In her concluding chapter to the volume “European Integration Beyond Brussels”, edited by Matthew Broad and Suvi Kansikas, Anne Deighton states aptly that “the institutionalisation of Europe is a messy phenomenon rather than a uniform process” (p. 322). This book provides valuable new insight into elements of this ‘messy’ process which have received only limited scholarly attention to date. Namely, the volume pursues the important aim of extending research on European integration beyond the remits of the European Communities (EC) and later European Union (EU), and notably to sub-/regions on both sides of the Iron Curtain. To this end, the book’s chapters address various fora of supra-, trans- and international cooperation which evolved alongside the EC/EU, and which – albeit never reaching the same scope, life span, economic or political weight – nevertheless form an inherent part of Europe’s post-war history.

These different fora and the analysis of their functioning and impact are presented in a tripartite structure. The first part of the book brings together four contributions on selected institutional actors with “Pan-European Ideas, Structures and Interactions”. Namely, Daniel Stinsky discusses the role of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) as a small yet noteworthy cog in the larger gears of post-war economic cooperation in Europe. Despite – or because of – the mostly technical nature of its work, the UNECE has not only been one of the first, but also a remarkably enduring contributor to pan-European trade and economic relations across the Iron Curtain. The contribution by Philippe Vonnard sheds light on the interrelations of two institutions with a rather soft but nonetheless tangible impact on European integration, especially at societal and everyday-life level: the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) on the one hand, and the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) on the other. In the chapter thereafter, Alexandra Athanasopoulou Köpping sheds light on the impact of a group of actors at “the margins of the E[uropean] C[ommunity]” (p. 90) on the political rapprochement between Brussels and Moscow in the final years of the Soviet Union’s existence: she analyses the informal role played by the European Parliament’s Socialist Group (and especially its German delegates) in the Community’s Ostpolitik during the second half of the 1980s. The final chapter of this first thematic part, written by Emma Hakala, examines the proactive role of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) within the larger international endeavour of strengthening environmental security and peacebuilding in the Western Balkans, and in pursuit of the democratisation and Europeanisation of this region, in the early 2000s.

In distinction from the macro- or “all-European level” (p. 18) perspective of the first part, the second thematic part of the volume consists of four chapters studying processes of “Imagining, Negotiating and Building Regional Integration” at a meso-level, i.e., between blocs of countries lying on one side of the Iron Curtain rather than both, and pursuing common economic and/or political interests in a relatively similar context. In the first chapter of this thematic grouping, Ettore Costa examines the roots of the British Labour Party’s lasting vision of non-federalist and non-supranational European cooperation, with priority on the preservation of national sovereignty, which was developed yet also contested in transnational socialist networks in the 1930s to early 1950s. In the following chapter, Juhana Aunesluoma discusses the complex negotiation processes leading up to the establishment of the European Economic Area (EEA), presenting the EEA as one of many cases of significant discrepancy between ambitions for concrete manifestation/institutionalisation of European integration and actually implemented results, yet with palpable consequences in supra-, inter- and transnational cooperation. Falk Flade’s contribution focuses on the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain, and more specifically on economic integration within and through the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA). Flade’s analysis counters previous studies’ perception of the CMEA as failure by historicising it not in comparison to Western European integration projects such as the EC/EU, but rather in its own right, in consideration of the involved states’ and actors’ own aims and interests, and of lasting effects in former CMEA member states, e.g. as regards their energy markets. Following a similar line of argumentation, Anna Lowry analyses in the final chapter of this part how the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) fostered cooperation between its member states. Through the specific example of Eurasian technology platforms, Lowry shows that benchmarking integration projects ‘beyond Brussels’ against the EU may hinder a better understanding of their noteworthy impact on the larger process of integration. Indeed, Lowry demonstrates through her case study that the manifold projects which constitute(d) this process took very different paths and shapes, and deserve to be studied in their own right, even if they did not reach a scope of action and influence as comprehensive as that of the EC/EU.

The third thematic part of the volume consists of four case studies on “European integration at and around the subregional level”, i.e., “on the micro-level of the regional hierarchy” (p. 20). This final part opens with a study by Pauli Heikkilä on ideas for a Central European Federation developed during the Cold War years by members of four refugee/exile organisations – the International Peasant Union, the Committee of Liberal Exiles, the Christian Democratic Union of Central Europe, and the Socialist Union of Central-Eastern Europe – all of which were united in their pursuit of some form of federalist (Central and Eastern) European integration, despite far-reaching ideological differences. John Krige then examines the case of the European Launcher Development Organisation (ELDO) through the lens of British positioning vis-à-vis European integration projects, namely with a focus on the UK’s ELDO and EU membership. Krige’s chapter sheds light on the importance of scientific and technological projects in the larger context of European cooperation on the one hand, and of challenges to such cooperation arising not only from diverse national interests but particularly from their politicisation on the other. Embedding current developments in longue-durée subregional integration, Katalin Miklóssy takes the reader to the Visegrad 4 (Czechia, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia). She analyses in her chapter how, through their collaboration rooted in historic inter- and transnational ties, these countries sought to pursue national agendas and to safeguard national sovereignty and integrity in the larger process of European integration, and notably as members of the EU. The final chapter in this thematic part, by Martin Dangerfield, adds a complementing shorter-term perspective on post-Cold War subregional cooperation initiatives between Central and Eastern European countries – with a focus, again, on the Visegrad 4 – as inherent elements of “the ‘multi-layered’ process of European integration”, and as part, but also extension of cooperation within the EU (p. 298).

