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Europe Unites
by Denis de Rougemont
A Lecture on "The History of the Ideal for a United Europe". From: The Meaning of Europe, translated by Alan Braley,F.I.L.; published by Sidgwick & Jackson, London 1965; © Denis de Rougemont
TAKEN ONE by one, the vital organs of our society appear to me to be in quite good condition. It remains to discover whether the subject of our inquiry, Europe, still possesses a sufficient will to live to be able to fulfil the new functions which from now on are allotted to it in the world. I shall now endeavour to show that in practice, Europe's will to live means her will to unite.
From diversity to division
THESE TWO things are not necessarily identical. Indeed, there might seem to be a contradiction between giving Europe a clean bill of health and saying that she needs to unite. for if all is well, why do we need to unite? Nations feel this need only at times of crisis, as a reaction against internal ills or against a peril from outside. Union is not an end in itself; it is a means to the end of survival, or of attaining a better life. It is even, in practical terms, a cure. But to speak of a cure is to acknowledge a disease. So what is this illness which afflicts Europe despite her organic soundness: I believe that it is of psychic origin.
Its overall effect is to transform our living, vital diversities into rigid, morbid divisions; political in origin they spread to the economic field and finally attack the common basis of our diversities - the unity of our traditional, creative culture. The short name for this sickness is nationalism, which is the claim by states to absolute sovereignty, in which they enclose their economy and even their culture but not, alas, always their armies. The fact that Europe has come close to destroying herself twice within the present century must be laid at the door of extreme nationalism. And it is this very disease, which we have planted on many continents formerly colonised by us, that causes the fevers and the paroxysms of hate against Europe from which so many emergent countries in Africa, the Arab world and Asia have suffered during the last few years.
Thus I believe that if we can show that the will to unite exists it will prove that Europe once more has the will to live; for it would stem from the desire to overcome our nationalist divisions, and thereby restore that healthy play to our diversities which is the sign of normality. The will to unite will be a sign of renewed health in the body of Europe in so far as it aims at federating our differences, not ironing them out or making life uniform throughout the continent. That could be done by allowing technology to proliferate without checking it . The will to unite will be healthy if it tends to eliminate the virus of nationalism, not to offer it greater scope by creating a continent transformed into a super-nation and saddled with a super-nationalism.
Three conceptions of union
I shall deal straight away with these definitions of unity, thus making clear my own position in the context of the discussion now going on about Europe. For there is a struggle between two extreme and opposite views on this matter. One has been known for some little time as "L' Europe des patries", or Europe made up of separate fatherlands (a fundamentally incorrect expression, by the way). This school would like to stick to an alliance of national states all keeping their sovereignty intact. It is the minimal position. The other, which can be broadly described as that of the Common Market, wishes to unify the nations on the basis of full economic integration. The former places its main emphasis on the points of difference, the latter on unity. My belief is that the only unity which is compatible with the genius of Europe itself, with its past, with its realities and its present vocation, is unity in diversity, a strong yet flexible union of which Switzerland has perfected the prototype: and that means federalism.
A discussion of the merits of these three schools of thought --that of alliances, that of integration and that of federation-- would be outside the scope of this book, which is not about politics.
Nevertheless, I think it is essential to trace the origins of these three lines of thought, and to discover the source of the discussion about the union of Europe which has been in full spate for several years in the press and at meetings all over the continent. (It has even crossed the channel to Britain, and recently reached the United States).
For it is impossible to understand what is at stake in this great contemporary discussion, or its themes, without first seeing them against the background of our history. It is taking place at what seems to be the end of a long evolution which has shaped the thought, feelings and reflexes of Europeans, and which therefore determines whether they are instinctively repelled by, or enthusiastically support, the various solutions offered.
The idea of unifying or federating Europe was not born yesterday. To be exact, even on the evidence of existing documents, it goes back to the beginning of the fourteenth century. Moreover, the small extent to which its themes have changed over the centuries is very striking. What is happening before our eyes, very imperfectly as yet, it is true -is what was vainly advocated exactly six and a half centuries ago by visionary poets and great philosophers, as well as by some hard-headed politicians, from Dante through Goethe to Victor Hugo, from Sully through Montesquieu, Rousseau and Saint-Simon to Churchill, and from Leibnitz through Kant to Nietzsche.
