Francoist Spain made use of the CEDI to get in contact with high-ranking persons of the political, military, economic and cultural life from Western Europe and thus end its post-war international isolation.
By preaching the necessity of cultural exchange and the religious unity of the occident, the CEDI aimed at a political, military and economic inclusion of Spain into the beginning process of European Integration.
Besides the Spanish initiators – hereunder Franco’s foreign minister Alberto Martín Artajo, the director of the Institute for Hispanic Culture Alfredo Sánchez Bella and José Ignacio Escobar Kirkpatrick Marqués de Valdeiglesias – there was a strong support for CEDI’s activities in Germany, Austria and France.
Besides the proclaimed Catholic Christian heritage, the traditional connections of the European upper nobility, military contacts and common economic interests, it was above all a virulent anticommunism which was tying together the members of the Documentation Centre.
It seems quite likely that the contacts provided by the Documentation Centre played a not unimportant role in negotiating Britain’s entry into the European Community, since Rippon was the head of the British government’s delegation.