An den Peripherien Westeuropas

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Ireland and Austria are today established and respected European partners within the European Union. Even Brexit, with its threat of a hard border between the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom, has not led to any Irish thoughts about withdrawing from the process of European integration. But was this development so obvious after the Second World War when Europe lay in ruins and ideas about unifying the continent before and during the war were being discussed by federalists and functionalists? How could a neutral Ireland and an Austria that was partially occupied and without military alliances become parts of Europe's policy of integration?This study analyses the political hurdles and economic restrictions that confronted Ireland and Austria on their path to participation in the Marshall Plan. It also documents the role of the USA in the context of the European reconstruction programme and asks to what extent economic cooperation was the precondition for a political option of moving away from the peripheries of Western Europe and from foreign policy isolation. It was not without reason that the future Austrian Chancellor Bruno Kreisky described the work of the OEEC as "an elementary school for European politics".