Four themes of unity
For all these men, and for hundreds of others whom I have quoted and about whom I have written in a recent work entitled Twenty-eight centuries of Europe (1) there were ultimately four great, simple reasons why it was imperative for Europe to unite. These themes are nearly always all present, although one or another of them may be more dominant according to the age and the school of thought. Here then are those four constant themes.
First of all, peace, which must be guaranteed to our peoples, torn by the internecine wars in Europe; peace through an authority higher than nations and princes, an authority which suppresses any attempt at hegemony. This was the dominant theme throughout the Middle Ages.
Next. the re-establishment of a spiritual community supported by a common legal framework. Already present in Dante, this theme comes to the fore after the Reformation and is prominent all through the period of absolutism in which sovereign States were formed, from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century.
Lastly, the prosperity of all, which has to be organised on the continental scale, not at State level. This theme is characteristic of the modern period, from Saint-Simon and Bentham around 1800 up to the Common Market in our time.
The theme of a threat from outside, or of common defence, which many modern authors consider to be essential in awakening a sense of the need for unity, has often been invoked over the centuries. Until the eighteenth century the Turks filled the role of bogeyman; then in the nineteenth century it was the turn of the Russians and of the Yellow Peril; now it is the Two Super-Powers who have the Bomb. But in fact this fear motive is incidental, and has not been a driving force in our history. Whether the adversary be Turkish or Soviet it is a welcome pretext inasmuch as it allows the positive thesis which is being defended -peace, spiritual community or prosperity- to be dramatised. It is pre-eminently a means of persuading Princes, and later on public opinion, to act.
Broadly speaking, union is desired in order to overcome the permanent state of anarchy resulting from the claims of nations and states to absolute sovereignty, and their rejection of any common authority above their interests or ambitions, which they call their rights.
As to the theme of imperialism -"Let us march out together and conquer the world"- I find no mention of it in any plan or thesis, with the sole exception of those of the Jacobins. Certainly it inspired first Napoleon and then Hitler in their brief and unsuccessful attempts to unify Europe by force, each of which lasted about a dozen years. But the prophets and advocates of federal union have always maintained that one of the outstanding effects of union would be to remove any temptation to imperialism or even colonialism.
These four main themes (peace, spiritual community, prosperity, and defence), I repeat, are all to be found in the thinking of all the advocates of unity whom I shall name, but the emphasis differs according to the epoch: this points to an evolution of themes or motives observable over the centuries, which it is interesting to retrace. I shall therefore pass rapidly in review the great names which stand out as landmarks in this evolution, and the main schemes of unity which illustrate its various stages.
Dante
The first two date from the years 1306 and 1308. One is Dante's De Monarchia, and the other was the work of Pierre DuBois, a counsellor of Philip the Fair. Both were reacting against the growing anarchy caused in Europe by the quarrels between the Empire and the Church, the princes, the communes and the innumerable regional or, in the case of the king of France, even national sovereignties (the latter entering the conflict between the Pope and the Emperor like a third robber robber baron).
Dante's idea was a simple one; he wanted to see the establishment of a universal monarchy which, quite logically, would be sole judge in quarrels arising between princes who would be "independent and equal", and hence without powers over one another. Each of these would be master in his own lands, and each kingdom or town would retain its own "different laws", adapted to its customs; but on "common points affecting all men" the human species would be governed by a single monarch and "turned towards peace by a single law". Thus peace would once more come to Europe, which Dante declared to be "sick in its two intellects and in its two intellects and in its sensibility", and which he described as "a many-headed monster dissipating itself in conflicting efforts". It would be an imperial peace, and Dante described it as the "fullness of times" predicted by St. Paul.(2)
Pierre DuBois
This sublime utopia of the poet, holding up the vision of a goal which though unattainable, was to haunt men's minds for centuries, had its counterpart in the down-to-earth empiricism of the Norman lawyer Pierre Dubois. He asked the following practical question: "If cities and princes recognise no higher power in this world, and if they are in conflict, before whom are they to state their case?" And DuBois answered: not before the universal monarch, but before a European Tribunal. This tribunal of arbitration, composed of three "wise experienced" laymen, would be armed with sanctions. A country refusing to submit would be surrounded, isolated, and reduced by starvation; as for individual disturbers of the peace, they would be deported: they would be sent to fight against the Turks in the Holy Land, like a sort of Foreign Legion, rather than being allowed to continue bringing fire and blood to the "Christian Republic" (for "Christian" read "European:).(3)
Needless to say, this plan received about as little attention as Dante's utopia. Not that it lacked realism; on the contrary, as one commentator wrote: "He was too much of a realist for his generation, which had very little realism."(4)
This was the refrain with which all proposals for peace, from that day to this, were to be met. It took the atomic bomb finally to convince the nations and their rulers that it might be more realistic to help one another than to kill one another, and that therefore those who put forward plans for peace are not necessarily all soft dreamers or dangerous lunatics.
