The main underlying aim was to avoid a recurrence in the future of the wars which devastated 20th century Europe. To that end, central Europe’s largest country, Germany, should be firmly embedded in a European structure. As Thomas Mann has aptly put it: “a European Germany, rather than a German Europe”.
Without a common European framework, tensions could arise again between Germany and other countries, France in particular. European integration should serve the objective of creating a peaceful, stable and prosperous Europe. The unification of Germany almost a decade ago, and the removal of the iron curtain have placed Germany even further, as it were, in the heart of Europe.