Wolfgang Renzsch European Integration 1

1
Wolfgang Renzsch European Integration 1

• Overview
• What is Europe?
• Historical approach
• The early European Movement 1919 1945

2
What is Europe?

• Geographical definition not sufficient, no
  clear demarcation to Asia.
• Which countries belong to Europe and will be
  entitle to apply for membership in the EU.
• Turkey? Ukraine? Armenia? Russia?
• Obviously, geography alone is not enough to
  understand Europe

3
What have the Europeans in common?

• Cultural tradition
• The term Europe can be traced back to ancient
  Greece The virgin Europe was the daughter of
  king Agenor, and Zeus disguised as a bull ran off
  with her
• What European distinguished from people of other
  parts of the world is the Judeo-Christian and --
  connected -- Greek-Roman heritage.

4

• Common Latin Middle Ages
• Latin was the common language of educated people
  in the Middle Ages and early Modern Times
• Universities were not national, but occidental
  institutions the term Europe was not used
• Towns, knighthood, chivalry
• The western part of Europe was kept together by
  the universal Catholic Church
• Architecture (cathedrals!), town structures,
  music, arts were basically similar
• There was a common intellectual/ spiritual sense
  of the unity of the Occident.

5

• Cultural heritage classics
• Development of sciences and philosophy since
  antique times
• Similar concepts of Good Government
• Rule of law
• Constitutionalism despite differences between
  Roman law and common law (Magna Charta) tradition
  
• Human and Basic rights
• Finally Democracy
• Globally unique nowhere else in this
  comprehensive manner

6

• Borders beside the natural ones Islam
• Islamic world was perceived as danger since the
  8th century, nearly since its existence (Muslim
  conquest of the Iberian peninsula)
• The tradition of the discrimination of Muslims
  still plays a role in the current discussion
  about a membership of Turkey in the EU
• European (Christian) us against Muslim them gt
  identity for both

7

• The unity of the occident was destroyed with the
  beginning of the modern times
• The Reformation ended the unity of the Catholic
  Church
• The reformation and the peace settlement of 1555
  Augsburg religious peace emphasize territory
  as the base of political rule cuius regio, eius
  religio
• Development of modern statehood Around this
  period of time the feudal rule (personal
  dependencies and loyalties) was replaced by
  territorial rule (Westphalian state), the
  creation of a permanent public administration, a
  tax system and permanent armies.

8

• This development took place all over Europe,
  however over a long period of time
• And at different places and at different times
  developed what became later known as nation
  states.
• Exceptions Italy and Germany.
• In Germany statehood developed on the
  sub-national level
• Italy different situation rule of the Catholic
  Church Papal State
• However, Nation is to a large degree an
  incidental category gt borders at the Vienna
  Congress 1815 were often arbitrarily drawn
  (western parts of Prussia)

9
Modern Times/ Absolutism 17./18. century

• (Nation) States replace the feudal structures
• Latin ceases to be the language, the local
  languages gained importance and started to be
  used in academia and law (Luthers translation of
  the Bible!)
• The occidental intellectual was a cosmopolitan
  in the days of renaissance individualism and
  regional heritage became new factors in social
  and political life
• Territorial rule plus the idea of sovereignty,
  focussed in the person of the ruler (king)

10
The road towards nationalism

• The revolutions primarily of the 18th century
  (French Revolution of 1789) were European
  incidents,
• however they helped to pave the road towards the
  nationalism of the 19th and the first half of the
  20th century.
• The French defended the revolution with the
  battle cry Vive la nation! (Valmy)
• The Napoleonic wars on the other hand
  fostered the development of nationalism in the
  conquered states.

11
What makes a nation? Nationalism in the 19th
century

• Nationalism had two intellectual roots
• Romanticism (Germany)
• Idea of universal rights (France)

12
Romantic Nationalism (Germany)

• Being part of a nation is not voluntary.
• Everybody has inherited his/her mother tongue,
  national customs and habits, literature, arts
  etc.
• Johann Gottfried Herder (1744-1803) spoke of a
  Volksgeist spirit of a nation/people
• This concept contradicted any idea of equality of
  nations each nation is special and
  inexplicable, has a character of its own which
  makes it distinct from others

13

• Herders idea was that of a Kulturnation
  cultural nation, bound together primarily (not
  only) by a common language
• His followers however (Fichte, Jahn, Arndt)
  radicalized the idea by requesting a nation
  state, based on (cultural) specifics.
• This approach did not accept the idea of equality
  of peoples or nations (and, therefore, not of
  men)
• But necessarily produced a ranking of the
  better and not so good nations.
• In the scientific 19th century it is not too
  difficult to replace cultural specifics by
  scientific ones, especially biological
  differences, later racist ones.

