What if the European Union was Founded During The Cold War?
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- Опубліковано 7 бер 2023
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#possiblehistory #europe #alternatehistory #alternatehistoryofeurope #europeanunion
The European Union is massively important for the worldwide diplomatic and economic scene. It's influence is felt everywhere. Despite that, in its current form, the European Union is a very young organisation. Only being founded in 1993, almost 30 years ago. But this raises the question. If the EU is this young, what if it was significantly older.
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I didn't think this video was strong enough for the usual Saturday release, so here it is as an extra video now, hope you enjoy!
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Please turn this into a 3-part scenario.
Part 2 What if imperial federation formed after WW2.
Part 3 What if america won the Korean and Vietnam War's.
What if india was communist with economy like china
Nice video.
Suggestion:
What if Novgorod united Russia?
2 months ago? video was released not even half a day ago
@@Venator-Class_Star_Destroyer Patreon
Maybe this political victory for France in the 50's would keep the fourth Republic alive and prevent the need for Charles de Gaulle. Also you assume that Germany would go for it no questions asked. Those are strong concessions that they may be not ready to make.
germany didnt have a lot of choice in those days
@@TheSwedishHistorian a defeated power is still capable of being a thorn in your side if not handled with care.
We Germans always saw the EU and european cooperation as something good, as a way to keep peace and economic prosperity, also european cooperation showed the rest of Europe how much we changed, from warmonger to peace keeper.
@@bastian182 Blatantly not true. You can't undo years of Hitler youth in a day.
Kinda hard to disagree with France when they as good as own a third of your country
Nice idea but as a Spanish I can tell you are dead wrong with Spain somehow preferring EFTA over the EU. Remember that Spain also had a bloody civil war and has several regionalist movements that ultimately expressed their own hope for the future in a shared Europe.
Europe being the unifying factor in Spain in some way incredibly beautiful. Being united in hope instead of oppression.
As a german I don't really get Spains independence movements. For me it sounds so obvius that being governed by one government in a democratic state makes you as an entity much more powerful. I would love to learn were the huge wishes for independence in the different regions of Spain come from. Is like Scottland in GB were the federal government really clearly acts against local interests or are there other big factors?
Would love to know if you find the time to reply.
Have a wonderful evening my friend✌
@@derdude6214 It comes from the belief that Catalan culture is inherently distinct from broader Hispanic culture. Also, the resentment of Franco's treatment to Catalonia plays a huge role in the independence movement.
@@derdude6214 The most ideal government is strong federal regions with a weaker central government to keep everything united
Spain would still be a fascist dictatorship so I don't think they will be allowed in the eu
@@derdude6214 In Spain is nothing more than ethonationalism. At the very least now. While the dictatorship was around it obviously could be understandable but now it's absurd
The EFTA in our timeline didn't really fail because of economic reasons, but because of geography. Most memberstates didn't have a land connection to one another. I don't think in that timeline it would work much better
I think even with the geography the eu being more unified from the start would still make it more appealing
I mean the obvious solution is the same as the modern day. The development of an EEA being shared between EU and EFTA members.
It also fell apart as the UK had WANTED to join but France said no and did everything they could to prevent it, so the UK made their own EU and made it a thing that if the EU asked them to join they had to ask everyone to join. All for one and one for all.
I think Spain would join the EU anyway while Portugal would likely join EFTA. Spain has never been super friendly with the UK because of Gibraltar. Also can't see csechoslovakia joining the EFTA since they are landlocked by the EU.
yeah, also, after the dictatorship, Spain had kind of an inferiority complex to France, Germany and Italy because of us being isolated for so long during the dictatorship, which resulted in Spain joining every european project as soon as possible as a way to compensate for the time lost during Francoism.
Spain can’t complain to the UK about Gibraltar when Spain itself own small parts of the North African coast that Morocco wouldn’t mind ruling over instead.
@@wildsurfer12 I think you'll find that it can, it's not like Gibraltar either it's more like Northern Ireland.
@@wildsurfer12 i'd complain too if i had bri'ish people near me
Czechoslovakia was also land locked by the Axis but they didn't really surrender, the UK forced them to be annexed by Germany, I really doubt they'd let the same thing happen again
4:35 oh wow, that's a blast from the past! Don't think I ever expected to see one of those maps again in my lifetime.
