Abstract:

When François Mitterand launched his European Confederation project on 31 December 1989 immediately following the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Old Continent was witnessing the crumbling of structures which had been built up by fifty years of Cold War: Germany was on the eve of reunification, which could not help but turn Europe towards the East; the Soviet Union stood by helpless as a velvet revolution progressed through its soon to be exsatellites; and the United States under George Bush was already taking measures to affirm American leadership in Europe’s evolution. In this context, the French President’s project aimed, well before the perspective of an eastward expansion of the European Community – not yet dubbed ‘Union’ – to offer to the countries of eastern Europe, without excluding the USSR, a specifically European framework of political co-operation – that is to say, without the United States. It was of course the choice of Moscow over Washington that would cause the miscarriage of the European Confederation project, on 13 June 1991 at the Prague Conference, before it had even achance to be delivered – a victim, perhaps, of its prematurity.

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