Superstate Europe

Within current times, the importance of European cooperation has increased by a lot. With war returning to the continent and a decrease in US support, European cooperation has become more and more important as both an academic and a political topic. This paper will focus on the historical roots of European cooperation and look for elements of a European Superstate within its historical bounds in order to understand its place within the history of Europe. In order to do this, the paper will explore three events of European cooperation before the establishment of the European Union. The first chapter looks at the Congress of Europe, through the full transcripts of each of the committees and its resolutions, the idea of a European Superstate can be found. Within the resolutions, the option of a federal state or a Union as seen today is left open for future discussion. The second chapter looks at the Treaty of Brussels of 1948, within the treaty and the negotiations leading up to it different views on the future of Europe can be found. The Western Union was the proposed idea in order to form a united block but a federal form was not created. The final chapter looks into the treaty establishing the European Coal and Steel Community to explore superstate Europe within the establishment of deeper cooperation. Within this the plans laid by Shuman and Monnett suffered from undermining by different states which led to a change in how the Coal and Steel Community was established. These chapters combine to show how a European Superstate had its presence when looking at European cooperation but was ultimately not to be within this timeframe.