EHC2 Schuman's European Health Community would have brought Europe-wide benefits

How should politicians unify Europe for the health of all its citizens? How can Europeans best gain the maximum of benefits with a minimum of disadvantages? Schuman‘s presentation of the European Health Community demolishes several myths about the European Community design and also its origin.

OEEC Headquarters at Chateau de la Muette in Paris established during Schuman’s first Government in April 1948.

The first striking feature of the EHC explodes the myth that all efforts must be centred on the same Member States. The first Community of Coal and Steel had six member States: France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy. Later Communities, Euratom and the Economic Community, with treaties signed in Rome in 1957 also had the same six countries as members.

Hard core Europe is wrong

Must a Community be based on these States only? The ‘hard core Europe‘ idea is wrong. The Community is provably based on values not geography. It reinforces those values in a positive way, wherever they are found.

The EHC shows that this idea of restricted membership was not part of Schuman’s thinking. It derives from later politicians who misunderstood or purposely wanted to change the design and founding concept. Their mistakes have proved costly. So it is important to study the original principles that brought Europe peace and prosperity.

The EHC also shows that it was even further from Jean Monnet’s ideas, vague though they were. (Documents that Jean Monnet Foundation subsequently released show that Monnet had little to do with the political and legal scheme behind the supranational Community idea. His office and relationship to the Prime Minister’s office allowed Schuman to bypass hostile interministerial committees. Other accounts of the Schuman Declaration co-authors, like Schuman’s legal adviser, Paul Reuter, show the same thing.)

Europe in its diverse needs and challenges

On 12 September Foreign Minister Schuman and Health Minister Paul Ribeyre presented the plans to the French Cabinet. The Cabinet agreed. But the decision was not to present it to the Six alone but to the much larger OEEC, Organisation of European Economic Cooperation.

The OEEC was the body set up in 1948 following the US Marshall Plan. The French Government invited all its Member States to join in this common European effort of well-being. Besides the Six, it included Austria, Denmark, Greece, Iceland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and Turkey. Ireland was the only State to decline.

Thus the invited countries included:

• One country that was still partially occupied by the Soviet Union (Austria),
• One country extracting itself slowly out of dictatorship (Portugal),
• Several countries that later joined the Economic Community including UK,
• Neutral countries like Switzerland and Sweden,
• Two States at the opposite extremities of Europe (Iceland and Turkey).

Geographical Spread
By making the Community open to countries like Turkey and Iceland, Schuman, Ribeyre and the whole French Government were saying that all European countries were potential members. That should not be surprising. But it is to modern ears.

Schuman’s original proposal for the European Coal and Steel Community was open to all European countries without exception. That included Russia.
Schuman was asked at the press conference on 9 May 1950 whether Russia could join. He answered: Yes, of course (Mais oui!).
Why did Russia not join? Simply because the European Community was based on the human rights provisions of the Council of Europe. Human Rights were the foundation for healthy rule of law. But Russia then part of the Communist system of the Soviet Union, did not allow freedom of thought or freedom of religion. It refused to join the Council of Europe.
The announcement of the Schuman Government on 20 July 1948 proposed that Europe should be built on a free Assembly and a Customs Union. The Assembly saw life as the world’s first international parliament in the Council of Europe. It was aided by a Committee of Ministers, representing the States. They decided conjointly that in order to establish a lasting European Union, all States must agree to the Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

The European Coal and Steel Community started with a Single Market of the main resources. This made a move to a Customs Union inevitable. At the time of the Schuman Declaration, Germany was not a member of the Council of Europe. In fact the Adenauer Cabinet were discussing whether they should join and many of the German politicians were against it. Adenauer saw the human rights guarantees as the most important decision that Germany could make as they would make a resurgence of Nazism impossible and they would block a Communist take-over of a Germany re-united with the Soviet occupied ‘German Democratic Republic’ DDR in the east. The Proposal made the Cabinet’s acceptance of membership to the Council of Europe possible. Human rights and a Community of resources with its own institutions were intimately linked together.

The Austrian anomaly

Austria occupied by UK, USA, France, USSR 1945-55

The European Health Community proposal proves that Schuman considered that the Community system is not an exclusive operation for the founding Six States. Nor must all future European integration be concentrated between Member States which had already joined the first Community or the EEC.

If human rights in the Council of Europe was vital for assuring the rule of law inside the Community, what lies behind the Austrian case? Austria did not join the Council of Europe until April 1956.

