Germany2: Europe is still befuddled over German Unity and Russia

Compared with the hopes that blossomed in 1950 for a united Europe and the end of Soviet domination, today’s leaders seem to have lost the plot. The Schuman Declaration not only provided a way to resolve the danger of another war with Germany. It set out as path that would unite the Continent with a democratic Russia, when the time came.
Since the time de Gaulle seized power in France, even the pro-Europeans have been befuddled in a fog of corruption and false nationalism.
In 1989 leaders of the European Community were shocked and worried about what they considered the dangerous consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall. German unity was inevitable.
Some tried to block it. Others warned of a German Reich. Germany had been at the origin of three wars in a century: the Franco-Prussian war and two World Wars. In October 1990, German leaders agreed to a 900-page treaty unifying the laws and politics, transport and with a single capital at Berlin. A national day of German Unity was declared for 3 October.
In the decades since the Berlin Wall fell, have politicians learned anything about the European Community? The Community was actually designed as the guarantee that Germany would not be able to go to war against its neighbours EVER again. That is what the founding fathers said.
Robert Schuman and others gave the highest profile speeches about it forty years previously. Why were these speeches not republished by the European institutions? Why were they not republished by the French, German and other Governments? Were the institutions asleep?
Let’s look at the speeches given by Robert Schuman in 1948 and 1949 to the United Nations General Assembly.
On 28 September 1948 — three short years after the massive destruction and hate of World War 2, Schuman told the UN General Assembly that the unification of Germany was inevitable and he, as Foreign Minister of France, was going to make sure that the unification of Europe was also inevitable because this was the guarantee that all could live in peace:
‘A renewed Germany will have to insert itself inside the democracy of Europe. The dismemberment of this old continent, so often and cruelly torn by war, is a relic of times past. … Now, however, our times are those of large economic units and great political alliances. Europe must unite to survive. France intends to work on this energetically with all its heart and soul. A European public opinion is already being created. Already concrete efforts are taking shape that are marking the first steps on a new road..
‘We are, of course, only at the start of what is a great work. … Let us hope, God willing, that those who are presently hesitating will not take too long to be convinced about it. An economic union implies political cooperation. The ideas of a federation and a confederation are being discussed. We are happy to see such concepts being taken up, and studied in numerous international meetings in which personalities most representative of European public opinion are participating. Now is the time for such ideas to be analysed and supported by the governments themselves. In agreement with the Belgian Government, the French Government has proposed to follow up suggestions to call a representative assembly of European public opinion with a view to prepare a project for organising Europe. This assembly will have to weigh all the difficulties and propose reasonable solutions which take into account of the need of a wise and progressive development’
The next year on 23 September, after he had laid the foundations of the Council of Europe, an institution that would guarantee Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms for all Europeans, Schuman reported to the UN General Assembly on progress in Germany and Europe:
‘The first President of the new Federal Republic has just been elected and the first Chancellor designated. The destiny of Germany is again conferred on the Germans themselves. Facts will show if they are in a position to face up to their responsibilities that are restored to them and to prepare their future in an orderly manner and in freedom. The rhythm of developments that follow will depend on the results of this experiment. Our hope is that Germany will commit itself on a road that will allow it to find again its place in the community of free nations, commencing with that European Community of which the Council of Europe is a herald.’
Europe’s peace would be based on a supranational democratic European Community, not a classical federation or a confederation. This was the year before the Schuman Declaration. This speech besides clarifying how Schuman was to guarantee a permanent European peace, also exposes the mistake or vain boast in Jean Monnet’s Memoires that Monnet invented the term, European Community, on 21 June 1950. Schuman used it in many major speeches before Monnet ever uttered it.
Thus the European Community was the key that would ensure lasting peace, not only for Germany but for her neighbours. Schuman gave speeches in Germany about the reunification of Germany. He gave them in German so there would be no misunderstanding.
But let us quote another witness, Robert Buron, who records in a diary what Schuman said to him on 10 July 1953. Schuman described the options: Germany might make a secret deal with the Soviet Union or it could develop a real democracy inside a democratic European Community. Only the latter would safeguard the peace.
‘Sooner or later, wished for or not, the reunification of Germany will happen. It may be in a climate of détente between East and West that would help the development. It may occur in a rapprochement of Germany alone with the Soviet Union, after elections favourable to socialists for example. The balance of the world will then be thrown into question.‘
Schuman told him that the existence of the European Community had already caused the Soviets to stop and think about a less aggressive policy than world revolution. In Schuman’s opinion, he recorded, ‘the pursuit of a European policy is one of the causes for the decision of the new Russian rulers to move towards détente.‘
Schuman was no longer in office as minister. Europe required a well informed governmental spokesman to speak out about the real meaning of the European Community. He should give ‘a frank explanation between French and Russians about the policy of European integration.‘ However Gaullists, nationalists and the large Communist party made this as difficult as possible.
Today we need not only someone to speak to the Russians but to our own European citizens about the real meaning for them of a supranational, democratic Community.
Schuman said: ‘If I believe profoundly in détente and in peace, I believe equally deeply that the strategy that we have traced is only realizable in practice if Western Germany remains solidly anchored to our European construction.
‘It is necessary to progress at the same time with European integration, the improvement of East West relations and German unification. Everything lies in the art of progressing simultaneously.‘
In the 1950s Schuman and others foretold that the Soviet Union would collapse before the end of the century. He warned that Europeans should be ready to unify the Continent including Russia and Ukraine.  But none of today’s politicians were listening either.