The three thematic parts of the volume and their chapters are framed by an introduction, in which the two editors reflect on larger patterns and the different nature of the various forms of European structures which developed before and alongside the EC/EU, as well as on the state of literature covering such structures; and by the above-mentioned concluding chapter by Anne Deighton, in which she discusses the motives and historical circumstances allowing and inviting researchers to rethinking European integration – and especially the ‘institutionalisation of Europe’ – in a more multi-faceted and less EC/EU-centered manner. In so doing, these two chapters situate the contributions to this volume in the growing research landscape which seeks to ‘provincialise’ the EC/EU by countering its characterisation as sui-generis construct, and by embedding it in the larger historical context of inter-, trans- and supranational organisations and forms of cooperation.1

Providing new insights on a range of understudied actors, structures and fora of cooperation, this book contributes indeed to a broader understanding of the manifold strands that together constitute the larger context of European integration. However, the selection of intriguing, if somewhat random, perspectives covered in this book suggests that “European integration beyond Brussels” happened largely in two arenas: 1) in pan-European organisations co-existing alongside the EC/EU, but having a more restricted scope of action (technological/cultural/security/[more limited] economic cooperation), and 2) at the Eastern side of the Iron Curtain. This leaves out equally important dynamics of regional and subregional integration on the other side of the Iron Curtain yet beyond the EC’s founding member states, such as in Europe’s South2 and North.3 Studying integration “beyond Brussels” might even reach beyond the continental borders, e.g. in former European colonies and in member states’ overseas territories which, albeit not geographically, have been turned for shorter or longer periods of time into political and economic extensions of Europe.4 It might moreover imply examining Europe’s manifold peripheries, and more systematically grasping its multi-centred character, in political, economic, societal and cultural terms.5

It is evident, of course, that a single volume can hardly cover this whole scope of research. Moreover, some of the contributions do, after all, touch (if not primarily focus) on the additional directions of study suggested above. However, the book’s (implicit) understanding of “West Europe” remains rather limited and vague – which stands in stark contrast to the much more diverse compilation of included perspectives on “East Europe”, covering a geographical, political, economic and social variety of countries, institutions and actors. This large variety might in fact induce the question whether simply characterizing countries, institutions and actors as parts and members of “the East” might support an overly simplified Cold-War dichotomy, which might in turn hinder a more profound understanding of European integration beyond and beneath the east-west divide. Indeed, the two framing chapters might have been extended slightly more in the above-mentioned directions, so as to provide more comprehensive research guides for scholars working in the area now or in the future. That being said, the book constitutes through its case studies, conceptualisation approaches, and suggestions for further studies a nonetheless important and valuable addition to the literature in the wider and increasingly diverse field of European integration historiography.

Notes:
1 In this endeavour, the introduction, concluding chapter and various other contributions in the volume build on Kiran Klaus Patel’s seminal article Provincialising European Union. Co-operation and Integration in Europe in a Historical Perspective, in: Contemporary European History 22,4 (2013), pp. 649–673.
2 For a rich compilation of references, see Alan Granadino / Eirini Karamouzi / Rinna Kullaa, Rethinking Southern Europe. Society, Networks and Politics, in: Contemporary European History 30,3 (2021), pp. 439–448.
3 See e.g. Johan Strang (ed.), Nordic Cooperation. A European Region in Transition, London 2015; Jan Hecker-Stampehl (ed.), Between Nordic Ideology, Economic Interests and Political Reality. New Perspectives on Nordek, Helsinki 2009; Pertti Joenniemi, The Barents Euro-Arctic Council (pp. 23–45) and Carl-Einar Stalvant, The Council of the Baltic Sea States (pp. 46–68), in: Andrew Cottey (ed.), Subregional Cooperation in the New Europe. Building Security, Prosperity and Solidarity from the Barents to the Black Sea, Basingstoke 1999.
4 A good starting point for related research might be Peo Hansen and Stefan Jonsson’s book Eurafrica. The Untold History of European Integration and Colonialism, London 2014, as well as their articles Another Colonialism. Africa in the History of European Integration, in: Journal of Historical Sociology 27,3 (2014), pp. 442–461; and A Statute to Nasser? Eurafrica, the Colonial Roots of European Integration, and the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize, in: Mediterranean Quarterly 24,4 (2013), pp. 5–18. See also e.g. David Stenner, Mediterranean Crossroads. Spanish-Moroccan Relations in Past and Present, in: The Journal of North African Studies 24,1 (2019), pp. 7–16 (and, more generally, the entire special issue on the same topic with a range of contributions, to which this article forms the introduction); and for a more contemporary – albeit EU-centred – focus Rebecca Adler-Nissen / Ulrik Pram Gad (ed.), European Integration and Postcolonial Sovereignty Games. The EU Overseas Countries and Territories, Routledge 2013.
5 See e.g. Hartmut Kaelble, Der verkannte Bürger. Eine andere Geschichte der europäischen Integration seit 1950, Frankfurt am Main 2019; Frank Bösch / Ariane Brill / Florian Greiner (eds.), Europabilder im 20. Jahrhundert. Entstehung an der Peripherie, Göttingen 2012.