Did Schuman relax this guarantee on human rights for Austria?

No. Diplomatic papers of the time show that Schuman was leading the way in order to get Soviet troops to leave the country. He wanted Austria to have a chance to redeem itself as a normal country. After all Hitler had come from Austria and the Austrians had warmly welcomed the union or Anschluss with Nazi Germany.

The choice was to postpone the rehabilitation of Austria or to welcome it into a European Community that would help it get back on its feet again. Even though Austria was not yet a Member State of the Council of Europe, the potential of entering the Health Community would have boosted that possibility. That was already the case with its membership of the OEEC.

By making the offer for all States of the OEEC to join the Community, Schuman showed the positive aspects and benefits of a Community solution. Even though politicians did not persevere with the Health Community idea, the offer of membership to Austria underpinned its potential to have guarantees on human rights via the Community institutions. Portugal did not join the Council of Europe until 1976 but was not threatened by the USSR.

This shows the pragmatism of Schuman’s politics. The supranational institutions of the Health Community would have acted as an accelerator in the process of regaining human rights and ending dictatorship.

With all the advantages of arresting epidemics and solving health problems across Europe, and also reinforcing human rights, why did the European Health Community fail to gain the persistent support of politicians?

Davos exposes Europe's Fake News and Fake History

The World should note and shudder! Fake News is being spouted by European leaders about the crisis of Europe’s future.
Meeting at the Davos World Economic Forum, a special discussion was held on “Which Europe Now?” Sixty minutes of hot air followed, enough to melt the Alpine snows.
Citizens, be afraid! The leaders seem to know little about how Europe got its peace after 2000 years of warfare, how it got its unprecedented prosperity.
Robert Schuman and the founding fathers created a system to build trust between nations and peoples and industries. Lack of public trust in Brussels is the prime cause of today’s crisis. Schuman said: “Bureaucratic expansion and complexity are no guarantee against a breach of trust. They encourage political nepotism. Administrative inflexibility is the prime danger threatening our supranational services.” Elections, he said, should be Europe-wide not national. They should accord with the Great Charter of the Community (that de Gaulle buried.)
Leaders today have little clue how to best deal with the future. Would you hire a hot air salesman to be in charge of a fire brigade, someone who knew nothing about fires and could not even drive a fire engine?


Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte boasted that “I am a historian”. He then destroyed that illusion. Just four minutes into the conference he said that the treaty that made sure “No More War” was that of 1958. What was he thinking of? Euratom? Or the so-called “Common Market”. What happened between the end of the World War and then when the Cold War raged?
In its first announcement of the year the European Commission gave the same Fake News. They said they would celebrate Europe’s 60th Birthday in Rome in March this year. Is Fake News contagious? The treaty that made war “not only unthinkable but materially impossible” was the Treaty of Paris, signed on 18 April 1951. The quote comes from Robert Schuman’s speech of 9 May 1950 that launched the Community process and the European Coal and Steel Community.
Then we had the French moderator, Maurice Lévy, the boss of Publicis. This is a communications and media group. Why, any normal person would ask, does the European Union require a marketing consultant to get its message across? Is lack of trust not apparent or do leaders just want to cover it up?
Mr Levy asked: What are the great ideas that Europeans need? What makes a better Europe?
Mr Levy came up with the false and hoary old story that Jean Monnet had said that “if I had to start again” (with presumably single-handedly creating the European Union), he would “start again with culture.” It takes a minute on the internet to prove this is a Fake!
It is also false to say Monnet “invented” the Community. It has long be debunked as false. Monnet’s Memoires even claim he invented the word ‘Community’ on 21 June 1950! False! When did he have this brainwave? The day after he had sat next to Schuman at the opening of the Schuman Plan conference on 20 June when Schuman described exactly how a Community would work.
As for the quote about culture, it is rubbish. The Community was created in 1950 when nuclear war loomed between USSR and the West with Germany playing one off against the other. It was not created to make films.

