The European Union: roots in the past,

presence into the future

Incorporating a slideshow collaboration of the Delegation of the European Commission in Singapore, the Embassies of Austria, Germany, Hungary and Poland

and the EU Centre in Singapore. 1

A/P Barnard Turner, EU Centre in Singapore and NUSeuctbe@nus.edu.sg ellturne@nus.edu.sg

Some general points • From intergovernmentalist cooperation/bilateralism to a pooling

or delegation of sovereignty;– “removing the hyphen”;– Not a fruit salad, an ice cream sundae;

• From peace to prosperity to community;• Not to find national interests raised to a higher level, but “to find

one’s own advantages in the common advantage” Jean Monnet, 1950 Mémoires p. 466;

• A collusion of opposites (France/Germany; capitalism/socialism)• Different types of countries:

– Large, small, some with extensive colonies, some which had known unification only for a few generations, some which had been swept from the map for generations, etc.

• A self-help organisation;• The acquis communautaire:

– EU laws etc that must be accepted before a country can join;– These currently run to about 70 million words (about 700

novel length texts)

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Political, economic, military?• At the earliest period (1950s), the economic and the military/pacific were

conjoined:– Time overlap of the Schuman Plan (the European Coal and Steel

Community, a great success) and the Pleven Plan (a European Defence Community—unsuccessful, as the UK opted out and France [Gaullists] thought it would infringe French sovereignty);

– Coal and Steel Community would guard against future wars;• Around 2000, academics talked of the EU as a “normative” power, but

this is now being reassessed;• The EU has today accumulated credentials from many peace-keeping and

monitoring missions, and the envisaged high representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy (merging two current posts) if/when the Lisbon Treaty is passed will consolidate the external political and the quasi-military.

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Jean Monnet (1888-1979)

• One of the originators of the current Union:– He and his collaborators largely wrote what has become known as the

Schuman Declaration (ECSC), May 9th 1950;• A gradualist;• Saw nationalism as a great threat to peace (must be seen in context);• “prosper thy neighbor” as part of enlightened self-interest (particularly now that

globalization might founder on transport cost, both purely economic and environmental);

• Thought that European union (the strategy) :– Was only a stage to a greater unity (but not neo-colonialism);– Could not be accomplished without the US and the UK.

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Monnet cognac poster c. 1927

Jean and Silvia Monnet mid 1930s(looks like a Cointreau bottle if I’m not mistaken)

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Robert Schuman (right), French Finance Minister, and Winston Spencer Churchill, Bastille Day, 1946

Jean Monnet (left) and President of the European Parliamentary Assembly Robert Schuman 1959

6Source: Robert Schuman, Pour L’Europe (Paris: Nagel, 1963)

Some steps: prehistory– 1943: Jean Monnet, in Algiers, writes several “notes” to himself:– peace cannot be assured through sovereign nations; – European nations too “étroits” (“narrow”) to assure prosperity, need to combine to

make larger markets (ie internal not external trade, little consciousness here of globalisation in the contemporary sense);

– “ultimate goal” is a worldwide “organisation of the world” to assure the “maximum development of its resources” and “equitable distribution” across humankind;

• 1948: Winston Churchill presides over a conference in the Hague, Netherlands which resolves:

– “to create a n economic and political union”;– That it is now time for nations to “transfer and merge some portion of their sovereign

rights”;– That the Union should help the development of the ex-colonies ;– That an assembly (the current European Parliament) be established “to stimulate and

give expression to European public opinion”;– That a Charter of Human Rights be drawn up and a European Court established;– That “the creation of a United Europe is an essential element in the creation of a united

world”;– Although Jean Monnet (Mémoires 394), in Washington at the time, says he didn’t pay

much attention to this, the elements of his future project are clear.7

Post WW2 Western unity (?)The US Marshall Plan (1947) 1948: contrary to Bretton Woods (1944)

agreements, France devalues the franc

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Some steps: the very beginnings• 1950s--: the “Europe of the Six”:“Fritalux” or “Finabel” plus Germany;• Coal and steel community (ECSC

1952+); • Nuclear energy (EURATOM 1957+); • 1957: The Treaty (or more precisely

the Treaties) of Rome: European Economic Community (EEC) the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM);

• Why these industries? Same answer as in 2009.

