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Book reviews – Comptes rendus – Buchbesprechungen 129
the Chancellor firmly stuck to ambiguity; but Soutou shows that he shared many of de Gaulle's
judgements on the Atlantic Alliance and was ready to follow him a long path toward the building of
a political and military Europe. Stefan Frölich also analyses the geometry of the FRG-USA-France
triangle in the foundation of German foreign and security politics. His dialectical periodisation singles
out a 1949-55 Europe-bound period, followed by a 1955-60 US-bound phase; both entered
after 1960 into the FRG's last, and still lasting, policy of an equalising and mediating force between
French ambitions to European hegemony and the American drive for global domination (p.285). In
the end, Henri Ménudier reviews Adenauer’s attitude to the question of German unity: his reactions
to the events in Democratic Republic of Germany, political and economic proposals coming from
the Eastern bloc until 1955; after the FRG adherence to NATO, the primacy of security upon the
reunification issue in the Chancellor policy, in spite of widespread criticism.
One final remark: New details and fresh interpretations can always perfect our knowledge of
the origins of the European construction and further enlighten how and why the various “choices
for Europe” were made. The “holy fathers of Europe” have left place to both «Kalkulierte Interessen
und ideelle Visionen», as formulated in Ulrich Lappenküper’s title. We know how the
compromise between (little) supranationalism and (a lot of) intergovernmentalism and national
interests produced the Rome Treaties. It is now time to overcome this “perimetral strategy” dealing
with “approaches” and “attitudes” and enter the actual “contents” of the policies of integrated
Europe. The working of the Community and of the Six in the European institutions remains, with
few exceptions, full of question marks.
Elena Calandri
Università Degli Studi di Firenze
Caroline VERMEULEN – Le Collège d’Europe à l’ère des pionniers (1950-1960), Peter
Lang, Collection Euroclio, Brussels, n° 17, 2000, 216 p. – ISBN 90-5201-906-1. – 39,00sFr.
The appearance of a book on the European College is timely in this year 2000, which marks
the fiftieth anniversary of the Bruges Institution.
The cultural dimension of European integration, long overshadowed by primarily economic
and political concerns, is being increasingly brought out today by historians. Caroline Vermeulen,
herself a College alumna, is contributing to this welcome departure by recreating, on the basis of
unpublished archives and of interviews, the first years of this “Europe in miniature”, the times
when “the pioneers felt everything was possible, and that Europe’s unification would defeat the
nationalisms … that threaten[ed] the peace of this continent”.
In the first section of the work, she brings out the College’s “prehistory”. One of the
private initiatives that burgeoned from the founding Congress in The Hague in May 1948,
the College was the outcome of cross-fertilization between the international cultural section
of the European Movement and the Bruges local Committee. Without the enthusiasm of the
one and the persistence of the other, the initiative would certainly never have seen the light.
For intellectuals in the movement, like Salvador de Madariaga, Silva or Denis de
Rougemont, promoting cultural activity was seen as a favoured means of accelerating
Europe’s future and fighting the lack of understanding of Europeans for each other: “in
order to become a fact, Europe [had to] assert its soul”.
Caroline Vermeulen goes on to show how the small team grouped around Rector Henri
Brugmans framed the College Statutes and secured the necessary financial support to underpin
the studies.