Nor was it designed to create a uniform European culture as the other panelist, the banker Ana Botín of Santander, seemed to want. If she wants her fellow bankers to understand Europe she should buy them some decent history books. The bankers of Europe could learn about what Schuman called the supranational management system of Europe. That’s what he called it in his speech of 10 August 1950 before the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Its use in banking, commerce and services would revolutionize the economy!
The quote about “starting again with culture” probably originated with Jack Lang, once a French Minister of Culture. He admitted it. But it certainly did not come from Jean Monnet.
Nor did Jean Monnet have much to do with “creating” the first European Community except distracting the Prime Minister Georges Bidault from Schuman’s activity (which he opposed vehemently). The Schuman Declaration was written by his fellow Lorrainer, Paul Reuter, the deputy Jurisconsult at the French Foreign Office and his watchman there against nationalist and Gaullist plots. He used Monnet’s office and secretarial help. You can read the account on schuman.info or in Reuter’s own words in the book: Robert Schuman, Jalonneur de la Paix Mondiale.
 
So what did Martin Schulz, the long-serving president of the European Parliament, say about Monnet and starting with culture?
“He (Monnet) was right!” He blamed politicians who came out of closed door meetings of the Council and refused to tell the truth of what had gone on! Secrecy is not democracy!
Next we had the Commission, in the person of Vice-President Frans Timmermans. He faked his own News/ history. Today, he said, “governance is more important. Some of the facts — we’re talking about history — need to be reassessed. No more paternalism. That was Schuman etc. Very paternalistic people. They said we are going to fix Europe but please don’t tell the people how we are going to do it. ”
Whaaat! They created Europe's peace for the first time in 2000 years and Schuman didn't tell the people how he did it? Schuman created the major forums for public opinion to act "like lighthouse" for the new idea of supranational democracy.
What an insult. Who created the Council of Europe with its Assembly to act as a public laboratory for new ideas? Who created the European Parliament? Who created the institution of which Mr Timmermans holds an office (in spite of his party political membership which contradicts his oath of office for impartiality?) Mr Timmermans got into a verbal fight with Prime Minister Rutte. He denounced his party political ideas and theories.
Mr Timmermans, why are you so ignorant about European history? It involved the greatest postwar public debates. Why are you so defamatory of humble, democratic Robert Schuman? Are you confusing him with the autocratic Charles de Gaulle? 

In either case you should have thought before you spoke. Distrust springs from fakes.
Schuman and the treaties say that the Commission should act independently of party, country and profession. He used the term “supranational“. I wonder how many "Commissioners" and "leaders" even know what it means. Why today do so many "democratic" leaders prevent the European Council being held in public like the treaties say?
As multinationals announced they were quitting Britain, UK Prime Minister Theresa May also visited Davos. She praised the institutions that brought peace and prosperity. She said:

“We should never forget… So we must uphold the institutions that enable the nations of the world to work together. And we must continue to promote international co-operation wherever we can.”

Democracy in Europe requires open Councils and elected Consultative Committees. It requires many elections that Europeans have never had in 75 years. Democratic leaders should read article 15 of the Lisbon treaty TFEU which says

“Union institutions, bodies, offices, and agencies shall work as openly as possible. …” It adds the Council shall meet in public like the Parliament.

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.

Elysée1: Germans! French People! Are you still being fooled by de Gaulle?

Can you discern political propaganda and deceit? Do you know what real European democracy is? Today the French and Germans are spending a great deal of taxpayers’ money on celebrating 50 years of the January 1963  Elysée Treaty. They are being told it is the motor of Europe.

Rubbish!

It isn’t and never was. It was designed as a means to stifle European democracy by giving de Gaulle power over German resources. It was designed to control Germany, to mobilize the populations including the youth to support the Gaullist government and grant de Gaulle non-democratic powers. De Gaulle closed down all European democratic institutions. His plan was to destroy them if possible.

That is far from a Community approach. De Gaulle treated all the other Community States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Italy as children. Above all he wanted to harness Germany and its economic power. He feared democracy especially European democracy or supranationality.

He told his Minister of Information Alain Peyrefitte:  ‘supranational integration is going to allow the Germans to teach the French organisation and discipline. All that is monstrous! Monstrous!’

Is the Elysée Treaty the centre of European action? Did European reconciliation start with de Gaulle’s action? No. European reconciliation clearly started when Germany was allowed to enter the Council of Europe as a normal member and become an active member of the European Community in 1950.

Germany got equality from these institutions that Schuman and the Founding Fathers of Europe created. From the Elysée Treaty Germany gave its acquiescence to pay for Milk Lakes, Butter Bergs and Meat Mountains to support the French farmers’ votes for de Gaulle.

