Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject Economics - History, grade: 1,0, University of Pompeu Fabra, language: English, abstract: This article analyzes the history of European integration from the end of the Second World War until today. It focuses on the di erent enlargement steps and explains why the progressive enlargement of the European community can be understood as a mechanism with challenges and responses to internal and external developments. From this point of view the text has a closer view on the reasons why speci c countries decided to surrender a part of its national sovereignty to a supranational institution within the last sixty years.