The book describes the competition of social democratic, Christ democratic und socialist parties in West-Germany and Italy after World War II in European policy. In the context of the framework of the Cold War and the consolidation of the national political systems the author examines how political parties take position in confront of the first steps of the European integration, which strategies they followed and which ideas of Europe the politicians dealt with. The analysis incorporates related policy fields and semantic fields of Europe incorporating the international and national situation and also the situations within the parties. The study shows, how and why the competition of the parties was at the beginning controversial and why competition diminished. The thesis ends with the end of the era of Adenauer in West-Germany and the first centro-sinistra government under Aldo Moro in Italy.
