12/09/2003 (Agence Europe) - At the conference organised in Scy-Chazelles on 6 September to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Robert Schuman's death (see Europe of 30 August, p.9), Paul Collowald, erstwhile Director General of Information at the European Parliament, discussed Robert Schuman's ideas today. He pointed out their continuing validity, citing the foreign minister who, in outlining the Schuman Declaration to the media at the Quai d'Orsay (Paris) on 9 May 1950, said the French government's proposal was open to all countries in Europe, both west and east. Paul Collowald said that in a document printed in 1963 in the France Forum magazine, Robert Schuman had written that peoples to the east should welcomed in Europe and once they shake off the subjection to which they still suffer, they will ask use to join. We should be prepared, he said. Celebrating the bicentenary of the American Declaration of Independence in 1976, Collowald said the President of the European Commission, Jean Rey, had commented that they would one day create the United States of Europe and would go to visit the tomb of Robert Schuman and visit his house in Scy-Chazelles, the way people in the US go to visit George Washington's house in Mount Vernon. While waiting for that day, no doubt a long way off still, said Collowald, we should prepare a genuine European spring with a good party on 9 May 2004, not just in Scy-Chazelles but in the entire "reconstituted Europe", to use Robert Schuman's pretty phrase.