King George Podiebrad
Nevertheless, Pierre DuBois' idea was destined to survive. A hundred and fifty years later, in 1462, a poor Hussite of gentle birth, George Podiebrad, who had come to the throne of Bohemia, took up the torch. He put forward to the Christian princes and to the Pope a Treaty of Alliance which was, in fact, a plan for federation;(5) for, whilst guaranteeing the autonomy of the member states, it expressly limited their sovereignties. It involved the setting up of an Assembly, whose first meeting place was to have been Basle, of a Court of Justice, of a set of international rules for arbitration, of a common armed force and a common budget. All this is clearly much more progressive and modern than a plan which was to be proposed exactly five hundred years later called " L'Europe des patries", a plan that would be a reversion to a Europe composed of sovereign states, an alliance with a paradox at its heart and which it is to be feared, would be no easier to set up than a Friendly Society composed of misanthropists.
Podiebrad's plan was turned down by Louis XI, King of France, and by Pope Pius II, and nothing further was done about it. And yet this pope was none other than the great Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, who at that very time was vainly trying to organise a new crusade, (for Byzantium had just fallen into the hands of the Turks), and who had been the first to speak of Europe as though it were a common fatherland, in his memorable letter to Mahomet II: "Now", he wrote "it is in Europe itself, that is to say in our own fatherland, in our own house, that we are being attacked and killed."(6)
Two centuries passed, and the face of Europe had changed. The great Discoveries, the Reformation and the establishment of states in the modern meaning of the word had caused great upheavals, and in particular the Thirty Years War. The time had come to re-think the relations between nations, that is to say between princes.
Efforts to restore order
Four plans on the grand scale contributed to this effort to restore order which was the keynote of the seventeenth century. All four vigorously emphasise Europe's federal vocation and the deep anxiety felt by the men of that age about the absolutist claims of states, All four were the product of minds which were deeply religious and therefore "ecumenical" in to-day's usage of the word, which implies the drawing closer together of the Christian confessions. Thus spiritual community, as well as peace, was one of the main inspirations of these plans. Lastly, all four passed unregarded by their contemporaries and yet survive in human memory long after the "realist" treaties of the period, which were soon effaced by history. To this day they have not ceased to influence the thinking of the creators of European institutions.
In chronological order, these four plans are: the Nouveau Cynée of Emeric Cruce, a Parisian monk, in 1623; Sully's Grand Design in 1638 (he was a Huguenot minister of Henry IV); the Universal Dream of Amos Comenius, a Moravian bishop, in 1645; and the Essay on the present and future of Peace in Europe by William Pen, the English Quaker and founder of a state in America, in 1692. There was a fifth at the beginning of the eighteenth century, the Project of Perpetual Peace, by the notorious Abbe de Saint-Pierre, in 1792.
To be frank, these plans were no great improvement on that of Podiebrad, though an examination of the facts compels their authors to repeat his main points. All of them propose a judicial tribunal which is above the states -or as we should say, supranational; they propose an Assembly, or Council of Europe; economic action on a continent-wide scale; and a common army in place of the armies of the Princes.
I shall therefore confine myself to mentioning any original or picturesque features of the various plans.
Emeric Cruce
Undoubtedly the most modern of these plans is the one which appeared first and of which first and of which least was heard, that of Emeric Cruce. All we know about him is that he was an obscure "teacher monk" in a college in Paris.(7) Three of his distinctive proposals are most astonishing considering the time when they were made: first, to include the Turks in the federation of Europe, which is rather like asking Soviet Russia today [1965] to join the Common Market, or even NATO; secondly, to end the wars of religion on the ground that the object of all religions is the same, namely the worship of God, and that their ceremonies are therefore of equal worth; "Only a narrow-minded person" he wrote, "believes that everyone ought to live as he does, or imagines only his own customs to be right, like those naive Athenians who thought their moon was brighter than that in any other country"; and third, to replace military training by educating the people in the sciences and manual skills, and to work out a scheme of great public works on the European scale, such as canals "joining the two seas", the reclamation of waste land, standardisation of weights and measures, a common currency and the abolition of customs and tolls.