Matthew White's Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century, in case any other internet senior citizens are trying to remember where they've seen that before.
I had the same reaction!!!
A much more integrated European Community during the cold war is not very far-fetched: the European Community of Defense was very close to happen and would have seen the creation of a European army and a bicameral parliament. Also, a common currency was initially planned for the 80's (but the project failed due to the economic situation in the 70's).
I think that this version of the European Union would formed, like in our timeline, a European Economic Area with the EFTA countries. This would evolved into a two-speed Europe, with a stronger centre and a less integrated periphery.
Prosperity can be a pretty convincing argument. I wouldn't be as surprised as you have described yourself if at least some members of the Eastern Bloc would have agreed to conditions to join this alternate EU which initially prioritize the decision-making power of the established members. Their concerns could be mitigated to some degree by provisions which delay a member's ascension to full voting member for a certain period of time, but do not deprive it of EU influence indefinitely.
The EU was in fact founded during the Cold War. 25 March 1957, under the terms of the Treaty of Rome signed by France, West Germany, Italy and the three Benelux countries. By the end of the Cold War it had expanded to include most of Western Europe (UK, Republic of Ireland, Spain, Portugal, East Germany) as well as Denmark in Northern Europe and Greece in Eastern Europe
finally, someone with real knowledge
Your videos breath life to the Alt History Commuity! Keep them coming!
No Fascism and cringe!
@@YaBoiBaxter2024 for real actually watchable as a black person
@@quincybreuuu5255Cringe comment coming from a black guy as well 🤣🤣🤣
Thank you for all the high quality videos. In case you need more scenarios, two alternate history ideas I had were "what if operation valkariye or a similar plot to kill hitler succeeded" and what if the Russian Empire won the Japanese-War".
France did not leave NATO - it just left its command structure.
What’s the difference between
As a European Studies university student, I find your video hilarious as a thought process, but I also wanted to dissect your arguments, so here we go:
1) 5:03: You mention that it would be easy to get the USA on board this early EU boat. That is, to put it mildly, high fantasy. Yes, the US wanted "EU recovery", but it wanted it in its own terms. In our own timeline, even the weaker EEC (by 1968 EC) caused tons of headaches for the USA. One area of it was its independent (and often unnoticed) diplomacy vis-à-vis Eastern Europe (see 1970s bilateral EEC trade relations with Romania, Hungary, Poland in Romano, 2014), but the most important area of tension would be the debates between the two entities over GATT's existence with regards to an economic entity that allowed its Member States to benefit from 'most privileged country' status while making everyone outside of it suffer the consequences. A US emerging out of WW2 with as much production as in our own timeline (talking about the 1950s, after Marshall Plan aid had dried) would be pissed with the arrangement of selling its products for less money, especially when it had not yet discovered the allure of new markets in the East.
2) 5:20: Your arguments for France are sound, but only on the surface. You are not just ignoring France's strategic position, but the French electoral preferences, and most importantly parliamentarians' position on Germany and crucially supranationalism. I just wrote a 3000 word essay on how Germanophobia was actually extremely present in the French National Assembly in 1952 when the European Defence Community was being negotiated. Interestingly, all parties used an anti-German argument both for and against the EDC. The EU, in many parliamentarians' eyes, would not "solve the German question". It would instead provide the now-recognised West Germany now-controlling the Saarland and the coal mines and metal factories of the Rhine (by 1951 the three occupiers had not signed any document recognising the FRG, and France still owned rights to many German factories) with a framework to dominate Western Europe and France by allowing as many of its better produced goods to be exported and its army to be built up within the EU (remember the EU's Common Foreign Policy is not as common as one thinks). France would be seen as being tied down to institutional chokeholds of a Commission working for Germany (which was a major problem in the 1960s and 70s, especially with the DG of Commerce having a majority German workforce and going against French wishes of 'neo-dirigisme' for more 'ordo-liberal' policies, see Warlouzet, 2019). Concluding, only Schuman's party, the MRP, as well as some fringe factions within other parties, would support this initiative, and that would not be enough for a victory in the Parliament.