Was Adenauer fooled by the Elysée treaty subterfuge? No, he was not. But he went along with it because he needed de Gaulle’s support for his pro-western policy. De Gaulle had the key levers: the veto to make sure that any democratic State would not enter the European Community. Thus Norway, Denmark, UK and other countries were refused and Germany had to deal subserviently with France as the main power-broker. All democratic institutions of the Community such as the Parliament, the Consultative Committees were frozen or to use de Gaulle’s word ‘chloroformed’.

Did the Elysée Treaty bring Franco-German reconciliation? As Adenauer acknowledged, Franco-German reconciliation was accomplished more than decade before de Gaulle by Robert Schuman.

He wrote in September 1962:

Dear Mr Schuman,
During the visit of General de Gaulle last week, I often thought of you as the man who by his initiative of the Coal and Steel Community, laid the real foundations of the friendship which at present unites our two countries. It is with gratitude that I always think of our joint work. I would dearly like to express to you, especially in the present circumstances, my appreciation.  It would be a great joy for me if it were possible for us to meet again. Rochefort: Robert Schuman, p359.

Europeans – including both French and Germans should be highly suspicious when governments spend such money on political folderol and ignore historical facts – such as the sixtieth anniversary of the EU institutions. The real celebrations of reconciliation, European integration and democracy never took place last year.

Just ask the politicians who are busy spending French and German tax money:

Who was the first President of the European Community’s Council of Ministers?

Do they know? It was Konrad Adenauer who presided over the first Council of Ministers on 8 September 1952. France sat at the table while Adenauer, the German Chancellor, banged the gavel!
Adenauer had no need to celebrate reconciliation more than a decade later. The treaty only marks the fact that de Gaulle had to recognize the European Community as a fact that he could not destroy. It is a celebration hiding the change of policy of de Gaulle. It has nothing to do with real European reconciliation.

Before 1950 de Gaulle wanted to seize German territory such as the French occupation zone and the Saar, carve out the industrial Ruhr and draw new French borders on the Rhine. He denounced Bonn democracy and the Federal Republic of Germany as 'the Fourth Reich'.

That this Elysée Treaty celebration is political fraud on a large scale is clear from other facts of history. The Founding Fathers of the European Community also made this clear. Europe was to be based on solidarity of common objectives with the diversity of resources and the equality of States. Socialists and Christian Democrats in France and Germany opposed the treaty. The Community precludes a Gaullist-style Directoire or a secretive tête-à-tête or Franco-German axis.

This present exercise is a highly suspicious political Public Relations operation, especially given the almost total silence about the celebration of the SIXTIETH anniversary of the beginning of the Democratic institutions of the first European Community in 2012.

De Gaulle was also petty and vindictive. He forbade Adenauer from attending the funeral of Robert Schuman in Metz 1963. Adenauer had already agreed to come. Jean Monnet was also not invited to Metz. Six former prime ministers of France refused to attend in protest at the Gaullist action. Neither de Gaulle’s prime minister nor his minister of foreign affairs attended the funeral. RTF, the Gaullist controlled radio and television, hardly mentioned the event. (see Rochefort: Robert Schuman, p362.)

Is de Gaulle’s dictatorship, as François Mitterrand called it in 1964, the sort of event that real Europeans want to celebrate?

Did Monnet know how to make European war impossible? If not, who did?

What is the greatest achievement of Europeans in modern times? Is it our prosperity? Our Single Market? The Euro? Europeans have never been richer, lived longer or had access to such good health services, not recently or at any time in their history. Is this our best achievement? Not at all. Is it our technologies, the great pinacles of industries and science that our universites and research centres have produced?

Europe's greatest triumph is none of these. It is more mundane. The greatest VICTORY in all our history is that for the last several generations, Europeans are not killing each other in wars!

At the origin lies a revolutionary, spiritual idea. It comprises a scientific theory for ending war and its application put into practice with great political precision and openness.  From that fecund event Europeans are harvesting a new power and resource, never before seen by our ancestors. Yet its origin is still unclear, misted by myths.

For thousands of years until 1945, Western Europeans were at war every generation. They formed armies to invade each other. Schools taught the children how to dispise their neighbouring nations. The same children later sacrificed their lives, while others worked in industries providing every more efficient means to kill the neighbours. Historians scribbled away saying how they had won crushing victories over their oppressive neighbours. (They did their best to hide the defeats and how they enslaved others.)

