In this article, we argue that an analysis of the conflict around the nature and limits of European integration that arose between Catholic and Protestant Christian Democrats in the post-war era can shed new light on the expansionary dynamics that gradually came to characterize the project of European integration. Catholic Christian Democrats framed the unification of Europe as a relatively exclusionary cultural-civilizational endeavour, while Protestant Christian Democrats favoured a more inclusive conception of Europe that prioritised free trade over cultural homogeneity. Focusing specifically on Germany, we suggest that the eventual resolution of the intra-party struggle between the two camps in the early 1970s was a crucial enabler for including more and more countries into the European project. For it was only thereafter that Catholic Christian Democrats began supporting the expansion of European integration beyond the core Europe of the original Six, with geopolitical concerns gradually crowding out cultural ones.

中文翻译：

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欧洲在哪里结束？基督教民主与欧洲的扩张*

在本文中，我们认为，对战后天主教和新教基督教民主党之间围绕欧洲一体化的性质和局限性所发生的冲突进行分析，可以为逐渐成为欧洲一体化计划特征的扩张动力提供新的启示。欧洲一体化。天主教基督教民主党将欧洲的统一视为一种相对排斥的文化-文明努力，而基督教基督教民主党则支持更具包容性的欧洲概念，即优先考虑自由贸易而不是文化同质性。特别针对德国，我们建议最终解决 1970 年代初期两个阵营之间的党内斗争是将越来越多的国家纳入欧洲项目的关键推动因素。