3) 6:00: Again, you are missing the point about European Unification. You are correct about the fact that supranational ideas of European integration had been circulating for centuries. But what is important to understand is those ideas were perpetrated by a select group of people, politicians who at some points had power (and thus could shape the trajectory of integration through coalition-building) and at others had no or little power to affect change. Take for example the quote you show of Churchill's speech in 1946. Churchill, albeit very famous, was not in any way able to direct the UK's foreign policy, since he was not the Prime Minister. You make it sound as if everyone in every government supported European integration in one specific way, yet as Craig Parsons (2002) shows, the French had three distinct attitudes (community, confederalism, and traditionalism) which all played a key role to shaping (and in the case of the EDC, ruining) attempts at European integration.
4) 8:15: Wait wait wait, you're backtracking now XD. The main point of the video is the EU as it is today being formed (through absurd ways, but anyhow) in the late 40s early 50s. Now you're saying there is no European Parliament and it is just a guideline??? You're just giving a revised history of the ECSC --> EEC --> EC --> EU. And even then, you're not taking into account things like how one country having just a tiny bigger post-war industrial boom (like cough cough W. Germany) could put the rest of the Community in tatters due to trade deficits. After all, no tariffs, and even worse, no quantitative restrictions, no barriers for better and (crucially) cheaper German goods to replace French, Italian, and Dutch ones! So when you say it would be 'extremely beneficial' (9:07), you're not actually doing your research.
5) 9:42: I find you mentioning the possibility of France re-entering as an exchanging for a supranational European army hilarious. I would like to remind you that it was not the USA that blocked proposals for the EDC, but rather jumped on the train a few months after France proposed it in the New York 1951 meeting. The USA's support also pushed the Benelux to agree, and W. Germany was already on board. It was only French parliamentarians that had mental issues about it. The idea that General de Gaulle of all people, a man famous for stopping the European process with the Empty Chair Crisis, Luxembourg Compromise, and numerous vetoes on UK entry and EU expansion in the 60s, would suddenly favour a European army where the principle of equality (ie German units are not subordinate to French) exists, is a joke.
6) 11:30: While I don't know enough to (dis-)agree with your thesis on 'sovereignty and Brussels' for candidate countries, I would like to point out this one singular fact that would have made the EU (as it did the EEC/EC) much more appealing than you make it out to be. This small thing called the 'Single Market'. As we're seeing now with Brexit, and as E. European countries saw in the 70s, it is so much easier for a European country to just have access to it then face the red tape and be effed over by extremely high external tariffs. That, as well as the hypothetical EU's stronger use of foreign investment (think of nowadays projects in the Western Balkans, or PHARE in the 90s for Poland and E. Europe) and its stronger promotion of democracy would make a lot of countries want to at least sign Association Agreements. Lastly, if one excludes the UK and Belarus, there is not a single country at the moment in Europe that is not either in, has tons of clauses allowing access to, or attempt to enter the EU. And questions of sovereignty, which should be even bigger today due to the many crisis our EU has faced, don't really matter for candidate states in our world. In an alternate universe where the EU has not faced any major pains, trust me, everyone is trying to get their hands on that market like it's cocai** and the 80s.
7) 12:00: Not fascist Spain joining EFTA XD
8) 14:00: The dichotomy of options you give is just...plain wrong. The EU in our timeline had the same choice of "deepening & widening" vs "expansion" in the 1990s, yet it rEmArkABly chose...BOTH. Heck, even after 2009 and Lisbon, it still promoted expansion along with deepening, and even now, with new policies being negotiated on the field of AI and the Environment, it's still looking at the accession of Ukraine, Switzerland, and the Western Balkans. To say it could only focus on just two, would be wrong.
So overall, a pretty badly thought out video by you, Mr. Possible History. I would've preferred if instead of trying to discuss absurd (and tbh weak) explanations for your video, you instead just said "hey, this is a crazy idea, but might as well!" and went on with explaining how the wonkiness would play out. Also, there are so many stuff you only briefly mentioned (or didn't even bother), like Monetary Union, the Single Market, Diplomacy, relation to the US, relation to the Eastern Block, China, the Global South, Colonialism (for example how does Francafrique work in this scenario???) that could have just been much more interesting than "economic growth --> political growth --> relation to EFTA --> mayyyyyyyybe expansion ???"
