Western European Vs. All-European cooperation? The OEEC, the European recovery program, and the United Nations economic commission for Europe (ECE), 1947-1952

Abstract

The chapter analyzes the entangled histories of the OEEC and the UN Economic Commission for Europe during the European Recovery Program. It argues that the two organizations were competitors, but also dependent on one another. While the earliest efforts at economic cooperation in Europe after World War II were strictly within the framework of the UN, the OEEC left this frame and thus paved the way for the purely Western “Europe of the Six.” The all-European ECE and the Western European OEEC thus competed not only as venues of diplomacy and technical cooperation, but also as different conceptions of Europe. While the ECE intended to revive economic activity on an all-European scale, the OEEC helped to constitute “Western Europe” as a new geopolitical and economic entity.