In the Intervention section Dieter Krüger analyzes the background of the Cold War, when the west European national states as well as the USA and Canada sought to assert their national security-political interests through the various institutions of European cooperation (Marshall Plan, NATO, European Coal and Steel Community, EEC, etc.). NATO in particular relieved the Europeans from the pressure for political integration. As a result, the EEC/EC adopted its institutional form which in its essence is currently still in force today. Meanwhile, the UE has been expanded to 27 members and seems hardly capable of acting within its traditional structures of political decision-making, whose reform is now on the agenda.