This chapter analyzes how West European integration was viewed in communist Eastern Europe at the time of the foundation of the EU. Throughout the period from the Schuman declaration and the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 to the Treaty of Rome and the establishment of the European Economic Community in 1957, Moscow, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, and Warsaw reacted, in part by criticizing the West European integration project as a continuation of Europe’s imperial and capitalist past, in part by projecting ideas for a wholly different European and global integration project. While this debate was patterned on the cold war logic and the clash between capitalist and communist ideologies, it also contained a profound – and lasting – dispute regarding Europe’s geopolitical position and role, especially in relation to its African colonies. After the fall of the communist East, this dispute was apparently settled to the West’s favor, and it was then forgotten. Yet, varieties of the same dispute today reappear as the EU seeks to develop a foreign policy and global mission for the twenty-first century. By using sources mainly from the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic that have so far been largely neglected in scholarship, the chapter evinces a East-European narrative about Europe’s calling and destiny that merits particular attention in today’s emerging pluricentric world order.
Forthcoming