For all its astonishing richness, this plan was not followed up. But Leibnitz, another good European with an ecumenical outlook, was to read it later and make use of it.
Sully's "Grand Design"
The "Grand Design" which the Duc de Sully pretends to ascribe to King Henry IV of France was less original but much more widely known. It is constantly quoted and never read, with good reason. In reality it started off as a purely political scheme for a supranational pact between Protestant and Catholic princes against the house of Habsburg; but its substance is thinly spread through the thousands of pages of the Memoires des sages et royales aeconomies, (8)written long after the king's death by four secretaries who address the duke in the second person plural and thus recount his own life to him. In so far as it can be reconstituted, the plan provides for provincial councils and a General Council of Europe, limiting state sovereignty and guaranteeing freedom of trade. Its historical merit is that of having linked the prestige of a king to a high sounding title, "the Grand Design", which was to be repeated and invoked by innumerable advocates of unity, from William Penn and the abbe de Saint-Pierre to Churchill.
Comenius
Comenius (9) was the founder of modern pedagogy, the visionary forerunner of the ecumenical movement and of the worldwide federation. We shall single out from his Universal Dream the imposing scheme for a triple tribunal placed above individual states, and composed of the learned ones or "Council of Light" ecclesiastics or "Consistory", and politicians or statesmen the "Court of Justice". And we quote this memorable sentence "The light must be taken to other peoples in the name of our fatherland of Europe; that is why we must first of all unite among ourselves; for we Europeans must be looked upon as travellers who have all embarked on one and the same vessel." (May I remind you that this was written more than three hundred years ago).
William Penn
From the Essay by William Penn (10), founder, governor and all but king of Pennsylvania, we shall single out his uncompromising pacifism, his practical sense and his concern with economy. Like Cruce, he too proposed that young people should be taught "mechanics, a knowledge of nature, to cultivate useful and pleasant arts, and to know the world into which they have been born" rather than how to use arms. He wanted a European passport, and he suggested that the meeting place of the European parliament should be circular, not rectangular, having as many doors as there were delegations, to prevent disputes about precedence...
The Abbe de Saint-Pierre
Lastly there is the Plan for Perpetual Peace of the Abbe de Saint-Pierre (11), known chiefly for the derision it aroused throughout the eighteenth century. In six poorly written volumes it contains little that is really new, excepting the proposal that European union should begin with a congress meeting at the Hague -which actually took place 236 years later. This what Rousseau said about it: If the plan is not put into execution it will not be because it is fanciful; it is because men are senseless, and because it is a kind of folly to be wise in the midst of fools". (12)
Some of these plans, like Sully's became famous; others, like Saint-Pierre's, were much read: but none of them had the slightest practical result.
The Jacobins
Let us turn the page of the cosmopolitan eighteenth century; Montesquieu, Voltaire and Wieland thought that Europe had already been built, because it existed in their minds and therefore must exist in reality. This brings us to the French Revolution. In 1792 one of its extreme left-wing orators, Anacharsis Cloots, put down at the bar of the Convention a plan for a Universal Republic, of which the municipality of Paris would be the all-powerful centre. It was a curious secular replica of Dante's universal monarchy except that, at Cloots made clear, this utopia was to be imposed upon mankind by "war! war! the cry of all patriots scattered over the surface of Europe". The answer to this crusade whose motto would have been "The Jacobins everywhere!" was the completely opposite one of the famous English economist Jeremy Bentham, who incidentally was given French citizenship by the same Convention. His plan was entitled: "A Plan for Perpetual Peace" (13). His demands included on the one hand that Europe should be neutral, armed and united, on the model of the "Helvetic League", and on the other hand that France and Great Britain should give up their "costly overseas dependencies" as the colonies were then called. Needless to say, the plan was not adopted...
Saint-Simon
A little later Count Henri de Saint-Simon, a forerunner of Socialism and of large scale industrial enterprise (the Suez canal was built by his followers) also proposed, in his "Plan for the Organisation of European Society" (14) that French and British interests should be merged and that a European Parliament elected by leaders in trade and the professions should be set up and "placed over all national governments". Saint-Simon is the real ancestor of the Common Marked in that, for him, unity must be born of the "coactive power" of economic institutions, a power which "concerts movements, makes interests common and promises firm".