14
Universalism (France)

• The French idea of nation was theoretically based
  on the universality of human rights.
• No distinction was made between Frenchmen and
  others.
• Being be member of a nation was primarily a
  voluntary decision. The individual decides
  whether or not he or she wants to be a member A
  person became a Frenchman by his or her decision
  to live under the French constitution and French
  law, and accepted to be represented in the
  national assembly.
• Nation was considered primarily as a political
  affiliation, not as inherited or given by nature.
• However, this theory was not always the practice.

15
Two quotations

• Nation is the community of united individuals,
  who live under a common law and who are
  represented by the same legislative assembly
  (Abbé Sievès, 1789)
• Nation is a specific part of humanity which is
  characterized by the same heritage and language
  (German Encyclopaedia of 1815)

16
Consequences

• Where belong German speaking Alsatians to who
  wanted to be German speaking Frenchmen?
• What becomes important for nationality
• Natural (ethnic/biological ) criteria? ius
  sanguinis still today base of German
  citizenship
• Political convictions human rights, liberty,
  democracy, equality before the law of highest
  importance for voluntary nations like the USA.
  usually easily accessible citizenship and ius
  solis

17
19th and early 20th century

• Nationalism of 19th was fostered by Napoleonic
  wars. In Italy and Germany cause for unity
  movements.
• Germany Befreiungskriege /liberation wars and
  inherited enmity (Erbfeindschaft) with France
• Expansionist movement towards unity natural
  borders, defined by use of language gt
• Von der Maas bis an die Memel, von der Etsch bis
  an den Belt Hoffman v. Fallersleben 1841
• Problems mixed areas German Danish, German
  Polish, Italian French .. (Balkans!)

18

• Vienna Congress 1815
• Rivalry between Great Britain, France, Prussia,
  Austria, Russia shaky balance
• 1866/67 Prussian Unification Wars
• 1867 North German Federation
• 1870/71 Franco-Prussian War
• 1871 (Second) German Empire founded in Versailles
  (France)
• Radicalization of nationalisms in the last
  decades of the 19th and early 20th century
  colonialism, imperialism, chauvinism, Jingoism
  Pan Germanism, Pan Slavism
• dulce et decorum est pro patria mori and so
  they did 1914-1918.

19

• The treaties of the Paris suburbs (among them
  Versailles) of 1919 did not create a stable
  political order in the centre of Europe.
• Attempts to come to alternative solution League
  of Nations, German-French reconciliation (Briand
  and Stresemann) failed finally.
• The Second World War (1939 1945) is in some
  respects the continuation of the first one, and
  of the nationalism of the 19th century.
• This is the background which became important
  when after 1945 solutions for stable peace were
  sought in (Western) Europe.

20
The early European Movement, 1919 - 1945

• Disaster of the First Word War caused the request
  for a stable peace order
• Europe confronted by a twofold challenge
• The USA became economically and technologically
  dominant
• Revolutionary Russia had declare that the
  Socialist Revolution should be exported to the
  other European states.
• -- Alternative seemed to be unite or parish!

21

• Despite the obvious challenges many politicians
  of the post-war governments preserved their old
  ideas of nation and nationalism gt many of them
  were new in politics and not really prepared for
  their job
• Other one a minority however understood the
  need for a change in order to establish a new and
  stable peace order
• They could drawn on a long intellectual tradition
  of ideas of a peaceful world order, eternal peace
  etc.

22

• A few of the important intellectual blue prints
  from Enlightenment and Renaissance
• William Penn, Essay towards the Present and
  Future Peace of Europe, 1693
• John Bellers, Some Reasons for a European State,
  1710
• Abbé de Saint Pierre, Projet de paix perpétuelle,
  3 Vol., 1713 1717
• Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, 1795 (Peace by
  federating free nations)
• Johann G. Schnabel, Insel Felsenburg (fiction),
  1731/1743
• And a lot of others

23

• The Early Developments
• Most remarkable Richard Count Coudenhove-Kalergi
• 1923 Pan-Europa, published in Vienna, requesting
  the political and economic amalgamation of all
  states from Poland to Portugal except Great
  Britain as long as the British Empire existed
• Steps
• Mutual guarantee for all existing borders
• Defence league against the Soviet Union
• Autarkical Tariff Union
• United States of Europe modelled according the
  American model

24

• 1923 Pan-European-Union (Pan-Europa-Union)
  founded
• 1926 Pan-European-Congress (Pan-Europa-Kongress)
  took place in Vienna more than 2000
  participants, among them Leon Blum (PM) from
  France and Paul Löbe (president of Reichstag)
  from Germany
• 1927 Aristide Briand (French foreign minister)
  took over the honorary presidency for the whole
  movement.

