The idea of an united Europe regards the creation of an unique State or federation of States, that somebody calls United States of Europe, to follow the model of the United States of America or, also, of Canada.
The definition of what appeared only an impossible dream, before the tragedy of the II W.W., dates back to the end of the XIX century among some "idealist" intellectuals and politicians.

After the I W.W., that was the first technological war, supported by industry and science and reached an absolute record of about 10 millions of victims, the European integration was considered the only way to avoid another massacre like that due to nationalism, that is the political ambition to expand the influence of every State politically and economically, at the expense of other nations, considered weak and not important; just the wild law of "Big fish eats little fish".

The competition among the greatest powers (Germany, France, U.K., Italy, Russia, Austria-Hungary, until 1918 and, then, the new nations born from the dissolution of the last two empires), was continue, at every level.
Also moving from a Country to another was difficult and passports and visas were always necessary.

Regarding economy, every Country followed protectionist policies to defend their own industry and agriculture, while common rules and standards for production and commerce of identical goods didn't exist.
So, commerce was more and more complicate and slow across the various borders that goods had to pass within Europe to arrive from producers to consumers.
Just the much greater industrial production of the last half of the the XIX century had increased the amounts of goods that had to circulate, keeping still too high their costs, also for the long times to conclude all paper-works and controls at the land frontiers and in the harbours.

So, the most democratic politicians of Europe, after the I W.W., were more and more convinced also of the necessity of integrating all their Countries economically, at first, because this was correctly considered the easiest target and, afterward, politically, given that just at this last level, the deepest differences existed.

But nationalism and imperialism remained too strong between the two World Wars, until the immense, total tragedy of 1939-45, when the totalitarian Nazi and Fascist regimes tried to submit the whole Europe, with the excuse of their deep dissatisfaction for how Germany and Italy were treated after the Versailles

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