But once again the age was not realistic enough to understand so clear a message, the message of a political engineer. The industrial age, inaugurated by the libertarian hopes of the democrats, was indeed to see the birth of popular nationalisms, propagated and, above all, induced by the Napoleonic conquest. For the Holy Roman Empire and Metternich's Holy Alliance (of kings) it substituted Béranger's ideal of the "Holy Alliance of Peoples". But it was the nation-states which ate the chestnuts pulled out of the fire by such men as Mazzini, Garibaldi, Fourier, Heine, Lamartine and Mickiewicz, all of whom fought for a United States of Europe based upon the will of the peoples -a vision which was hymned by far-sighted poets, and exploited by politicians with short-sighted tricks. The nineteenth century was filled with countless European congresses, and the sum total of their achievement was nothing. But amongst those who attended them was Victor Hugo, that poet who must be acclaimed as the greatest singer of the ideal of European union. He was even acclaimed during his lifetime.
The following is an extract from the report in the Journal Officiel of the speech which he made in the French legislative assembly in 1851:
M. Hugo.- The first nation in the world has produced three revolutions, as the gods of Homer took three steps. These three revolutions are one, and it is not a local revolution but the revolution of humanity [... ]
After long trials, this revolution gave birth in France to the Republic [...] The people of France have carved out of indestructible granite, and placed right in the centre of a continent full of monarchies, the foundation stone of the immense edifice of the future, which will be known one day as the United States of Europe.
M. de Montalembert.- The United States of Europe! That's going too far. Hugo is mad.
M.Mole.- The United States of Europe! What an idea! What folly!
M. Quentin-Bauchard.- These poets!" (15)
Hugo was not at all put out by these fatheads, whose reactions he had anticipated. He knew the real history of his nation better than many a nationalist. Two years before, at the Peace Congress which met in Paris, he had exclaimed:
"There will come a day when all of you, France, Russia, Italy, Britain, Germany, all you nations of this continent, without losing your distinctive qualities or your glorious individuality, will merge closely into a higher unity and will form the fraternity of Europe, Just as Normandy, Brittany, Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, all our provinces, have merged to become France. The day will come when the only battlefields will be markets open to commerce and minds open to ideas. The day will come when bullets and bombs will be replaced by votes, by universal suffrage of the peoples and by the true judgment of a great sovereign senate which will be to Europe what Parliament is to England, what the Diet is to Germany and what the Legislative Assembly is to France! The day will come when two huge groups will be seen, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, holding out their hands to one another across the ocean, exchanging their products, their trade, their industry, their arts, their science, reclaiming the globe, colonising deserts and improving creation under the eye of the Creator [...]"(16)
Proudhon
In 1868 Proudhon's great prediction appeared: "The twentieth century will see the beginning of the age of federations, in which humanity will begin another purgatory lasting a thousand years" (17). A year previously Hugo had written: "In the twentieth century, there will be an extraordinary nation. It will be a great nation, but at the same time a free one. It will be famous, rich, intelligent, peaceful and friendly towards the rest of humanity. It will have the gravity and charm of an elder [...] The capital of this nation will be Paris, but the nation will not be called France; its name will be Europe. It will be called Europe in the twentieth century, but in later centuries, transfigured still farther, it will be called Humanity. Humanity, the ultimate nation, is even now perceived by thinkers who can pierce the shadows; but what the nineteenth century is witnessing is the formation of Europe." (18)
Nietzsche versus nationalism
Alas, Hugo was a hundred years ahead of history. For what the nineteenth century really witnessed was the triumph of the principle of nationality, as Mazzini said; and before long this was transformed into militant nationalism, backed by the state and striving for self-sufficiency. Towards the end of the century all percipient observers of these developments -Jakob Burkhardt as much as Dostoevsky, Ernest Renan as much as Nietzsche- were foretelling the worst. Nietzsche wrote in The Will to Power: "Let some fresh air in! This absurd state of affairs must not go on any longer in Europe! What sense is there in this bone-headed nationalism? Now that everything points to larger common interests, what is the purpose of encouraging this scurvy egoism?" He believed he could detect "among all the great and deep minds of this century, their common spiritual task consists in preparing for and anticipating this new synthesis: Europe united and the European man of the future." (19) But at the same time he denounced the "paralysis of the will", a sickness threatening to prove fatal to Europe, and from which Russia alone seemed exempt, awaiting her hour...
