East-West Relations

Abstract

Although a generation has elapsed since World War II the European Community has still not worked out a common response to the challenge it faces in the division of Europe. Yet this issue is the touchstone of its ability to play a political role. What sense is there in speaking of its world responsibilities and its status as one of the world’s great powers if it does not tackle the problem of its relations with its Eastern neighbours, and works out a coherent policy in this field, in terms of both security and co-operation? It is all the more natural that it should do so, in so far as the existence of the rigid Soviet bloc, the threat which that bloc seemed to represent and, more generally, the impasse in East—West relations after the war, were among the origins of Western Europe’s first efforts to unite. Today, the sense of threat has greatly diminished; but the Community would not be what it is without an awareness of that ‘other world’ across the East—West frontier.