Читать книгу European Integration - Mark Gilbert - Страница 24

The OEEC was not regarded as a pan-European political institution by true believers in the cause of European unity. They were mindful of Seeley’s admonition against mere intergovernmentalism. Robert Marjolin’s mentor was Jean Monnet, a French international civil servant who was the architect of the postwar French economic plan and an advocate of greater European unity since the time of Briand. Monnet regarded the OEEC as a “watered down British approach to Europe—talk, consultation, action only by unanimity.”⁴¹ It was no way to make Europe, Monnet believed. Marjolin sharply disagreed, believing that the concept of nationality would not be displaced merely by creating new institutions.

In the long run, Marjolin would be proved right. Far from abolishing national sovereignty, the process of European integration has actually demonstrated its remarkable tenacity. At the time, however, he was in a minority among intellectuals, most of whom were gung ho for greater political unity as soon as possible. By 1946, every country in Western Europe could boast a federalist movement of greater or lesser size: some countries, notably France, had more than one. In April 1947, these bodies federated themselves into the Union Européenne des Fédéralistes (UEF). The new association, which had a collective membership of some 150,000 people, declared its purpose was “to work for the creation of a European federation which shall be a constitutive element of a world federation.”⁴² As this declaration suggests, the UEF was not without its utopian aspects. Its main goal, however, was one that inspired intellectuals all over the continent in the early months of the Cold War—the creation of a European “Third Force” that could act as a bridge between Soviet communism and the Western European tradition of democratic socialism.⁴³ Intellectuals in all of the major Western European nations contended that a European federation offered the opportunity of building a progressive socialism that would assuage Soviet fears of capitalist aggression and would, over time, lead to totalitarian and federalist forms of socialism, converging into a single democratic model.

Some left-wing intellectuals—the British novelist and political writer George Orwell and Altiero Spinelli being the most famous examples—were less optimistic about relations between a United States of Europe, even one that followed socialist precepts, and Soviet totalitarianism. Spinelli, breaking decisively with the two mass parties of the Italian left (the Communists and the Socialists), was arguing by 1947 that the Soviet Union regarded Western Europe as a “vital space” that it was hoping to “exploit” economically to relieve the Soviet people’s misery. The United States, by contrast, while it possessed “imperialist temptations and ambitions,” also possessed a “sincere desire” to see Europe emerge as an independent liberal state. Spinelli contended on many occasions that the shortsighted nationalism of Europe’s leaders, who refused to admit that the day of independent nation-states was over, was the main cause of their increasing subordination to Washington.⁴⁴

Federalist ideas might nevertheless have remained isolated in an intellectual ghetto had it not been for the intervention of Winston Churchill, the internationally renowned British war leader whose Conservative Party had been defeated in the general elections of July 1945. At the University of Zurich on September 19, 1946, Churchill argued that the countries of Western Europe should “re-create the European family, or as much of it as we can . . . we must build a kind of United States of Europe.” According to Churchill, the rock upon which this new federation should be founded was not Britain—“We British have our Commonwealth of Nations . . . why should there not be a European group which could give a sense of enlarged patriotism and common citizenship to the distracted peoples of this turbulent and mighty continent”—but a “partnership between France and Germany.” This was the only way, Churchill thought, that France could “recover the moral leadership of Europe.”⁴⁵ Subsequently, in May 1947, Churchill became the founder of the United Europe Movement (UEM).⁴⁶ Its three thousand members included numerous MPs, especially Conservatives, and many prominent academics, journalists, and clergymen. Relations with the UEF were not easy at first. Whereas the UEF saw European federalism as an opportunity to reassure the Soviets, the UEM regarded it as a way of reinforcing Europe’s ability to resist the encroachments of the USSR. Nevertheless, together with several other influential movements such as the French Council for a United Europe, the European Parliamentary Union, the Economic League for European Cooperation, and the Christian Democrat Nouvelles Équipes Internationales, the two principal associations agreed in December 1947 to form a coordinating committee that would hold a “Congress of Europe” at The Hague (the Netherlands).⁴⁷

The Congress, which was attended by over 700 dignitaries—including 200 parliamentary deputies—from every free country in Europe, took place in May 1948 in the aftermath of the Soviet takeover of Czechoslovakia in February 1948 and the ideologically charged elections in Italy in April. In addition to Churchill, the Christian Democrat prime ministers of Italy (Alcide De Gasperi) and France (Georges Bidault) attended, as did such statesmen as Léon Blum, the Socialist prewar premier of the Popular Front government in France; Paul Reynaud, the last premier of France before the Nazi victory; and Paul Van Zeeland, a Princeton-educated economist who was a former premier of Belgium.

The Congress, after an initial address from Churchill, divided into three committees—the Political Committee, chaired by another former French prime minister, Paul Ramadier; the Economic and Social Committee, chaired by Van Zeeland; and the Cultural Committee, chaired by an exiled Spanish liberal, Salvador de Madariaga. These committees drew up three broad resolutions. The Political Committee asserted that it was the “urgent duty” of the nations of Europe to create “an economic and political union” that would “assure security and social progress.” It maintained that the “integration of Germany in a United or Federated Europe” was the only “solution to both the economic and political aspects of the German problem.” Its main practical recommendation was the convening of a “European Assembly,” composed of delegations from the national parliaments, which would act as a constituent assembly for the creation of a federal state in Western Europe.⁴⁸ It also proposed that a commission should draw up a charter of human rights, adherence to which would be a precondition for membership in the European Federation.⁴⁹

The Economic and Social Committee made pragmatic recommendations for economic policy. Trade restrictions of all kinds should be abolished “step by step”; coordinated action should be taken to “pave the way for the free convertibility of currencies”; a common program should be established to develop agriculture; Europe-wide planning was urged for the development of core industries such as coal and electricity generation; employment policy should be coordinated so as to produce full employment. The “mobility of labor” should be promoted to the “maximum possible extent.” In addition, it advised that these measures should be only the prelude to an Economic Union in which capital moved freely, currencies were unified, budgetary and credit policies were centrally coordinated, a full customs union with a common tariff was established, and social legislation was coordinated to common standards. The greater prosperity engendered by these economic measures was held to be an essential precondition for the “development of a harmonious society in Europe.”⁵⁰

The Cultural Committee recommended the creation of a “European Cultural Centre,” whose task would be to promote cultural exchanges, promote awareness of European unity, encourage the federation of the continent’s universities, and facilitate scientific research into “the condition of twentieth-century man.” A “European Institute for Childhood and Youth Questions” was also to be established: one of its tasks, since partly realized in the Erasmus and Socrates programs of the European Union, would have been to “encourage exchanges between the young people of all classes in Europe, by providing finance and accommodation for their study, apprenticeship and travel.” Like the Political Committee, the Cultural Committee recommended that a charter of human rights should be drawn up and a European Supreme Court, with supranational jurisdiction, should be established to ensure the charter’s implementation.⁵¹

The Congress had two main institutional outcomes. In October 1948, a unified “European Movement” was formally inaugurated in the city hall of Brussels. The new movement’s “Presidents of Honor” were Churchill, Blum, De Gasperi, and the then–prime minister of Belgium, Paul-Henri Spaak. In August 1948, the European Movement presented detailed projects for unification to the Permanent Commission of the Western Union.