Hope you take my comment as constructive criticism. I often enjoy your videos, but as a European Studies student, I can't help but attempt to improve (in my opinion) your work! Maybe a part two revising things???
It was quite informative perspective, frankly if this Dutchman wanted to contort the world to create the EU, he could've just opened with that. I don't expect from too much from this channel anyway Given the assumptions it makes often.
This is a very interesting and yet semi-realistic scenario. Thanks!
The European Union actually formed in the 50ies. Treaty of Rome 1957
I feel like, at least in this scenario, they (the EU) could have been more of a neutral party in the Cold War, becoming more like India. Maybe integrating cooperating with some eastern block countries such as Yugoslavia and playing a balancing act with the Soviets and Americans, after recovering from WW2 of course.
I don't see that happening until reconstruction ends, around the 70s maybe
@@susybaka0148 agreed
NATO was founded in 1949, so that would have to be disbanded.
Plus, your assuming that the EU would manage to cooperate better than it does today.
@@graceneilitz7661 NATO probably would not exist, as we know it at least, in this scenario. After Western Europe recovers, 1960-70’s, then this becomes a bit more feasible. You would need some thing to spur Western Europe into cooperation. They already have motivative enough to unite against the Soviets but they didn’t for the US. Mostly due to the Soviets being seen as the higher threat. But, the high presence of US troops in these countries, as well as them being heavily indebted to the U.S was a point of contention in our timeline. If this EU followed France’s warnings about US ‘imperialism’ on the European continent that may give motivation to unite. The sparking point would be if they manage to come together to destroy Bretton-Woods as well as preventing the formation of the IMF. If the U.S. responds like the Soviets did when their ‘puppets’ began to rebel, then the new EU would die. If this new EU goes for the aforementioned balancing idea that might deter said invasion, assuming the U.S. public supports one ofc. Hell if they do all this the same time France did in our timeline, then this would not be an issue, due to Vietnam.
If that makes any sense.
@@graceneilitz7661 well it's not much of an option since they're not independent countries anymore during the cooperation
Loved the video! The only possible suggestion I would make would be that the EU still expands into culturally similiar and rich nations, such as austria, denmark and sweden
Austria would have been pretty difficult to include in the EU due to the presence of Soviet troops for years after the war; Austria only got them out by promising to be neutral and siding with neither the West nor the Soviets. Austria joining the EU would undoubtedly have aroused major Soviet ire, as it would certainly have been interpreted as a breach of that neutrality.
Denmark and Sweden were unwilling to join more for cultural reasons, I think - not necessarily a more intractable problem, but arguably easier to handwave away in a video like this.
Sick video as always!
Spain not joining as it did IRL would be extremely unlikely. Since the end of WWII, democratic oposition in exile (with the notable exception of the Communist Party) quickly adhered to the European Movement and in some cases even European Federalism was enthusiastically embraced. Not to forget that Spain was a strong supporter of the institutional reform under the Maastricht Treaty only 6 years after accession (even being the flagbearer of the then-new notion of "European Citizenship").
It was that or a basque lab bomb, they were fairly desperated to get help to not get a collapse as yugoslavia had for similar reasons.
Also while most independenve movements do nott like spain they did like european cooperation much more
One point you only touched on in the end but which would be in my opinion a big factors even earlier on is a kind of two tier system. In which you have the Core members who act nearly as a Federation and the other newer members who join with much more independence and slowly integrate more and more over the decades (or are free to choose not to). Like most ideas about European Federalisation today
As mentioned, in the 50s the EU already existed in the form of the ECSC and later the EEC. Many of the heads of governments were already super onboard with a sort of federal setting, the dutch and the germans and jtalians were already super onboard with the establishemnt of a government in the form of the european parliament and the european commission. Italy and france at the start even advocated for a european army.
The issue stood in political developments.
First, the french communists managed to gather enough seats in france to amass a consensus in the national assembly to kill the european army proposition.
And then degaulle happened and started the empty chair crisis, which would end up in a aeaker EU of that at the start and created the precedent of the national veto in the european council.