Truth10: Hungarians, Show Courage Again! It's 60 years! Publish the Community's democratic Magna Carta of 1951!

The 18th April 2011 represents the 60th anniversary of the founding of the European Community and signature by the Founding Fathers of the great Charter of the Community, laying down the democratic principles on which Europe should organize itself. The Charter has not been published since the 1950s.

Why? Because de Gaulle's subsequent rise in France, his seizure of power and his war against Community democracy buried it deep in the Foreign Ministry's archives. De Gaulle is long dead. Secrecy, anti-democratic practice and political cartels remain.

Over the ensuing decades the European Commission has refused to publish Europe's Charter. It still does. Many recent requests have been turned down. A complaint is presently lodged with the European Ombudsman.

Is the Commission afraid that the shade of the French autocrat will haunt the Berlaymont? Are they scared that the democratic principles of Europe's foundation will expose their double-dealing and the cartel party politics that now subverts the institutions?

The Great Charter of the European Community should be published next year. The public has a right to know that supranational democracy is the 'true foundation' on which that the founding fathers and Member States agreed to build Europe as a Community. It is not intergovernmentalism, a neo-Gaullist process where matters like raising taxes and spending is conducted behind closed doors and without any participation or control of public opinion or taxpayers.

The following letter was sent to the Hungarian Permanent Representative to the EU with copies to the European Commission, all Member States and Presidents of the European Parliament, Economic and Social Committee, Committee of Regions and European Council.

Schuman Project
The origin, purpose and future of
Europe’s supranational Community


2 December 2010

H E Ambassador Dr. Péter Györkös
Hungarian Representation to the EU


Dear Ambassador,
Many of us remember the courageous action of the Hungarians, not only in 1989 in bringing about the collapse of the Berlin Wall, but also the heroic action of 1956, when many gave their lives to establish the principle of a people’s and nation’s rights and their freedom to choose.

Next year, 2011, not only brings the Hungarian presidency of the Council meetings, but also the 60th anniversary of the major positive event in modern European history. That is the signature of the Charter of the Community on the day the Founding Fathers also signed the Treaty of Paris, establishing the first European Community, that of Coal and Steel.

The Charter of the Community speaks in legal and lyrical terms of Europeans’ right to unite in freedom. It held out hope to the countries behind the Iron Curtain.

It states clearly: ‘the contracting parties give proof of their determination to call the first supranational institution into life, and are consequently creating the true foundation for an organized Europe.

This Europe is open to all European nations that can decide freely for themselves. We sincerely hope that other countries will join in our common endeavour.’

For decades this momentous, historic document about the foundation of Europe has lain gathering dust in archives.

Is not the date 18 April 2011 the day to bring this again to the knowledge of the public and reaffirm the living principles it encapsulates for our future?

I request that the Hungarian Presidency will seize this opportunity to make an exhibition of this and other documents of Europe’s foundation in the Council building in Brussels, prior to a tour of the 27 Member States.

Yours etc,

4 Would the Founding Fathers be shocked at the fall of the Berlin Wall? Hardly. They planned for it!

In 1989 leaders of the European Community were shocked and worried about what they considered the dangerous consequences of the fall of the Berlin Wall. German unity was inevitable.

Some tried to block it. Others warned of a German Reich. Germany had been at the origin of three wars in a century: the Franco-Prussian war and two World Wars.

In the twenty years since the Berlin Wall fell, have politicians learned anything about the European Community? The Community was actually designed as the guarantee that Germany would not be able to go to war against its neighbours EVER again. That is what the founding fathers said.

I have looked as best I could over the past two decades to find a politician clearly explaining this point by point to the public. Maybe I am negligent but I have not found any evidence that either the European Commission, or the Council of Ministers or other politicians ever explained how Schuman and others conceived that the five institutions should work and would create peace with Germany when it was united.

