The Treaty of Dunkirk was signed on 4 March 1947, between France and the United Kingdom in Dunkirk (France) as a Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance against a possible German attack in the aftermath of World War II. It entered into force on 8 September 1947 and according with article VI paragraph 2 of its text it remained in force for a period of fifty years.
| Treaty of Alliance and Mutual Assistance between the United Kingdom and France | |
|---|---|
| Type | Mutual defence treaty |
| Signed | 4 March 1947 |
| Location | Dunkirk, France |
| Effective | 8 September 1947 |
| Expiration | 8 September 1997 |
| Parties | |
| Languages | English and French |
| Full text | |
 Treaty of Dunkirk at Wikisource | |
According to Marc Trachtenberg, the German threat was a pretext for defense against the USSR.[1]
This Treaty preceded the Treaty of Brussels of 1948 (also known as "Brussels Pact"), which established the Western Union among Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, that became Western European Union in 1955, after the entry into force of the Treaty of Brussels of 1954 (also known as "Modified Brussels Treaty (MBT)"), when Italy and West Germany were admitted.
Since the end of World War II, sovereign European countries have entered into treaties and thereby co-operated and harmonised policies (or pooled sovereignty) in an increasing number of areas, in the European integration project or the construction of Europe (French: la construction européenne). The following timeline outlines the legal inception of the European Union (EU)—the principal framework for this unification. The EU inherited many of its present responsibilities from the European Communities (EC), which were founded in the 1950s in the spirit of the Schuman Declaration.
| Legend: S: signing F: entry into force T: termination E: expiry de facto supersession Rel. w/ EC/EU framework: de facto inside outside |  European Union (EU) | [Cont.] | ||||||||||||||||
| European Communities (EC) | (Pillar I) | |||||||||||||||||
| European Atomic Energy Community (EAEC or Euratom) | [Cont.] | |||||||||||||||||
 /  /  /  European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) | ||||||||||||||||||
| European Economic Community (EEC) | ||||||||||||||||||
| Schengen Rules | European Community (EC) | |||||||||||||||||
| 'TREVI' | Justice and Home Affairs (JHA, pillar II) | |||||||||||||||||
 /  North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) | [Cont.] | Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters (PJCC, pillar II) | ||||||||||||||||
  Anglo-French alliance | [Defence arm handed to NATO] | European Political Co-operation (EPC) | Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP, pillar III) | |||||||||||||||
 Western Union (WU) |  /  Western European Union (WEU) | [Tasks defined following the WEU's 1984 reactivation handed to the EU] | ||||||||||||||||
| [Social, cultural tasks handed to CoE] | [Cont.] | |||||||||||||||||
| Council of Europe (CoE) | ||||||||||||||||||
Entente Cordiale S: 8 April 1904 | Davignon report S: 27 October 1970 | European Council conclusions S: 2 December 1975 | ||||||||||||||||
See also
References
Further reading
