European history

Brian Wilson’s article (Perspective, 30 May) was ostensibly “to remind a new generation of the history behind the EU movement”.

One cannot “remind” those who were not cognisant of such in the first place.

The picture in the article shows it as the “Common Market” which was under discussion in 1975, after Edward Heath single-handed, in 1973, set Britain on a course for Europe.

The early visionaries before 1945 knew full well that they eventually wanted a European state, but they dared not speak its name.

Germany had been defeated in the First and Second World Wars and it eventually dawned that instead of head-banging a wall, it would be much easier to use a door as an entry point.

Through the European Coal and Steel Community, European Economic Community, European Community, it was ostensibly the French who were in the vanguard, with Germany lending support from the rear.

When it all morphed into the European Union, Germany supplied the wet cement in the form of a currency union, 
which never did dry as each country had its own central bank to run up massive debts which the IMF only exacerbated by offering tenuous bridging loans.

Ronald Rankin

Dalkeith