This dissertation, ""Mental Bloc" Western European Constructions of Eastern Europe and the Integration Project, 1945 to 2002, With Particular Reference to Germany, France and United Kingdom" by On-ki, Li, 李安琪, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Abstract of the thesis entitled 'Mental Bloc': Western European Constructions of Eastern Europe and the Integration Project, 1945 to 2002, with particular reference to Germany, France and United Kingdom Submitted by LiOnKi for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Hong Kong in December 2003 The end of the Second World War marked the beginning of the division of the European Continent between an Eastern bloc organized along Communist lines and a Western Europe in which democracy was reborn. For decades, two Europes lived side by side, as the Cold War froze them into two solidified blocs. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 reopened the question of the Eastern limits of Europe for the Western European countries (integrated into the EU) and culminated in steps toward EU enlargement in the 1990s. This thesis argues that, even though it was commonly believed that the division between Eastern and Western Europe would be permanent, Western European leaders were continuously involved in rethinking relations with Eastern bloc countries after 1945. This study examines West European politicians' conceptualizations of Eastern Europe in the period during which a united Europe was constructed, from 1945-2002. The examination of perceptions is based on the official responses from leaders of Britain, France and West Germany (before 1989, the FRG) to particular events occurring in the satellite states of the Soviet Union. The timeframe covered in the study is divided into three periods: (a) the 1940s and 1950s; (b) the 1960s and 1970s;and (c) 1980 onwards. For the first period, the analysis studies Western policymakers' views of Eastern Europe in the negotiation process of the Marshall Plan in 1947 and the Communist expansionist actions in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and Hungary in 1956. It considers how, during the 1960s to 1970s, Western European statesmen's attitudes changed toward the East during the Neue Ostpolitik period (West Germany's foreign policy toward Eastern European countries from the late 1960s to the early 1970s). It also examines how in the 1980s, and after, the focus of the political leaders of Britain, France and West Germany changed with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The moments when the legislative framework shaped in the 1990s for enlarging the EU membership to the former Soviet Union satellites are also examined. This research aims to suggest that on the western side of the Iron Curtain some Western European statesmen continued to think about an undivided Europe and modified their policies toward the 'other' Europe. In the immediate postwar years of 1945-1947, there was continual discussion of including the Eastern European countries in the reconstruction of Europe, though progressively this enthusiasm diminished as the Soviet control strengthened from 1948 to 1956. In the years when the Cold War freeze gave way to detente, the FRG carried out a rapprochement policy to the Eastern European states through economic and cultural connections. This study aims to contribute to the field by offering a different viewpoint from other studies, which have focused on the West European integration process but have ignored the influence which perceptions of Eastern Europe had on Western European government policies toward the East and on the integration process itself. (483 words)