For europe to federalize or reach the integration it has today 2 things might have had to happen.
Either a crisis in the US/ something that triggers european dissatisfaction towards the US, so that degaulle himself calls for a europe to be against US and Ussr.
Or the USSR invades yugoslavia to coup a reluctant tito.
That would have a similar effect to what happened after the ussr invaded hungary, but sooner.
Aka the split in the european left between demsoc eurosocialists and pro ussr stalinists.
That would have made the early left's opposition to the EU crumble.
Great video!
What if sweden won the great northern war.
Then Finland and Baltics would be Sweden. But... That won't be a prolonged success, Both Poland and Russia would still claim Baltics for themselves. Eventually they would form an alliance against Sweden and took those lands.
Definitely an interesting thought experiment.
Love you’re vids
So Charlemagne's Holy roman Empire.
In the 1950's.
Nice video!
Cool video!
Goede video! Ik kan niet echt veel begrijpen, maar de graphics helpen veel.
Really good video
really like the channel
Perhaps this is too complicated and far afield, but I wonder if you might try to make a similar kind of economic alt-history for a Warsaw Pact counter to the European Community. Perhaps utilizing something like the Cybersyn system developed by the Allende government of Chile? Just a thought.
Thank you
Question: Would it be a possibility that a more centralized EU made the decision to join EFTA as a whole?
Also, I am not sure about Austria joining EFTA, since they would be cut off from all other members
Austria did join EFTA in 1960 in our original timeline so I'm pretty sure they would do something like that in the alternate timeline too. Additionally, Switzerland would be directly connected to Austria, who was also an EFTA member.
But I think the EU there wouldn't forbid trade or travel between EFTA states. Austria and Switzerland sit on very important tunnel and connections through the Alps which is a huge boon for connecting the economies of Germany and Italy. Even if a 'friendly rivalry' would mean that EU and EFTA would try to be better than the other, the geographical situation here would make free trade/travel between those organisations (or at least unhindered trade/travel past border controls) a win/win situation for both organizations, so both would trade their travel/trade rights through each other.
I mean technically the EU would have the option to reroute through France if they really want EFTA to be separated, but EFTA could just make a deal with the eastern block, which might be connected to some conditions, but the east would be happy to split the west even more. Also the EU would then lose the EFTA market which is still profitable so any hinderance for trade/travel between EU and EFTA would just be a big economic loss.
@@DaRealKakarroto But there wasn't a European Union to rival EFTA,
@@Perrirodan1 there was the coal cooperation which lead the six (France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg) to form more contracts for cooperation and that developed and culminated to form the EC (European Community). Because of that, Britain thought of an economic association that wasn't as close as the EC (especially politically) and after a bit created the EFTA with others.
So while there wasn't a Union, there was that Community which lead to the founding of EFTA.
@@DaRealKakarroto I do agree about Austria as America and the EU state (France) would have controller half of Austria after the war
From Lisbon to Vladivostok!
Europa sine fine!
i feel like if the EU existed and had a organised governmental body during the early 1950s when Churchill was in power and the uk was still recovering from
the war the uk would join as during the war Churchill wanted to create a country between the states of France and the uk then it was a idea in France after the war
so with a French government pushing for the EU and the uk being run by Churchill it would be something both sides wanted so it would probably happen
Actually Churchill lost the very next election, and was replaced by Etli.
@@alexzero3736 yeah but won again and was prime minister from 1951 to 1955
@@alexzero3736🤓
EU did exist
What do you think would have happened to Napoleon if he escaped his second imprisonment and went to America
He’d write some crazy books on philosophy and war.
If he would escape he would either do what the first comment under your comment said do, or get back to France and give it another try.
Maybe declare himself emperor in Quebec and try to free it from British Canada? The Americans, sour after the defeat of 1812, might also help
It was begun during the Cold War with the 1957 Treaties of Rome as the EEC. The Maastricht Treaty (and all EU treaties) are amendments to the Roman ones.
This is revisionist history, pretending that the trading bloc which existed in prior decades is somehow interchangeable with the EU as it currently exists.