This doctrine of peace -- this secret-- is more than important: it is vital for the survival of the planet. It marks a complete philosophical and political break with history. The peace plan escaped the great intellects of the past, the philosophers and the politicians. Some brave souls in the past spoke of the need for European unity and a peace system. They did not, however, describe what we have today. They usually spoke of creating a grandiose Council of European governments with a European army that would pounce on any group that would not follow some policy or other. And they constructed complex systems -- they were phantoms -- with European councils or congresses that no one really believed in. Which of these great European thinkers speaks of a supranational Community in the exact terms we know it today?

None of them.

Who then was responsible for putting this extraordinary idea of the European Community into practice? It was far beyond the ability of any politician or statesman in the past. Who was at the origin of this idea that changed the face of the planet from the fires of war?

Or did it happen by accident? First let us dismiss this absurd idea. Up to 1950 all the think tanks and serious minded political thinkers were convinced that the past history of wars would continue to repeat itself. Judging from the facts they were right. One keen observer wrote that war was becoming such a feature in European politics that the Continent would now enter a dark age of continuous wars and poverty comparable to that half a millennium previously. Europe would become a black hole of dissent. Why ? Because the wars were becoming more deadly with each advance in industrial power. There was no comparable change in the mentality of Europe's leaders to create peace. None showed the ability to learn from past mistakes.

Instead of chaos, however, came order and the beginning of a new democratic organisation. Order does not come from chaos. Democracy does not suddenly arise from mob wars. Any sensible person knows that.

Something changed radically in 1950. Peace emerged with the creation of a new entity. Clearly the supranational Community idea was at the heart of this peace-making mechanism. It prevented both a war with the Soviet Union (who no longer considered bickering, nationalistic western Europe easy pickings because of its poverty and dissent). It also stopped a new war of revenge by a rising, defiant Germany although there were many plots and neo-Nazi movements in this period.

Who was responsible for this master plan? Did it come Robert Schuman or was he simply a recipient of a message of a few pages from Jean Monnet? Monnet was in 1950 the head of the French Planning and Modernisation Agency. Was the Schuman Declaration just Monnet's Plan for Europe? That sounds cute.  Some enthusiastic journalists in 1950 said so. But no one says it today because there is no evidence.

If anyone disagrees, please show me the proof. But beware, I don't believe in fairies or Father Christmas. Where are the drafts? Where are Monnet's intellectual analyses of the political, philosophical, historical ideas of the past? No one has found them. Monnet himself says that his planning group never even considered such an idea of a supranational Community -- before April 1950. Nor is there any evidence that Monnet ever read any of the authors who spoke of the unity of Europe such as Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon.

Monnet published a book of extracts of his speeches called 'The United States of Europe have begun'. Yet he does not mention, commend or criticise Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who also wrote about a United States of Europe: 'A United States of Europe is possible as an agreement between the European capitalists ... but to what end? Only for the purpose of jointly suppressing socialism in Europe.' Monnet was silent. Yet he was married in Moscow in 1934 under Soviet law.

So did this man who left France and his father's cognac works at 16 to work in London come up with some British ideas about unifying Europe? There is no evidence. Did he read some insight in a book either there or in Canada where he went to sell cognac? His father told him:' Don't take any books with you. Look out the window and speak to people.' (Memoires p47). Monnet worked during two world wars in encouraging weapons supply but none of his colleagues record any views about making weapons unnecessary for Europeans after the war. If Monnet never considered the problem of making war impossible, who did?

Did the peace doctrine that involved a supranational Community just emerge fully fleshed out in all its political, economic, legal and social details in April 1950? If it was not complete by then why did the French Government agree to the Schuman Proposal? It is clear that Monnet had something to do with the producing a paper but what was it that convinced a score of hardened ministers in Georges BIdault's government? The proposal itself?

Is this Monnet-gave-a-message-to-Schuman story a self-serving myth? Was it invented to boost Monnet and most of all to stop the most revolutionary form of democracy yet proposed? Why was it called a 'Community', a term Monnet had not used before? Where did the strange term, 'supranational' come from? Did Monnet invent it? The answer is Monnet spoke nothing of such ideas before April 1950, that is a few days or weeks before the Schuman Declaration was made.

Robert Schuman gave several speeches on all these subjects in the YEARS before the Schuman Declaration. for example a year before the Declaration in May 1949, he gave two speeches (one in London and another in Strasbourg) proposing the creation of a supranational community. He said a new system would put an end to the war and bring lasting peace. Such a supranational Community had never existed in history before.  Schuman explained why previous plans for Europe had failed. He mentioned all the main attempts including Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon. He explained why they would not work. He also mentioned other such planners.

