The European Commission 1958-1972; history and memories of an institution

This book is both a historical record and a commemoration covering the early years of the European Commission before the first enlargement. A team of historians from the six founding Member States first worked through a mountain of archive material, chiefly of Community origin, and gathered together the recollections of those who were actively engaged in what one of them described as a "process of inventing things as they went along". Only then did they embark on the difficult exercise of writing a living history of the institution – its aspirations, successes and failures – as seen from the inside. Forged by men and women with often very different backgrounds, the history of the first few years is one of crises but also of achievements which shaped the major milestones of European integration in almost every area.