Economic and Technical co-operation?: Written on 9 May, even if it only reached the readers a view days later, this commentary has one only goal: to reaffirm, with the texts to back, to what extent the "Schuman Declaration" of 9 May 1950 had substance and political objectives. Banality? I also thought that. But for some time now, at times leading politicians have proclaimed being the inventors of political Europe and are happy to state that the first community only had an economic goal: coal and steel, do you understand, at the service of large industrialists and banks.
We could shrug before such ignorance and stupidity. But unfortunately one sentence along those lines remained in the "Laeken Declaration", text that is now part of the history of Europe. Here it is: "The European Union was created gradually. In the beginning, it was above all a question of economic and technological co-operation" . Guy Verhofstadt's initial draft added that "at the time Europe was tentatively seeking its way". Ah, that poor Jean Monnet, those poor Schuman and Adenauer, De Gasperi and Spaak, who did not know really what to do! Fortunately, half a century later, the successors of these finicky people had illumination: and if we had a Europe with apolitical objective?
Coal and steel, the basics for weapons: But the Jean Monnet Foundation exists and it has re-published a fact-simile of a magnificent book ("A change in hope", Lausanne, 9 My 2000)., the documentation on the 9 May declaration. Let's look deeper, without superfluous comments, into these texts that cannot be browsed without emotion. At the beginning of 1950, Jean Monnet already knew what he wanted: "make
Europe, that is only possible if the different countries agree to reduce their own sovereignty and create an international authority that can take decisions that countries will have to carry out" (letter of 24 February). He then added: "It's obviously an excessively difficult task". Jean Monnet wanted to act very quickly, so did he fear that the Cold War should degenerate into an open war. On 1 and 3 May he sent French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman two notes in which we read: "the course of events need changing (…) There needs to be immediate action that changes something essential, in-depth, real, immediate action (…) There is no need to settle the German problem that cannot be settled with the way things currently stand. That needs changing". (Note of 1 May). "It is not the addition of united sovereignties in council that creates and entity. Europe will probably have to be created, that manifests itself to itself and to American opinion, and that has faith in its own future". (note of 3 May). The vision on a united Europe was thus already there: the problem was to begin by immediately doing something concrete, involving from the outset the creation of a supranational institution and a common parliamentary assembly. The choice of coal and steel (at the time, steel represented the basis for weapons, and coal was necessary to make steel) was therefore functional, a means of launching a large scale process, by imagining totally new institutions already sketched out in April by Paul Reuter and Etienne Hirsch, according to Jean Monnet himself) to place in common the armaments base.
The 9 May declaration had nine successive versions. The final text states: "The contribution that an organised and living Europe may provide to civilisation is essential for the maintenance of peaceful relations (…) Europe will not be made in one go, nor in a construction of a whole: it will become so by concrete achievements first and de facto solidarity (…) The French Government proposes placing all the Franco-German coal and steel production under a common High Authority, in an organisation open to the participation of other countries of Europe."
Looking a bit further. At 18.00 hrs. on 9 May, Robert Schuman announced France's initiative by a one and a half oral speech: "There is no longer question of empty words but hardy act, a constructive act. France has acted and the consequences of its action may be immense. We hope they will be. It has essentially acted for peace. For peace to have its real chance, there has first to be a Europe (…). France is accomplishing the first decisive act for European construction, and has associated Germany. European conditions must find themselves totally altered. This alteration will render other common actions so far impossible possible".
Those who understood. That same evening, at 20.00 hrs., Konrad Adenauer held a press conference in the presence (exceptional fact) of all the ministers of his government to announce the French offer and his positive reaction. In the Benelux countries, victims of wars imposed on them, the emotion was at it highest. Paul Henri Spaak read the declaration attentively and, filled with emotion, simply limited himself to murmuring: "I wish I had written it". Max Kohnstamm admits to have been like "thunderstruck". For Joseph Bech, it was a question of "life or death". Their accession to n enterprise that guaranteed peace was immediate". In addition, they understood that "small countries will weigh more in a community organisation of the continent applying the principle of equality before the common law than in a system based on inter-State co-operation". Italy's accession was announced as early as 10 My by a declaration by Count Sforza, Foreign Minister. Italy was obviously little concerned by Rhine and Northern coal and steel interests, but Alcide De Gasperi, immediately saw that it as a creation of a "Community uniting the two major components of Europe of all times, the Mediterranean and the Rhine, further to the north of the Continent".
