Dutch ambitions for post-war Europe thrived within the wider goal of constructing a transatlantic free-trade zone in the wake of the establishment of the Bretton Woods system (1944). In the late 1940s, The Hague’s European and foreign policy focused on economic cooperation within the framework of the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation (OEEC), the multilateral organisation linked to the Marshall Plan. This transatlantic arena had been created after the launch of the Plan in 1947 by energetic American diplomacy strongly promoting European integration to tackle the German question in light of the unfolding Cold War.