Finally, George Sorel, in one of his Propos dated 1912, wrote: "Europe is a cemetery, peopled by nations who sing and then go out to kill one another. Soon the French and the Germans will be singing". (20)
We know what happened. For this was not an empty prophesy! Just after the first world war, Paul Valéry was able to write: "All is not lost, but everything was touched by the wings of death [... ] Now we know that civilisation is mortal". (21)
The European Movement 1924
Europe had touched bottom for the first time. It was then that plans for union began to appear again -there was Count Coudenhove-Kalergi's Pan Europe, then Aristide Briand and Alexis Léger, between 1923 and 1932. (22) And as the second world war finished a political, economic and cultural programme was organised with the firm intention of giving immediate effect to expectations which had been denied for more than six centuries.
The time for plans that went unheeded was over. Now things began to happen -many things. Each new step forward had to be cemented by yet another one. Here is the swift chronicle of events.
Resistance in Europe 1944
In the spring of 1944 resistance fighters from nine countries in Europe met four times in secret at a villa in Geneva. They worked out a common declaration giving expression to the united purpose animating those who were in the fight against Nazi oppression. They set out the moral, social, economic and political aims of a union of their countries and they declared:
"These aims can be achieved only if the various countries of the world agree to supersede the dogma of absolute state sovereignty by joining together in a single federal organisation. Peace in Europe is the keystone of world peace. For in the space of a single generation Europe has been the epicentre of two world conflicts due primarily to the existence of thirty sovereign states on this continent. This anarchy must be ended by the creation of a federal Union among the peoples of Europe." (23)
You will have recognised in the words of this declaration the main themes of the plans I have cited. There is nothing new save for one crucial difference: this time it is not isolated voices separated from one another by twenty or a hundred years, crying in the wilderness and speaking to the future; it is groups of combatants in the thick of the fight; and no longer do they desire: they will.
As soon as the war ended, these ides and wills were translated into action. In all our countries they gave birth to a multitude of movements, groups, associations and leagues committed to the idea of federation. The leaders of these movements met at Montreux in the autumn of 1947 (24) and decided to convene a Parliament of Europe for the following spring. Churchill had just made his famous speech at Zurich calling for a union of all the nations of the continent (except the British). (25) He was offered the Presidency of this union.
The Hague Congress 1948
Thus there were brought together a score of federalist or unionist movements, some important statesmen and more than 800 members of parliament, trade union leaders, intellectuals and economists -an unlikely combination, very difficult to bring about, yet accomplished for all that in a few months by an extraordinary moving spirit, the Polish citizen Joseph Retinger. (26) And this conjunction resulted in the Congress of Europe, which met at The Hague in May 1948.
It cannot be said too often that everything else flowed from that Congress. For the Hague Congress was the living synthesis of the four traditional themes of union, concretely expressed in its three commissions -political, economic and cultural, representing peace through federation, suppressing the anarchy of sovereign states; prosperity by means of an economy at once free and organised; and the spiritual community, gathering together the living forces of culture, beyond frontiers and nationalisms. What is striking is that the fourth theme, that of common defence, which had nearly always figured in the argument up to that time, was quite absent from the discussions and from the final Manifesto. (27)
Everything began at the Hague, I repeat. For, from each of the three themes taken up and crystallised by the congress, in other words from each of the three commissions of which it was made up, there emanated three great series of institutions which to-day are firmly established; three successes, in fact: whereas the theme of defence, which was not taken up at The Hague, resulted only in the European Defence Community fiasco of 1954. (It may be remarked in passing that if, as is often said, fear of Stalin and of communist imperialism was the real reason why we came together, if we federated only under duress,, the first institution to be adopted by Europe would logically have been the E.D.C. whereas in fact it was the only one which was rejected.)
Now let us see what was achieved.
The political commission at The Hague called for the establishment of a Council of Europe endowed with a Court of human rights and a European Assembly. Nine months later the Council of Europe and the Court were set up. Then the Assembly (unfortunately only consultative) was inaugurated at Strasbourg.
The economic commission called for the establishment of common institutions enabling the essential interests of our countries -industrial production, social legislation, customs tariffs, freedom of trade -to be merged. Two years later, Robert Schuman and Jean Monnet put forward their plan for the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) which was accepted, and from 1957 Euratom and the Common Market, both of which are forging ahead rapidly, were added.
Lastly, the cultural commission called for the setting up of a European Centre of Culture. This was duly created at Geneva in 1949, and during the last dozen years there have grown up around it, often with its help, sometimes without it, at times even in opposition to it (a characteristic result of European pluralism, which is the real foundation of our unity) more than a hundred institutes, associations, European Houses and Foundations (28) all with the object of awakening and sustaining the sense of our common involvement in the spiritual adventure of Europe.