The non-participation of the United Kingdom was practically accepted from 14 may. Jean Monnet understood the British attitude. According to Lord Plowden, he is said to have said to him: "All the countries of Europe, except for the neutral ones, have been occupied by enemy armies. Tht is why we are prepared to change our institutions. You, in the United Kingdom, you have won a war and are not really ready: but you will come back to it". Jean Monnet had at the same time stressed that he was anyway decided to move forward without the British; "the project needed putting in motion, create a kind of de facto policy: once that achieved, the British would join the enterprise".
The experts in their place. On 23 May, Jean Monnet set out the pan for an Allied High Commission, in Peterseberg (thus, with the participation of the Americans and the British), stressing notably that "the realisation of the Schuman Plan would render war impossible between the countries of Western Europe" and placing emphasis on the social aspect of the enterprise, with adjustment and re-conversion funds. The plan had to take the form of a Treaty, and even for that aspect Jean Monnet had clear ideas over the priority of the political aspect: "We do not, from the outset, be surrounded by experts and be paralysed by their inevitable objections. We shall set them a goal and they will have the means to reach it: they are there for that": And already he placed emphasis on the need that the members of the High Authority be "independent people".
An emotional meeting: The same day, Jean Monnet met Konrad Adenauer in Bonn. The report of this meeting is in the Foundation's book. It is Jean Monnet who is speaking: "coal and steel played an essential role as they affected the problem of security and provided the means to trigger passed conflicts. These heavy industries were linked in public opinion to the idea of war. To turn them to the common good would allow to alter this psychological climate. On this, Monnet stressed that, if Europe no longer wasted its energy in internal conflicts, it would attain a particularly high standard of living: it would take on a leading role that, from an intellectual point of view and from the point of view of civilisation, it already had in the world and had again to have. The French proposal was therefore, in its inspiration, essentially political. It also can be said that it had a moral aspect.
The answer of the German Chancellor is simple in its form: "Mr. Adenauer declared that he too envisaged this enterprise from its most elevated aspects, like an enterprise of a m moral order. Interested governments must not be so concerned with the technical responsibilities towards their people as to the moral responsibilities of vast hopes that this proposal raises (…). If we manage a satisfactory solution to the problems of coal and steel, the atmosphere of fear that still prevails will be dissipated and a solid basis will be offered for the European edifice. The chancellor makes a point of declaring that by associating itself with the enterprise being envisaged, his government and his country would have no hegemonic after-thought. History has taught how such vague desires are vain (….). ending, the Chancellor declares that he considers the achievement of the French plan as the most important task imposed on him. Should he manage it, he considers that he will not have wasted his life."
Facing the Cathedral of Reims….After the meeting, the Chancellor called on a senior French official to deliver a final message: "would you please tell Mr. Monnet that when he proposed his project to me I thanked God". A few years later, the following letter was addressed to Cognac, Paris: "Mr. Europe Jean Monnet. As former sub-officer in the Prussian army, I prayed in 1916 in my hole as infantry soldier in front of the Cathedral of Reims for the Saviour to manage to reconcile our to peoples to end this terrible massacre. You have now accomplished that task and I thank you".
I have nothing to add, other than to pay tribute to Henri Rieben and his team who brought together these papers in which I delved to draw up this small summary of what the "Laeken Declaration" is, drawn up under the responsibility of Guy Verhofstadt and signed end 2001 by fifteen Heads of Stare and Government, to define "economic and technical co-operation".
(F.R.)