@@sneedchuckington what began in 1957 with the Treaties of Rome is the EEC. By the time it was renamed the EU in 1993 it introduced European Citizenship and the foundation of the Euro. The 2009 Lisbon Treaty consolidated all parts of the EU into a legal entity for the first time. The whole thing has been a gradual buildup over the decades.
@@rnlspurlock "The whole thing has been a gradual buildup over the decades." well, that is the point
@@rncmv Exactly. Maastricht (and every treaty since 1957) is an amending treaty to the original Treaties of Rome, which still to this day provides the legal foundation for the whole thing. Maastricht's amending treaty is now also included as a bulk of that legal constitutional foundation, but functionally what Maastricht, Amsterdam, Nice, and Lisbon all did is modify the original from 1957 (Rome).
Nice video
I love this video
(Now, YT, you do your part of the job)
I can't see Spain joining Britain over France or Britain over Germany but the rest of this I completely agree with greatly made vid even if I didn't agree tho
EU army would probably have ended European colonialism earlier because the EU army wouldn't be used to enforce say French control in Africa or Dutch control in Indonesia. Though the EU army would probably have been founded after the fact anyway.
Dutch control of Indonesia didn’t last long anyway
Good video
Thank you for pumping alternative history scenarios while the bigger fish were busy doing other stuff.
nice video
Interesting Take
Nice scenario i never thought about it
This version of the EU just looks like Charlemagne's HRE in border size 😂
Next do what if Napoleon formed a United States of Europe?
Impossible, Nationalism in the next few years would have broken that state after napoleon's dead. The best thing Napoleon could do was already shown in the video of what if Napoleon kept power in which France gets their natural border.
@@segiraldovi nothing is impossible,just outlandish, take his charlemagne timeline for example
@@onix5491French nationalism would have made it impossible
Could you do videos on fictional universes and their sociological realism? The Expanse and A song of Ice and Fire are good complex Book series with a lot to say. Have you ever seen the world map from Stephen Universe ? A video about the consequences of that different geography on world history.
You could do what if Utopia from Thomas More existed? Or Prester John? Or Atlantis ? What if the world of Micromegas by Voltaire was real? What if every planet was inhabited by proportionnally large humanoid that could travel easily from planet to planet?
For your superpowered monarch concept: what if Louis XVI could fly? Would he escape the Tuileries and lead the royalist armies against the young Republic? What if Norwegian monarchs could control Ice like Elsa does ?
Maybe some reviews of the realism of some lesser known alternate history content and your take on them. There is a recent French Book called Civilization by Laurent Binet that explores a reversal of the age of exploration. An Inca expedition arrives in Europe and uses the political division to get an advantageous position. Have you ever read His Majesty's dragons? It's Real World napoleonic wars but with dragons, the world building is so cool. Have you heard of the "Oranges of Yalta"? It's a Book about imperial Japan attacking the soviets instead of Pearl Harbor. It all goes to shit from there. There is a French comics Book series I would love to get you opinion on. It's an anthology so every issue is a different scenario in a different Era. Some are better than others but there are many interesting ideas.
Maybe you could do more marvel content about the consequences of heroes on the world. What if Wakanda was real? No other marvel hero, just Wakanda as a State.
A quite classic but underrated scenario : what if horses had not died out in America and native americans were more resistant to Eurasian diseases?
What if King Arthur was real and created a lasting romano-celtic state in Britannia and Northern Gaul?
Maybe you could switch out two neighbours fate. Like what if France became protestant and England stayed catholic ?
Or imagine the european like nation state that could arise in China after a lasting period of disunity after the 16 kingdoms. From the geographical, ethnic and economical factors.
What if Henry the VIIIth never met Ann Boleyn. I wonder what religious wars would look like in England.
What if the Byzantine Emoire endured and pushed the Ottomans out?
What if Alexander the great didn't die until he was old? He creates a solid empire that is still a great power during the Roman expansion. And Jesus if he is born dies in a failing macedonian empire. Peter goes to whatever the capital is. Probably Babylon.
What if King Philip's war pushed out English colonists out of New England and led to a united native confederacy in its place supported by the French or English. Basically what would be the impact of these displaced colonists in the Southern colonies and back in England ? And what would North american history look like without New England and the people that sprang from it ?
