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The study deals with the British attitude to economic integration of Western Europe in the years of 1945-1951; especially with the analysis of factors which were shaping British relationship to postwar efforts to economic cooperation in Western Europe and with the analysis of reasons that led to the British reluctance to become one of the founding members of the European Coal and Steel Community. The aim is to point to the fact that the British attitude to economic integration was not negative and British decision not being involved to closer forms of economic cooperation limiting national decision-making powers was not decision arising primarily from a distrust of process of economic integration in Western Europe nor from the unwillingness to accept the change of British international status in post-war World. Research conducted by the analysis of British economic development in the years 1945-1951proves that the reasons for the British refusal were primarily economic in nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]