Schuman said there was a system that would work. He called it a supranational Community system. He said so many times. A year later, on 9 May 1950, the French government accepted his proposal for a supranational European Community with its five democratic institutions. Almost immediately Western Europe began to benefit from the longest period of peace in the history of the six founding members. In 1953, he confirmed this peace was assured. That would seem premature to most people. How can you say that after only three years from the Declaration, peace without end would be assured among European peoples? Yet that is what he said.

The record shows that Schuman was right. Our generation, after more than 65 unprecedented years of peace, can confirm Europeans are living in the longest peace ever known. Schuman is dead but the present generation can experience that fact that his prediction holds good so far. Thus it was totally scientific in theory and application. Schuman's proposal was the result of a profound analysis, political realism and the application of Christian Democracy. Schuman said the European Community was like a 'scientific experiment' based on a theory about which he had absolutely confidence.

Monnet made no such scientific predictions, nor had any such scientific theories. If Monnet supposedly wrote the solution to Europe's 2000-year problem of war and peace on four or five sheets of paper, then wasn't sure to whom to give it, then finally decided to give it to the Foreign Minister, who had long expressed ideas about peace through a supranational Community, then this certainly needs some explaining!

1: Where's the democratic debate in Europe?

America has had its presidential election. Where is Europe’s democracy? Who should be the leader of the economic Super-Power on this side of the Atlantic? Where and how can European voters find the most suitable person to help organize a Community of some 500 million people and the world’s largest trading power?
On 15 April 2008, when governments of the EU eventually published the proposed Lisbon Treaty still in provisional form, a dozen parliaments had already ratified it. Isn’t it unusual, even bad form, to ratify something you haven’t seen? Would you buy a used car without seeing the engine — or more importantly — finding if the brakes work? Would you buy an insurance policy or a parachute without knowing the contents? Why are politicians in such a rush?
It’s a presidential race. But nothing like USA. The EU, a world super-power, even larger economically and commercially than the USA, has no presidential elections. Not even for the new-fangled, 2½-year presidency of the European Council, the body where heads of governments decide EU policy in secret.
The big difference between the United States and Europe is that the new treaty will provide enough presidents for a football team. There will be presidents for the European Council, another for the Council of Ministers, presidents for the Parliament, a president for the Economic and Social Committee, and a president for the Committee of Regions. There will be untold presidents for the secret committees like the Monetary Committee, Council and the Coreper committees. And that is not to mention the innumerable Agencies, sometimes a law unto themselves.
But with all this football team for the boys and girls of the political parties to splash mud, it will not kick off the first Europe-wide elections specified in all treaties back to 1951. Has no one read the treaties? Does anyone understand the founding principles of European democracy? Instead the so-called ‘reform’ politically stitches up the referee in the most brazen and unscrupulous denial of democracy in modern times.
Governments keep silent about one president — that of the European Commission. It is Europe’s most essential post. More than just the referee, the Commission, and only the Commission, can make a proposal for legislation. The Commission is like the person who cuts the cake into fair and equal slices, before the greedy children, the governments, chose portions. It proposes policies for the common good of 27 democracies. Competence and impartiality are indispensable. The Commission can do far more than cut cakes fairly. It can propose how, when and where all Member States, working together in democratic harmony, can bake a new cake of common policy together. When States know they can trust each other, they can accomplish positive things beyond their previous, limited, nationalistic vision. They can help each other and the world beyond, now in sore need of peace.
Does the system work? You bet! The founding Coal and Steel Community of 1951 ended Europe’s incessant wars and dismantled greedy and dangerous cartels. Drawing inspiration from moral philosophy, not yah-booh politics, the Commission must exude fairness and honesty in a Europe of values.
In short, the President of the Commission had to be chosen by several characteristics that some politicians do not wish to examine: namely, and above all, independence. That means an honest character, who is not attached to any commercial, governmental or POLITICAL grouping. He or she should have the requisite experience and, as the treaties imply, humility!
The founding fathers, like Robert Schuman, designed this democratic high authority to strengthen member state democracies. They insisted that the Commission be totally independent of governments. How? Firstly, governments had to chose the president unanimously. Unanimity guarantees some impartiality as any country can veto a dishonest candidate. Big states vetoed each other’s biased and self-serving nominees. The Commission had to build trust between States. That’s why it has to be independent, impartial and experienced. Quite often, good Europeans to act as President could only be found in smaller countries.