25
Political endeavours

• 1929 Briand and Stresemann agreed that French
  German reconciliation is indispensable for any
  solution
• In the assembly of the League of Nations
  (Völkerbund) Aristide Briand proposed a kind of
  a federal combination of the European states.
• Despite federal combination Briand remained
  quite cautious, speaking of the strong feeling
  of a common responsibility in face of the
  endangered peace in Europe.

26

• Briand acted in accordance with Stresemann
• Part of a elaborated strategy Briand, French
  foreign minister 1921 and 1925 1932, worked to
  a reconciliation with Germany.
• Result Treaty of Locarno 1925 (Germany accepted
  the Western borders of 1919) and Germanys entry
  in the League of Nations

27

• Briand approach did not intend to encroach on the
  sovereignty of the European nations, however it
  spoke of a common market and a European
  community.
• It requested a European conference and a
  permanent political committee.
• All that was not very much by current standards,
  however as we will see far too much by the
  yardsticks of 1929.

28

• What were the political interests?
• France saw the (temporary) revival of Germany in
  the 1920s with some scepticism. It had become
  clear that the Versailles treaty was not the base
  for a lasting peace order.
• Therefore integration of Germany on equal
  footing, however, at the price that Germany must
  not become a hegemonial power in central and
  eastern Europe.
• Political objective preserving the status quo.
• Exactly this was not acceptable to Germany/
  Stresemann, who wanted the understanding with
  France and economic integration, but also a
  revision of the Eastern borders.
• Political objective was not the perseverance of
  the status quo but its alteration in the East.

29

• After the assassination of Stresemann German
  returned to policy of revision of the Eastern
  borders. Chancellor Brüning rejected any proposal
  for integration before Germany demands had been
  fulfilled.
• Other nations also rejected Briands proposal
  objections were loss of sovereignty, rivalry with
  the League of Nations, priority of political over
  economic integration, role of the Soviet Union
  and Turkey, questions of colonies, British
  Commonwealth etc.
• The project was probably too ambitious, it was
  too late and too early at the same time too late
  to prevent the Second World War, too early
  because European politician still argued in the
  national categories of the 19th century.

30

• The failure of the Briand initiative 1929 gave
  way to growing rivalry among the European
  nations. 1933, conquest of power by the Nazis,
  ended any hope for a peace order in Europe. 1939
  the Second World War began.
• During the period of WW II members of the
  resistance developed a number of blue-prints for
  a united Europe proposal were put forward for an
  amalgamation of GB and France, of Czechoslovakia
  and Poland, the Benelux-countries and many
  others.
• No details, but did the proposals developed by
  the resistance against the Nazis have in common?

31
Ideas and Concepts developed during WW II

• Among others the Ventotene Manifesto by
  Altiero Spinelli and Ernesto Rossi, influenced by
  Lord Lothian (Philip Carr) Pacifism is not
  enough (not Patriotism either) (1935)
• Rejection of violence, injustice and disrespect
  for human rights
• Human dignity, peace and prosperity
• Against an idolization of the nation and the
  nation state
• Nation states should be decentralized/federalized
  internally

32

• Internationally the principle of sovereignty was
  to be questioned.
• Supranational organization should get the right
  to arbitration and intervention
• A federation of the European nations should be
  founded
• Broad consensus among Christian, Liberal and
  Socialist democrats. Similar ideas were common
  also among the conspirators of the 20th July in
  Germany.
• The Communists only rejected these ideas. But the
  Communists had lost influence since the
  Hilter-Stalin-Pact the Communists collaborated
  with the Nazis until latter started the war
  against the Soviet Union.
• None of these concepts succeeded, but the ideas
  and a number of persons (Spinelli, Jean Monnet,
  Charles de Gaulle, Paul-Henri Spaak) of this time
  became relevant after 1945.