The Failure of a Grand Design: Mitterrand's European Confederation, 1989–1991

On 31 December 1989, a few weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall, President François Mitterrand of France called for the creation of ‘a European confederation’ designed to ‘associate all states of [the] continent in a common and permanent organisation for exchanges, peace and security’. Yet less than eighteen months later the Confederation project, a major initiative for post-Yalta Europe, had collapsed. What were Mitterrand's objectives? What were the modalities of the project, and how was it conducted? And why did it fail in the end, after having raised much hope?