The Origins of EU and the Flight from Liberalism

In this paper I try to refute the thesis that European integration – the way the European states embarked upon with the creation of The European Coal and Steel Community – was indispensable for the preservation of peace among the continent’s nations. The main line of argument is that, instead, the integration process was a logical consecquence of the reluctance of states to renounce domestic interventionist policies inherited from the war (and interwar) period. The beginnings of European integration are usually presented under the form of a dilemma: integrate or fight. I believe that this is a false alternative, and that the dilemma was actually a “trilemma”: integrate, fight or return to the sound policies of free trade and laissez-faire. Liberalism, that is.