In 1932 the journal L’Européen featured a front-page article by Marcel Ulrich. Ulrich was laureate of the French Ecole de Polytechnique and Ecole des Mines de Paris. At the time he also was president of UNIPEDE. He earlier served as president with CIGRE. Ulrich thus was distinguished French engineer but also a wellknown figure within the international electro-technical community. His article certainly appealed to the latter community, as Ulrich described on-going discussions about a European electricity network. Engineers proposed such schemes starting in 1929, which received supported from the electro-technical community. About at the same time, the International Labor Organization and LoN took similar plans into consideration. Between 1930 and 1937, these Geneva organizations studied its feasibility. To engineers, a European interconnected network enabled a better economic mix by linking thermal and hydroelectric power plants.

As the idea of a European network was essentially a technological project, Ulrich's article seemed out of place in L’Européen. This journal provided a forum for different visions on European values and the future of Europe. With other journals like L’Europe, L’Europe nouvelle, Paneuropa, l’Européen was an outgrowth of the idea of European unity, which gained significant momentum and became a movement in the 1920s. To Europeanists – a loosely grouped elitist alliance of people promoting and believing in European unification – “Europe” seemed a way to overcome economic nationalism and political disagreement, and to restore Europe's pre-war global prestige. Ideas for unifying Europe often included technological projects as a unifying force. The European movement showed fascination with electricity, as well as with rational organization and technological solutions. It is therefore not surprising that Europeanists saw a European electricity network as a tool for forging European unity. Many Europeanists believed that such a network could increase material and social progress in Europe. Some even went further: they believed that interconnecting Europe's countries also encompassed a dimension that I would label an ideological mix. In their eyes, the immediate construction of a European high-voltage network could relieve unemployment, spark economic growth, modernize Central and Eastern European economies, and at the same time create a spiritual and unifying European bond.