October 8, 2010

First Writing Assignment

Europe was a disastrous place after World War II. Many countries were in agony because of their economy and military. Many feared Germany would rearm and try to take over again, while other feared the big “C”…Communism and the Soviet Union would attack. In order to rebuild the continent, leaders decided on one solution: the unification of Europe. What they couldn’t decide on was which path to take: federalism or functionalism. Federalism, on one hand, is the Big Bang Theory of Europe, the idea to rebuild the continent all at once. This comes from the notion of popular sovereignty. If there are European people, they can build an European government. This provokes the idea of supra …show more content…

He believed in the unification of Europe. Unlike his peers, he believed it should be through economics; and with a striving economy in place, the people will follow. “These changes inside and outside Europe would not only have taken place without the driving force of the Common Market. It opens prospects for dealing with problems the solution of which was becoming increasingly urgent.” (p.24, Monnet) These two men decided that Europe needed to bounce back from the World Wars and what better way than to fix the economy through an unity and common market. They each believed that fixing individual areas could fall together like a puzzle and unify Europe. Out of the ideas came the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC) which in the end failed drastically.
Charles de Gaulle and Margaret Thatcher were both from countries that like their individual sovereignty and believed that they should be the ones that made the decisions on their own affairs. Neither one believed in federalism or functionalism. Charles de Gaulle was the French president of the Fifth Republic. He believed in the whole European Unity but, of course, not at the course of states’ sovereignty. He liked the idea of an economy community as many functionalist do, but his main cause was to put France back on the map and wanted to make sure that it was France, not another country making its