Dr. Walter Hallstein, former president of the European Economic Community said:

“Three phases of the European unification are to be noted. First, the customs union, second, the economic union, third, the political union … what we have created on the way to uniting Europe is a mighty economic-political union of which nothing may be sacrificed for any reason. Its value exists not only in what it is, but more in what it promises to become … We may fully expect the great fusion of all economic military, and political communities together into the United States of Europe.”