Suez, Hungary and European Integration

Extract

The double crisis we witnessed last autumn dates back to six months ago, yet it may already be possible to outline a schematic picture of its repercussions on the international organizations in Europe. I shall describe neither the structures of these organizations nor the way they work, but, rather, the political context, which alone permits us to evaluate their potential for action and influence on the European scene. This paper will therefore deal first with the immediate consequences of the Budapest massacres and with the unsuccessful enterprise of the Anglo-French forces in Suez. It will then try to evaluate the present political motivations of the French, British, and German policies, and this will lead to an examination of the political decay of both NATO in Europe and the Western European Union. A cursory glance at what is usually called the European parliaments—already in existence or in the process of being created—will lead us to conclusions in which the Algerian question and the question of German reunification will figure more predominantly than international organizations whose juridical future seems more certain than their political effectiveness.