Today, politicians think they know better. Their contribution is usually to throw sand into a delicately working motor of democracy that still has to build up democratic speed. Under the proposed Lisbon Treaty, this impartial Commission ends. Politicians want to restrict the candidates to a tiny group of politicians like themselves. Then this president of Europe would be chosen in secret with votes weighted in favour of the big States, the bullies of history.
Early Commission presidents were often former civil servants, lawyers, professors or diplomats. They were NOT party politicians. If they had had political or governmental experience, they gave up party activities. Their records were scrutinized to see if they remained honest under pressure. However, when de Gaulle seized power in France in 1957, he declared at first a covert then an open war. He attempted to ‘chloroform’ the democracy required of governments and pledged in the treaties. Inserting his partisan nominees into institutions, he attempted to gain personal control of the three European Communities. Commission presidents Walter Hallstein, a former law professor who as a captured soldier had the courage to teach fellow German prisoners of war about the rule of law, Étienne Hirsch, a brilliant engineer who had lost much of his family to Hitler’s depravity, and Paul Finet, a metallurgist/ trade-unionist, stood up against these undemocratic assaults. These great European democrats were NOT party politicians!
Did the democratic governments learn a lesson? The party politicians REFUSED to implement the basic democratic requirements, such as direct elections to Parliament under a single electoral statute. These were written into every treaty from Europe’s founding Treaty of Paris in 1951, the two treaties of Rome of 1957, the Adhesion treaties, the Amsterdam, Maastricht and the present Nice Treaties. Whatever may be said of ‘democratic politicians’ at home, they are as slow as treacle in Antarctica when it comes to European democracy!
After de Gaulle, democracies half-heartedly reviewed treaty obligations. Direct elections to the European Parliament, required for about 30 years, were only implemented in 1979. (Schuman initiated Europe’s first parliament in 1949.) And then the governments refused to do it according to the fair, democratic rules that the treaties specified. Each government wrote its own electoral rules. These distort the outcome of the elections in the interests of big parties and the benefits the party political elites. It deprives the average citizen of a fair vote. How do we know this bias is intentional? Well, firstly the systems are all different. Yet the dominant national parties like them: many small parties and individuals don’t. What does that tell you? Secondly, if the distorted system did not please and delight the national politicians in their unethical objectives, they would have changed it long ago to something fairer, more just, more legal and more democratic. They would have examined the treaties they signed and implemented the fair rules of a single electoral statute, agreed by all.
The main governmental parties still refuse to initiate major democratic pledges in the treaties. Some institutions are still disempowered. The chambers of the Consulative Committees are filled with ‘representatives’ - not of the European civil society as the treaties say, but ‘representatives’ for politicians and parties! Special governmental (=politicians’) committees deny civil institutions and NGOs the political powers, some of which should be equivalent to the secretive Council of Ministers. We have only to investigate agriculture, an area essential for Mr de Gaulle’s political support. Much of the public funding to big farmers was until recently shrouded in secrecy, as if it were military security!
Today, who raises an eyebrow that the Commission is stuffed with national politicians? Some proudly boast their party affiliations, in complete defiance to the treaties! Does this profession of ‘party politician’ have the only wise people with adequate qualifications to be members of the European Commission? Are there no wise democratic people who can be candidates among the 480 million independent citizens who decline the offer of party membership? Do the fair-minded have to become ideologically biased by joining a party? What nonsense and lack of logic!
The proposed Lisbon Treaty goes much further towards an authoritarian oligarchy than Mr. de Gaulle ever dreamed of. It enforces bad practice by law. Anyone who is not a card-carrying member of a political party is outlawed. Jean Monnet was the first president of the Commission, then called the High Authority. Today he would be banned. He was never a member of a political party. Many people today have the same sentiment as Monnet. They want to be independent and non-political. Many don’t trust politicians. They see them as too often motivated by out-moded ideologies. Some are suspected of sharp or even corrupt practice.
Yet politicians say only they should be eligible to lead the Commission and hence Europe. And to prove they are right, politicians voted themseves a personal power grab — and in nearly all States ONLY the politicians were allowed to vote on this, the most important decision for all European citizens. The representatives of the people voted to EXCLUDE the people.
It is a momentous decision made exclusively by a political elite who claim to represent the people! It marks the start of party political oligarchy, not democracy. The proposed Lisbon Treaty ‘reform’ makes it impossible for the Commission President to remain impartial, ever again.
(To be continued.)