Let us begin with the obvious. A certain kind of “Europe” is taking shape. I put “Europe” within quotation marks. This “Europe” which is taking shape, is a “Europe” of institutions. It is a result of the achievements of the fifties rather than of the forties and of the sixties; of the Schuman Plan and of the Western European Union and of the Common Market, of WEU and EPU and ECSC and EFTA, of Europ and Euratom and Europlan and Eurovision, of OEEC and OECD and TEE.

There is nothing in history which is inevitable, and the history of no continent shows this better than the history of Europe: but certain things are irreversible (an interesting thought for philosophers: why, historically speaking, “inevitable” and “irreversible“ are not at all the same) and this development of “European” institutions is one of them.