The Union of Polish Federalists

Abstract

The previous chapter focused on the disappointment felt by the majority of Polish federalists in exile at what they saw as the ineffectual and misguided activities of the Council of Europe and the European Movement. The Union of Polish Federalists (UPF), under the dedicated leadership of Jerzy Jankowski and the journal he edited for around two decades, Polska w Europie (Poland in Europe), adopted a different and more pragmatic approach. From quite early on, it placed its confidence in the new European communities which emerged in the 1950s, seeing them as the future of Europe in embryo. In this it was ahead of other Polish supporters of a united Europe who came to recognise the centrality of the European Economic Community (EEC) comparatively late. In the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the EEC and the European Atomic Energy Community (EAC or Euratom) the UPF saw the possibility of achieving its ambition, a European federation with political as well as economic powers.¹