British interest to sabotage the integration undertakings of the continental
part of Western Europe either. In such circumstances, the United Kingdom
forced through a policy of close co-operation between Western European
countries as an alternative to integration ideas.
Until 1954 the British policy towards continental integration initiatives
can be described as very effective. The United Kingdom skillfully managed
to hold up the use of post-war American aid to Europe as a form of stimulus
for Western European integration (European Recovery Program – Marshall
Plan). As a result of its policy, an authentically European parliamentary
assembly, aimed at initiating and stimulating European integration process
through grass-roots social pressure on governments (Resolution of the
Hague Congress), did not take place. The political and diplomatic successes
determined the British assessment of prospects for the European integration
and British possibilities to influence the process of Western European
unification. They made British politicians incorrectly – as it turned out – believe
that the United Kingdom could successfully halt attempts of supranational
integration by forcing through an idea of co-operation of sovereign states.
After a few years there were no doubts that the assessment had been wrong.
In this case traditional attitude towards international politics did badly in
comparison with new realities, i.e. an innovative integration trend.