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The 1950s can reasonably be called the foundation period of Europe. At the start of the decade pioneering institutions such as the OEEC, the Council of Europe and NATO were already in place. By the end of the 1950s all the major European communities, the ECSC, the EEC and Euratom had been established. 1954 saw a serious crisis for European integration when the European Defence Community treaty was rejected. The replacement in West European Union gave new impetus to European cooperation and new hope for full British involvement. Nevertheless, throughout the decade, it was not at all clear that European integration would be a success, particularly with Britain outside and a colonial alternative open to France, too. One reason for focusing on the early integration period must, therefore, be seen in the wide divergence between Britain, France and Germany with regard to their concept for Europe. Britain’s accession to the ECs in 1973 marked the end of the fundamental disaccord whether European integration should happen at all, notwithstanding the continued existence of greatly different opinions on the shape and the way cooperation should take. Not so earlier in the 1950s; British intergovernmental preference and the continental European supranational choice, could not be reconciled and kept Britain away. The supranational aspiration survived, even with de Gaulle in power. This is another reason for analysing the whole of the 1950s—not just the Fourth Republic until 1958—because it will enable us to consider developments in the Fifth Republic in France towards the end of the decade.

The French parliamentary and party system was particularly complicated and fragmented during the Fourth Republic, i.e. until 1958. Because of this I do not intend to give an account of the political positions of every single parliamentary group. For issues referring to the European integration process this will be done in the main chapter, insofar as important contributions to the French discourse on Europe are given with the respective MP and the party affiliation in the footnotes. The following paragraph is rather a reflection on major political currents and their leading figures.

Just like in the chapter on France, I would like to introduce Germany with a short overview of the parties, the parliamentary system and the constituent groups of the individual German governments throughout the 1950s.

In the 1950s, Britain remained a country of sharp class divisions, inevitably reflected in the party affiliations in the House of Commons. Labour—despite a generous sprinkling of public-school-Oxbridge graduates, especially on the front bench—was unquestionably a working-class party, with nearly half its MPs classified as ’workers’, while most of the Tory MPs hailed from the landed aristocracy or the comfortably-off professional and middle classes. The Liberals came in only a distant and relatively uninfluential third, with a sharply reduced and dwindling number of seats.

The conclusions are divided into two main sections. The first will provide some comments on discourse theory as well as necessary refinements of the theory for the analysis of the post war European context. The second part is dedicated to some concluding remarks on the three main chapters on Germany, France and Britain and their positions towards Europe.

Just like in the chapter on France, I would like to introduce Germany with a short overview of the parties, the parliamentary system and the constituent groups of the individual German governments throughout the 1950s.