• A confederation rather than a federation as such;

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The first steel ingot from the ECSC production, 1953

The immediate post-WW2 context:

The “iron curtain” and the cold war• Winston Churchill’s March 1946 speech in Fulton Missouri on

“the sinews of peace”;– “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron

curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia, all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and, in many cases, increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

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Both Germany and the once (and current) capital Berlin were divided

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The “Cold War” (end WW2-1989)

• Capitalist West vs. Socialist East;• Guided (“invisible” [Adam Smith]) hand of the

market, individualism etc. vs. centralised planning;

• Divergent increases in productivity, innovation, etc.;

• East obliged to constantly play “catch up”;• Nuclear arsenals (Warsaw Pact 1955-);

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The "Heiliger Geist" (Holy Spirit) Church at Osterberg was split by the border between Slovenia and Austria, countries on opposite sides of the “Iron Curtain.” Photo: Kurt Kaindl. 14

“Wir hauen alle ab – zum Strand von Tunix." Stefan König.The beginnings of 21st-century climate change movement? Tunix-Congress January 1978 in the TU Berlin: Aussteiger, Flipper, Spontis; among them, later General Secretary of the SPD Peter Glotz, and related figures, Joschka Fischer, later German Foreign Minister and Daniel Cohn-Bendit, MEP. http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/authoralbumbackground/1287/auf_zum_strand_von_tunix.html

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August 1980: Gdańsk, northern Poland, the beginnings of the Solidarność (Solidarity) movement; former electrician Lech Wałęsa speaks at the shipyard entrance during the strike. photo: Karta 1

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1980: “The strike continues…..only solidarity and endurance will assure us of victory.” “Justice and equality for the whole nation” photo: Z. Mista

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Mass at the shipyard photo: G.Nawrocki

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August 1980: A historic moment - for the first time a representative of the Communist party agreed to negotiate with the opposition. Lech Wałęsa escorts Deputy Prime Minister Mieczysław Jagielski to negotiations in Gdańsk. photo: Z.Trybek/Karta 19

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End August 1980: Wałęsa celebrates the government’s acceptance of the first point in Solidarity’s 21 demands on trade unions. “If everything goes well, we really want to go to work on Monday, but we really must have everything in black on white.” Lech Wałęsaphoto: S.Składanowski /Karta

Women and children to the front: protest march against food shortages, July 1981.

One of Solidarity’s 21 demands of August 1980 was “A sufficient number of places in nursery schools for children of working mothers.” Photo: J.Fila/Forum 21

“Solidarity” survived martial law and reprisals, becoming a catalyst for profound political transformations in the eastern bloc in 1989, especially for a whole new generation (photo: T. Kizny/NAF Dementi). 22

February 1989: The “Round Table” (Okrągły Stół ) negotiations in Warsaw which paved the way for changes elsewhere and for Lech Wałęsa to become Polish President. Photo: PAP.

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Wałęsa won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1983, and was President of Poland from 1990 to 1995.

“Solidarity” activist Jerzy Burek later became Polish Prime Minister, and is now (2009) President of the European Parliament

BRD [“West German”] German Chancellor Helmut Kohl (right) meets with DDR [“East German]” leader Erich Honecker in 1987:

“We want peace in Germany, and to this end on the border weapons should be silenced for good.” Helmut Kohl

25http://www.chronik-der-mauer.de/index.php/de/Start/Detail/id/659562/item/5/page/0 (no copyright there)

June 12, 1987, President Reagan speaks at the Brandenburg Gate, West Berlin:“Mr Gorbachev, tear down this Wall.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tear_down_this_wall26

July 1987: a survey in the BRD (West Germany) reveals that only 7% thought they would live to see reunification; only 8% thought it possible in the 20th century.

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Dismantling of the electronic signal system at the Hungary-Austria border (2nd May 1989)

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Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn and his Austrian counterpart Alois Mock symbolically cutting the barbed wire at the Hungary-Austria border at Sopron/St Margarethen im Burgenland(Photo: Károly Matusz, MTI, 27th June 1989) 29

Peaceful demonstration in central Budapest for the dismantling of the Berlin Wall on the 28th anniversary of its building (Photo: László Varga, MTI, 13th August 1989)

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The “pan-European picnic” near Sopron, organised by Otto von Habsburg, president of the International Paneuropean Union, and Hungarian Secretary of State Imre Pozsgay. East Germans crossing the border from Hungary to Austria as it is opened (Photo: Károly Matusz, MTI, 19th August 1989) 31

23rd Oct. 1989, Budapest: Proclamation of the “Republic of Hungary.”

