Will European Union Bring about Merged National Goals?

Abstract

Rapid unification of Europe is apparent in the economic sphere, but the European community lacks the neces sary spiritual quality for unification which would be demon strated in the merging of political or cultural national goals. Europe has undergone in one generation a transformation from which it has not altogether recovered. Formerly, Europe was at the center of world power. This was upset, and Europe became largely dependent on American policy and American power to take over the responsibilities it could no longer meet. The 1950 decade brought European leaders to the recognition that no European nation alone was able to guarantee either its own prosperity or its own security. Only by accepting the difficult condition of dependency were European leaders able to move beyond nationalism toward new forms of transna tional responsibility. This entailed the quest for merged national goals and for ways of expressing them in institutions and in practices. There has been a steady growth of commit ment to the European idea and of readiness to sacrifice national interests and controls in order to maintain and strengthen the European community. There is a commitment to NATO and to United States leadership, but this is not as strong in France as elsewhere. De Gaulle's successes have influenced European elite opinion, and, for the period immediately ahead, the national goals of European leaders appear to be diverging rather than merging. The burden of European union obvi ously is on the European leaders, but it must be shared intellectually, morally, and politically by the United States. —Ed.