Sonderband 2. International Council on Archives. Dritte Europäische Archivkonferenz, Wien 11. bis 15. Mai 1993. Tagungsprotokolle (1996)

4. Session / Séance. Strategies for Links with Historical Research / Stratégies de Communication envers la Recherche historique - Palayret Jean-Marie: Towards a New History of Europe (integration period) / Pour une nouvelle Histoire européenne. La période de l’intégration) (english 393 - français 413)

4. Session/Séance: Palayret, Towards a new History of Europe

country to Community membership. The reorganization of the archival system, based on regionalization, has somewhat affected transfers from ministerial departments (in particular those foreign affairs and agriculture).

Denmark, which had for many years a very restrictive access system, has sharply liberalized access to the files of the Foreign Ministry and of a number of ministerial departments. On request, archives may be opened, theoretically pursuant to a „Freedom of Information Act“; in practice, access is confined to over thirty years’ old documents.

Let us stress, finally, that the American archives contain voluminous material on European integration. The National Archives hold, in the diplomatic branch and military branch, a number of series concerning the European Recovery Program, NATO and the Western European Union, which may be consulted under the Freedom of Information Act. They reveal the interventionism and sometimes the pro- European activism that American experts and displayed during the negotiations on the Schuman Plan and the (EDC).

The archives of the presidential foundations illustrate the often ambitious policies pursued by each administration in relation to European issues, but also hold private papers of interest for our subject: among these are the archives for the American Committee for a United Europe, deposited at the Hoover Library, Standford, and the papers of John Foster Dulles, George Kennan and Dean Acheson in the Truman Library, Princeton.

The Florence Historical Archives and the Jean Monnet Foundation in Lausanne are at present collaborating on a vast project to collect copies of archives on Jean Monnet Foundation in Lausanne are at present collaborating on a vast project to collect copies of archives on Jean Monnet scattered over the United States.

3. Private Archives of Europeamst Individuals and Pressure Groups

These make it possible first to illustrate the role of pressure groups and movements with a European mission, which between 1945 and the early 1960s were the idea factories on which governments often drew for their integrationist inspiration.

The Florence Historical Archives have specifically oriented their acquisitions policy in this direction:

The European Movement and the European Union of Federalists have deposited their archives here; they are at present in course of classification, but already accessible to bona fide researchers. These private holdings are, however, most often kept by political or university foundations: the Adenauer Stiftung at Sankt Augustin (Bonn) has collected and made available to researchers the archival documents of European associations with a Christian Democratic orientation, like the Nouvelles Equipes internationales (NEI) or the „European Peoples Party“ in the Strasbourg Assembly (EPP). The Kadoc, organized at the University of Louvain, has collected and inventoried the papers of the Ligue europénne de coopération économique (LECE), a pressure group of European employers particularly influential in the years from 1950 to 1970.

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