„Now . . . we ring in a change through the creation of a free democratic Hungary....We are developing our relations to the east and the west in a balanced way and thereby contribute to the unification of Europe, to the creation of security and to the solution of world problems.“ Mátyás Szűrös, Speaker of Parliament, interim President 32

August 23 1989: 2 million people form the “Baltic Way” across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in an expression of regional solidarity in the USSR.http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/lt/thumb/3/37/Baltijos_kelias.jpg/450px-Baltijos_kelias.jpg

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September 1989: the grounds of the BRD (“West German”) embassy in Prague are occupied by Germans from the DDR (“East Germany”); at month’s end, BRD Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher addresses them: “We have come to tell you that today your departure…” The rest of the sentence is drowned in cheers. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh9EwNurawE#watch-main-areaThey are now free to board trains to the BRD. 34

7 October 1989: Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev visits the DDR for its 40th anniversary celebrations. “those who come late will be punished by history” (Mikhail Gorbachev)

35http://www.eastgermany.info/gorhon.jpg (no copyright there)

7th October 1989, “an ecologically oriented social democracy”: the refounding of the Social Democratic Party in the DDR (East Germany) in the rectory at Schwante near Berlin; an early member, Wolfgang Thierse, later (1998-2005) became President of the German Bundestag http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sozialdemokratische_Partei_in_der_DDR

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“We are the people!”: A “Monday demonstration” as held throughout the DDR in autumn 1989

„We all need a free exchange of views about the future development of socialism in our country.“The conductor Kurt Masur, at the demonstration in Leipzig, October 9, 1989.

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Mass Demonstration on the Alexanderplatz in East Berlin (4th November 1989)

Called by an “initiative group” of the DDR’s leading theatre, the Berliner Ensemble, and gathering actors, writers and some politicians; calls for free elections among other things.

38Photo: http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/staedtebau-projekte/alexanderplatz/en/geschichte/nachkriegsplanungen/seite4.shtml (no copyright details given there)

Cheering Berliners on the Wall at Brandenburg Gate (November 9, 1989)

„The opening of the Wall . . . was for the DDR [East Germany] what the storming of the Bastille on the 14th July 1789 was for the French ancien régime.“ German historian Heinrich August Winkler

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“A great day for freedom”: Berlin, 10 November 1989

“Now grows together what belongs together”Willy Brandt, West German Chancellor 1969–1974

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Throughout November 1989, the “Velvet Revolution” in Czechoslovakia; on November 17th, large demonstration in Prague to mark International Students’ Day. In December, absurdist playwright and Charter 77 dissident Václav Havel becomes President. Photo: memorial in Prague commemorating the events of November 17th 1989; hands displaying the “V for Victory” sign

Summer 2003: the Potsdamer Platz building complex at a former no-man’s land of the Berlin Wall.

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“More light, more light” and transparency: inside the cupola of the reconceptualised German Bundestag, June 2000

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Remains of the Iron Curtain close to Cizov, Czech Republic Photo: Kurt Kaindl.

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The cyclist in the sand dunes of the Baltic Sea marks the exact spot where the former Iron Curtain began (or ended), in the sea. Photo: Kurt Kaindl.

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May 1st 2004: ten countries, the majority of them from the east of the “Iron Curtain,” join the EU.An “historic achievement . . . the end of a long process that began for most in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall” (EC website)

United in Diversity: the EU today

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http://www.eucenter.bilkent.edu.tr/sol/1infoeu/eu.htm http://www.deljpn.ec.europa.eu/about/showpage_en_union.history_and_development.php

Acknowledgements

• Photographs etc. as supplied by the Delegation of the European Commission to Singapore and the respective embassies, supplemented by those in the public domain (from Wikipedia, etc.) and from the curator’s own collection.

• Also:• Slide 14:

http://einestages.spiegel.de/static/authoralbumbackground/1287/auf_zum_strand_von_tunix.html (no copyright details given)

• Slide 37: http://www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/planen/staedtebau-projekte/alexanderplatz/en/geschichte/nachkriegsplanungen/seite4.shtml (no copyright details given there)

• Efforts have been made to acknowledge copyright. E&OE.

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