I get the feeling you've had a lot of time to think about this
Hah, Expanse politics are least realistic part of the universe which is telling a lot
I'd love to see a potential future video
Possibly one of the most unique alt history I've seen in a while
That Thumbnail got me.
Please do another wild what if like the charlamagne one pleaae
a possible solution to the expansion issue into the eastern bloc maybe could have been a two or three parliament system
at least having a parliament for west and east europe which would have considerable authority over the other
then again maybe two parliaments would just result in power struggles and chaos
maybe a third parliament in central europe or smth would solve this issue but i dunno
I think this could easily have happened if the French pushed more and had US backing. It makes a lot of sense to do this in the ww2 aftermath. get the UK to be a cofounder and its even better
The UK would never agree to the disunion of their nation to join some Franco-German state
Good ideas but Europeans of the time vetoed uk joining
yeah, but that in part is because the UK came along later@@NoName-hg6cc
nice hers your command good video
The EU feels like when all the mafias come together to for a crime market lol.
Nice
Gotta love how it just devolves into our own EU vs. early Federation.
Interestingly, this scenario would prove the Austrian Painter correct:
"If we are to lose this war, Germany as we know it will cease to exist as a nation"
Well, that happened either way. But chances are, that would have happened even on a win or tie.
@@Llortnerof If he would have won most of the decay we see today would not have happened
@@KnownNiche1999 That's a rather loaded statement, don't you think?
@@Llortnerof Loaded?
@@KnownNiche1999 Calling any of the changes decay. Especially compared to the moral bankruptcy of the 3rd Reich.
6:30 Italy didn't switch sides, It has a civili war
Next do what if European Union was communist
Nigel Farage would poo himself
In Kaiserreich if the German Austrian alliance gets defeated by the Moscow pact and the syndicalist alliance then it's possible.
The Timlines I wish I lived in.
USSR but it collapse even faster since it wouldn’t get any help by the US
to be honest, the European union WAS in fact founded in the cold war because it was made in 1957, but it had a bunch of name changes during that period
"The European market is so large that companies make products to EU standard for the rest of the world" clearly, you don't live in America, or you'd know that companies often have a European version and an American version of their products to take advantage of lower standards in the US.
The rest of the world to the rest of the world means excluding the US usually
@@zombiedalekweck2243 yeah, that sounds about right, we're always the exception.
@@person_guy3505 Apple chargers are being changed even in the US to meet EU regulations for example. Not every company has 2 versions.
can you do a "What if Catherine the great married George III" this was weirdly enough very possible in 1760-1762
That "say, Germany" killed me
11.25 When you look at the history of how rich the nations were through 1890 to 2000 Switzerland is green in 1913 and stays green throughout the other pictures. ;)
I like how the video thumbnail looks like EU is talking out of its Swiss mouthhole saying "Hello, fellow superpowers!"
What if Henri Count of Chambord accepted the tricolor and became Henri V?
This seems like a kind of strange idea prompt. It's like "what if they invented the Sherman in 1917". Like, they could have. But they needed to go through all the intermediate steps first.
The EU started as the coal and steel pact and other little things, and had to be slowly developed and invented over time. It probably couldn't have gone that much faster, unless it started earlier.
one problem i have with this alternate scenario is that you assume that because of competition western Europe will grow slower rather then faster.
we know good competition could be healthy for economies and make them grow even faster then with a monotone single block
i could very well assume that if this competition is healthy and both the EU nation and the EFTA still trade with each other, i could see the economy of the west rising even farther then our own timeline as the competition boost standards of living and provokes change in more lackluster parts of the economic policies of both sides
You said that Germany and Italy invaded all their neighbours. Last time I checked, Austria and Italy were on the same side for the majority of the war. And I’m pretty sure that in that time, Italy didn’t invade Austria
Anschluss?
@@palanix3145 the annexation of Austria by Germany has no agh to do with my point. My point was that at no time whilst they were both axis members, did Italy invade German or Austrian lands. It was only after they changed sides in the war, that italian troops invaded some territorial claims of either the Germans and Italians. Even then it was quite small scale.
