Alternate 1948- European Union

Our next Hearts of Iron 4 timeline deals with the European Union. As most of you probably know, the EU in its present state came into being in 1993 as a successor to the European Economic Community, which had been formed by the Treaty of Rome in 1957 (taking effect in 1958). The EEC was, in turn, an outgrowth of the European Coal and Steel Community, formed in 1952 by the Treaty of Paris- the original signatories being France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, West Germany and Italy. The main peculiarities of this timeline are that the band (as it were) formed a few years earlier, and that not only is Germany still whole, it still retains portions of East Prussia that in real life had been annexed by Russia and Poland, with Italy likewise maintaining the Istrian March, which in real life is divided between Slovenia and Croatia. As such, I highly doubt Mssrs Stalin, Tito and Bierut regard the EU all that favourably in this timeline (I doubt any of the Eastern Bloc powers regard such a capitalist cartel favourably, but those three in particular would begrudge the extension of territory into lands they regard as rightfully theirs). As in the real world, French President Vincent Auriol; German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer; Belgian Regent Prince Charles, Count of Flanders (acting on behalf of his older brother, King Leopold III); Italian Prime Minister Alcide de Gasperi; Queen Juliana of the Netherlands; and Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, each hold authority over their respective member states, with delegates from each state meeting at the Common Market’s institutional seats in Brussels, Luxembourg and Strasbourg. Frenchman Jean Monnet has been tipped as President of the European Commission (he had in real life been the initial President of the ECSC High Authority, after serving as Commissioner for the French Plan Commission- his ‘current’ posting as of 1948), with Franz Etzel of Germany as First Vice President (Etzel had been elected to the Bundestag in 1949 before joining Monnet’s High Authority) and Albert Coppé of Belgium as Second Vice President (not sure what Coppé was doing before 1952…).

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