Yet Robert Schuman and others gave the highest profile speeches about it fifty years ago. Why were these speeches not republished by the European institutions? Why were they not republished by the French, German and other Governments? Were the institutions asleep -- dreaming of federations or confederations or their brain child, the Constitutional Treaty, also known as the Treaty of Lisbon?

Let's look at the speeches given by Robert Schuman in 1948 and 1949 to the United Nations General Assembly.

On 28 September 1948 -- three short years after the massive destruction and hate of World War 2, Schuman told the UN General Assembly that the unification of Germany was inevitable and he, as Foreign Minister of France, was going to make sure that the unification of Europe was also inevitable because this was the guarantee that all could live in peace:

‘A renewed Germany will have to insert itself inside the democracy of Europe. The dismemberment of this old continent, so often and cruelly torn by war, is a relic of times past. ... Now, however, our times are those of large economic units and great political alliances. Europe must unite to survive. France intends to work on this energetically with all its heart and soul. A European public opinion is already being created. Already concrete efforts are taking shape that are marking the first steps on a new road.. …

'We are, of course, only at the start of what is a great work. … Let us hope, God willing, that those who are presently hesitating will not take too long to be convinced about it. An economic union implies political cooperation. The ideas of a federation and a confederation are being discussed. We are happy to see such concepts being taken up, and studied in numerous international meetings in which personalities most representative of European public opinion are participating. Now is the time for such ideas to be analysed and supported by the governments themselves. In agreement with the Belgian Government, the French Government has proposed to follow up suggestions to call a representative assembly of European public opinion with a view to prepare a project for organising Europe. This assembly will have to weigh all the difficulties and propose reasonable solutions which take into account of the need of a wise and progressive development.’

The next year on 23 September, after he had laid the foundations of the Council of Europe, an institution that would guarantee Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms for all Europeans, Schuman reported to the UN General Assembly on progress in Germany and Europe:

‘The first President of the new Federal Republic has just been elected and the first Chancellor designated. The destiny of Germany is again conferred on the Germans themselves. Facts will show if they are in a position to face up to their responsibilities that are restored to them and to prepare their future in an orderly manner and in freedom. The rhythm of developments that follow will depend on the results of this experiment. Our hope is that Germany will commit itself on a road that will allow it to find again its place in the community of free nations, commencing with that European Community of which the Council of Europe is a herald.’

Europe's peace would be based on a supranational democratic European Community, not a classical federation or a confederation. This was the year before the Schuman Declaration. (However, we are still awaiting the Commission to publish the full text, rather than the censored version it says is the full text.) This speech besides clarifying how Schuman was to guarantee a permanent European peace, also exposes the mistake or vain boast in Jean Monnet's Memoires that Monnet invented the term, European Community, on 21 June 1950. Schuman used it in many major speeches before Monnet ever uttered it.

Thus the European Community was the key that would ensure lasting peace, not only for Germany but for her neighbours. Schuman gave speeches in Germany about the reunification of Germany. He gave them in German so there would be no misunderstanding.

But let us quote another witness, Robert Buron, who records in a diary what Schuman said to him on 10 July 1953. Schuman described the options: Germany might make a secret deal with the Soviet Union or it could develop a real democracy inside a democratic European Community. Only the latter would safeguard the peace.

'Sooner or later, wished for or not, the reunification of Germany will happen. It may be in a climate of détente between East and West that would help the development. It may occur in a rapprochement of Germany alone with the Soviet Union, after elections favourable to socialists for example. The balance of the world will then be thrown into question.'

Schuman told him that the existence of the European Community had already caused the Soviets to stop and think about a less aggressive policy than world revolution. In Schuman's opinion, he recorded, 'the pursuit of a European policy is one of the causes for the decision of the new Russian rulers to move towards détente.'

Schuman was no longer in office as minister and Europe required a well informed governmental spokesman to speak out about the European Community. He would give 'a frank explanation between French and Russians about the policy of European integration.' Gaullists, nationalists and the large Communist party made this as difficult as possible. Today we need not only someone to speak to the Russians but to our own European citizens about the real meaning for them of a supranational, democratic Community.

Schuman said: 'If I believe profoundly in détente and in peace, I believe equally deeply that the strategy that we have traced is only realisable in practice if Western Germany remains solidly anchored to our European construction.

It is necessary to progress at the same time with European integration, the improvement of East West relations and German unification. Everything lies in the art of progressing simultaneously.'

Schuman and others foretold that the Soviet Union would collapse before the end of the century. But none of today's politicians were listening either.