An Austria to invade did not exist at the time
I really don't see why EFTA and the EU would have to be rivals. With the EU growing ever-closer, they may choose to cooperate with EFTA as a member of EFTA or at least a partner to them with cooperation between EU and EFTA on economics. Additionally, I don't think this EU would desire as much expansion, since it would entail complex political integration over simply economies. In that manner, having EFTA as an economic partner would allow economic expansion, without EU political expansion.
how do you make the maps
It kinda was established in the Cold War Era, it began as the European Economic Community (The Continental Six) back in 1950.
If you are asking if the European Union as we know it today was established in the cold war (between 1949-1989), It probably would have probably helped prevent the break up of Yugoslavia, but that’s if they would allow Warsaw Pact nations to join (if they were allowed to join regardless of their economic system). It could resolve the cold war, but if it’s anti communist than the EU would have just been an economic expansion of the free world.
EU: how do you do, fellow superpower
US: please stop
This is just perfect.
Hi Jon
Why do you picture Occupied Cyprus separately?
Yay, videos about the EU!
WTF THIS guy only has 17k he should have at least 100k
This is the battlefield 2 timeline.
What if a realistic version of Ingsoc took over the British Isles, turning it into a North Korea state in the late 40s early 50s?
Why it would turn to North Korea? 😅 North Korea doesn't have an IngSoc
@@alexzero3736 sorry I just should’ve said more context. I was imagining the UK, turning into a big brother State, it’s very possible that the actual contents of the book was just the UK being a hermit kingdom, using the ingsoc propaganda on its citizens.
That's called real life.
It began it's form during the Cold War. The Common Market was it's forerunner.
It is likely that the Colonial empires of France and the Netherlands wouldn't dissolve.
can you do a video on what if qing china industrialized like japan?
I have an idea, so big its the butterfly affect in action.
*what if the great lakes never existed*
The entirety of the global history would be changed forever, key hint is the 7 years war would of never happened.
I mean it kind of was. The EC was there since 73. The EU just formalized it after the cold war. I remember the EU before the Euro. Good times on the foreign exchange.
Austria Wouk have Brocken away from EFTA because of German and Italian pressure and joined the EU. I would say in 1993 the latest. Maybe Switzerland crumbles too though they have proven rather resilient though with two blocks the neighbors would exert more pressure than in our timeline . I do not expect a reunification of Germany as the GDR would joinEFTA
It's possible for the UK to join early during Churchill's second premiership.
Can you do what if the ussr won the winter war?
I mean, they kind of did. They just got less than they wanted.
But they suffered massive amounts of casualties compared to the Finns, what I meant was that the USSR would achieve their goals of fully conquering Finland without the huge death.
Good video. But the title is wrong. Where you talk about what could have happened but didnt actually happen you need to use the past perfect as in "What if the EU HAD BEEN founded during the cold war". Google the term "counterfactual sentences".
Man, Cuba is clearly missing in the black sea
I don't see how Austria wouldn't join in, Austria is always backing Germany in the EU, they would want to join. Maybe preasure from having to be neutral, after the cold war they would jump to get in.
In a way, a smaller more exclusive EU is better; East European nations would still benefit from free trade, lax borders, technology transfer, and investment from the EU, UK, and the US while growing at their own pace. As opposed to the shock-therapy approach they followed post cold war, whose socio-economic effects linger today. Their defense would be guaranteed by NATO expansion.
As nations reach a certain level of development they can join the EU individually while having a prolonged initiation period, otherwise they could remain within the Free Trade Zone and NATO.
I suspect that, in addition to the initial 6 countries (France, Italy, West Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg), East Germany, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and Norway will join pretty rapidly, somewhere between the 1980s and 2000s. Spain, Portugal, and Greece will follow somewhere between the 2000s and the 2020s. Beyond that, The Baltics, Czechia, Slovakia, Poland, and Hungary will follow starting the 2020s.
The more I look at it, the more I feel that this would've been a better timeline, and would've made NATO more essential, as opposed to the way it was neglected after the cold war until just before the Ukraine War.
PLEASE DO: What if the Germans didn't take Asasslurane in 1871
I support the idea of the eu as one nation
Ew
Hello!
This is grat
I love me the borders of the 6 founder nation's with east Germany included