After the Second World War, Britain and France have offered their vision of building models of European integration. In September 1946, less than a year and a half after the end of the war, Winston Churchill gave a speech in the University of Zurich, Switzerland. In this speech Churchill called for the unification of the European nations on the basis of Franco-German cooperation. The Council of Europe was established in 1949 under the auspices of the UK on the basis of an intergovernmental approach and was originally aimed at the solution of the German problem by integrating West Germany in the European integration structures. The article deals with the idea of reforming the Council of Europe with a view to align it with the objectives of the British leadership in the field of security and the colonial sphere. The author refers to the history of the organization and shows its evolution from concept to realization. The article shows that the European Council did not become an integration group in the sense that Winston Churchill and other leaders of the federalist movement in Europe saw it. The established organization is the embodiment of the ideas of the British politician only formally, never becoming the basis for the solution of the German problem and never providing the UK's leading role in European and world affairs, as Winston Churchill expected. In this situation, France, represented by general commissary for the French Plan of Modernization and Equipment Jean Monnet, took the lead in the continuation and deepening of the integration process. In 1950 came the famous "Schuman Plan", a year later another project, the "Pleven Plan". The first project led to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. The second project of the European army failed because of the position of France while Britain was interested in the project. This outcome did not stop the French model of integration. Under the conditions of the fledgling "cold war" and the need to address security, the French approach to the integration proved to be viable. Britain, leaving the plans to reform the Council of Europe by the mid-1950s, put forward several notable initiatives in the field of European security, and later in the area of economic integration. However, for various reasons, these projects failed. The success of the French integration model in the form of a supranational organization obscured the British initiative on integration post-war governments put forward in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The growing crisis tendencies in the modern European Union do not exclude the drift of the organization towards the strengthening of intergovernmental elements in its structure. In these circumstances the British ideas about the development of an intergovernmental model of integration can be claimed.
