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Funny that mostly not how they sold it to the poor countries, or even the rich countries. That might have been what the elites believed, more political ingrati
by nickik 8y ago
Funny that mostly not how they sold it to the poor countries, or even the rich countries.
That might have been what the elites believed, more political ingratiation. That of course is good for them as well.
In reality when they 'sold' this is was all about economics. And the routes of the whole thing are economic as well.
- toyg 8y agoYou have aims, and you have ways. The signatories on the Treaty of Rome all had very explicit political aims - it was 1957, the Cold War was in full swing, something had to be done. They simply had the intuition that the only way to reach these aims was through economic integration first, because the continent was still too raw from two centuries of total war. With the years, the model was so successful that others joined because of the economic benefits alone. But it was never just about business, not even Thatcher seriously believed that; it was about the realities of a world where European countries, kings of the planet for half a millennia, were going to become fundamentally irrelevant in a few generations, and risked being again the battlefield between global superpowers.