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Capturing the Conservatives. What now makes the Common Market more appealing to some Britons—its present lack of supranational goals—should presumably make it unattractive to those who dreamed of a united Europe. In fact, most of them are thoroughly content with cooperative unity. Says Walter Hallstein: ."Perhaps it's common sense to do it this way because we are dealing with conservative forces." And by capturing the conservatives, advocates of European unity have destroyed the most effective argument against them—the charge that a man cannot be a good European and a French or German patriot at the same time.
Besides, the original dream is not dead; it is only seen to be more evolutionary, just as the German nation ultimately emerged out of the North German customs union. And even such an ardent supranationalist as Monnet is now inclined to believe that a European federation, if it comes, will spring from a gradual change in the habits, tastes and prejudices of Europe's peoples. It no longer takes the huffing of a Stalin or the threats of a Khrushchev to make Western Europeans unite naturally.