Publications

Abstract: The European construction has been marked, since its inception, by crises and failures. This is, we consider, explicable, since the harmonization of the interests of all the actors involved in the process of its edification proves to be one of the most difficult processes of contemporary international relations. However, so far, we can say that every crisis or failure by which the Communities or the Union have passed has spurred its development, despite the initial negative consequences. In this tendency, we believe, and the episode of the elaboration and rejection of the Fouchet Plans. In this approach we analyze the context of their appearance, the main proposals made, their rejection and the reasons behind it, and especially the main proposals made on this occasion, which were subsequently found. in more or less close forms, among the reform elements of the Treaties on which the Communities were founded and on which the Union is today founded. In light of these, and given the intergovernmentalist tendency of the Plans, which, in our research, might have had the potential to block the deepening of intergenerational integration within the Communities, we believe that the rejection of Fouchet plans, although a crisis of European construction, considered as a failure, but is in line with the above-mentioned line of progress of European integration by overcoming the different moments of crisis.

Keywords: European Communities, European Union, crises, failures, Fouchet plans, European Political Community, Charles de Gaulle, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Common Foreign and Security Policy, federalism, intergovernmentalism.