EIGHT

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MIAMI, May 1 2003 (IPS) - On May 9, the European Union commemorates its \”Declaration of Interdependence\”, writes Joaquin Roy, Jean Monnet Professor and Director of the European Union Centre at the University of Miami. In this article for IPS, Roy writes that on that day in 1950, the foundational document of the EU was presented, formulating a unique proposal to pool the coal and steel industries of France and any democratic West European nation. The objective was not to expand free trade but to \’\’make war unthinkable and materially impossible\’\’. Like it or not, the EU is still a French proposal that one cannot refuse and that Germany will by necessity accept. Eight French leaders and statesmen have contributed in their own ways to European integration. The eighth French statesman is President Jacques Chirac. Free from running in the next elections, Chirac has a golden opportunity to lead the way, anchor France at the centre of European integration, serve as a bridge between the \’\’new\’\’ Europe and legitimate national interests, and be faithful to the legacy of Monnet and Schuman.

On May 9, the European Union commemorates its “Declaration of Interdependence”. On that day in 1950, the foundational document of the EU was presented, formulating a unique proposal to pool the coal and steel industries of France and any democratic West European nation. The objective was not to expand free trade, but to “make war unthinkable and materially impossible”.

Robert Schuman, a catholic Foreign Minister of France, citing the words and the spirit of the ideas of the centrist-liberal economic adviser, Jean Monnet, announced in this simple but revolutionary way the beginning of the most successful and peaceful experiment in inter-state cooperation and integration in history — the European Union (EU).

The fact that this project was crafted in the heart of a Europe ravaged by centuries of internal wars, and that it was accepted by Germany, archenemy of France, made the experiment a historic venture.

Like it or not, the EU is still a French proposal that no one, including Germany, can reject.

Eight French leaders and statesmen have contributed in their own ways to European integration. The first was the tireless and ebullient Aristide Briand, a founder of the French Socialist Party who served several times as prime minister. In the turbulent 20s in Europe, witnessing the failure of the post-Versailles world, Briand fought for reconciliation, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926, co-authored a treaty outlawing war that was ratified by 60 nations in 1928, and worked in the League of Nations for disarmament. He then wrote a memorandum calling for the creation of a European Union.

After the near suicide of Europe in World War II, Briand’s call was taken up by Jean Monnet, head of the French economic recovery plan and an admirer of the United States and Franklin Roosevelt, who used his ”arsenal of democracy” slogan in the war against Hitler. Accepting that nothing is possible without the work of people, he insisted that nothing is lasting without the role of institutions. With this idea he inspired Robert Schuman to announce the foundation of the European Community of Coal and Steel, fully anchored in a central institution, the High Authority (today’s Commission of the EU).

Ironically, not happy with the supranational ambitions of the nascent European Community of the Treaty of Rome, General Charles de Gaulle preferred to push for the ”Europe of the Nations” (”patries”, he called them), to reinforce the national role of France, and opposed membership of the United Kingdom. The result was that, slowly and tenaciously, the European institutions survived a long period of euro-scepticism, until the mid-1980s when Europe was readying for the end of the Cold War.

Socialist Jacques Delors, the most influential President of the Commission since Monnet, then assumed the mantle of French leadership in the European Community. He first set the right course with the Single European Act of 1986. This completed economic and social integration and prepared the way for the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 that brought into being the European Union. Delors then created the euro as the common currency, and responded to Henry Kissinger’s demand regarding the development of a European foreign and security policy and the basis for a future European army. France was then led by Francois Mitterrand, a socialist who made a most formidable couple with German Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl.

Europe’s most challenging task was then to tackle the need for institutional reform to prepare for the membership of a dozen new countries, most of which had been previously under Soviet domination. Instead of a series of treaties, it was recognised that Europe needed a real Constitution. A Convention was then convened, and the presidency was entrusted, not by chance, to Valery Giscard d’Estaing. As a conservative French president in the 1970s and a former minister of De Gaulle, he converted the informal gatherings of European heads of government into the pinnacle of the institutions of the EU, the European Council. He has now the challenge of presenting the draft of the new European constitutional treaty.

It will take quite an effort for the eighth distinguished French statesman, the current neo-gaullist conservative president Jacques Chirac, to fill the remaining slot in this French hall of fame. Free from running in the next elections, Chirac has a golden opportunity to lead the way, anchor France at the centre of European integration, serve as a bridge between the “new” Europe and legitimate national interests, and be faithful to the legacy of Monnet and Schuman.(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)