In the economic sphere the movement towards unity seems to be irreversible; already industrialists of their own accord are going far beyond the cautious targets of the treaties. It looks as if this leap forward will soon find official blessing in the political sphere in some form of association, integration or federation. Finally, thanks to the combined efforts of some thirty "University Institutes of European Studies" and of large groups in the educational world, such as the "European Association of Teachers" which operates at primary and secondary school level in some dozen European countries, a feeling for union is taking root among the younger generation. Here indeed is progress! For only so can the building of Europe rest upon broad and firm foundations; only so can the essential transition be effected from the militant will of pioneer groups to the reasoned assent of the majority of citizens. To-day, the leaders are making Europe, tomorrow the people will take over!
In just fifteen years
And all this happened in about fifteen years, during which the vanguard of the united Europe has complained ceaselessly of the indifference with which their appeals were received, and of the scandalous slowness of progress towards Federation! This impatience is necessary. It is one of the essential prerequisites of action of the will to act. Another condition is to know where one is going, which entails establishing where one has come from. In my rapid survey of six and a half centuries of frustration I have tried to recall to you the distant origins and the constant themes of the movement towards union which is now active and gathering momentum before our eyes.
Notes on Chapter III
1. D. de Rougemont, Vingt-Huit Siècles d'Europe Payot (Bibliothèque Historique), Paris 1961. The quotations from plans for Europe mentioned later on are taken from this book, where they will be found in their context.
2. Dante, De Monarchia, written in 1308 in Latin. Quotations are from the French translation by B. Landry, Alcan, Paris 1933.
3. Piere DuBois, De recuperatione Terra Sancte. composed in 1306 and sent as a circular letter to all Christian princes.
4. Christian L.Lange, Histoire de l'internationalisme, Christiania 1919, vol. I, chapter 4.
5. The Treaty of George Podiebrad (1420-1471) was written in Latin in the year 1463. The text is reproduced in the Mèmoires of Philippe de Comines, preceded by this title in French: Treaty of Alliance and Confederation between King Louis IX, George King of Bohemia and the Seigniory of Venice, to resist the Turk.
6 Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (1405-1464), De Contantinopolitana clade ac bello contra Turcos congregando. Podiebrad ascended the throne in 1462, the very year in which Aeneas Silvius became Pope Pius II. These two contemporaries were pursuing the same aim, but Pius II was forced by the antagonism between the Papacy and the Princes to condemn Podiebrad's scheme, which was in fact anti-clerical.
7. Emeric Crucé (d. 1648): Le Nouveau Cynée ou discours d'Etat representant les occasions et moyens d' établir une paix générale et la liberté du commerce par tout le monde. Published at Paris in 1623.
8. The Memoires of Maximilien de Bethune, Duke Sully (their full title takes up a dozen lines) were not published until 1662 although the first two parts were completed in 1638. In 1745 the abbe of Sluys published a short version which was very widely read.
9. Amos Comenius (a latinized form of the name Komenski), 1592-1670 wrote his Panegersia or Universal Dream in 1645 and published 1666. The sentence quoted is taken from the "Praefatio ad Europeos".
10. The Essay Towards the Present and Future Peace of Europe was written between 1692 and 1694, during a break in William Penn's career as a governor.
11. The Project of Perpetual Peace in Europe was first published at Cologne in 1712, then at Utrecht in 1713, anonymously. In 1729 the abbé de Saint-Pierre wrote a shorter version, this time over his signature.
12. The Extrait du Projet de paix perpetuelle de M. l'abbé de Saint-Pierre, par J.-J. Rousseau, citoyen de Genève, was published at Amsterdam in 1761.
13. It was in his Principles of International Law, completed in 1789 and published in 1843, some time after the author's death, that Jeremy Bentham included A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace, in which he dealt with the European question.
14. H. de Saint-Simon, De la réorganization de la Société européene ou de la necessité de rassembler les peuples de l' Europe en un seul corps politique, en conservant à chacun son indépendence nationale, Paris 1814.
15 V.Hugo, Oeuvres complètes, Actes et Paroles, vol. I, pp. 425-427.
16. V. Hugo, op. cit.,I pp. 475-486.
17 P.-J Proudhon, Oeuvres complètes, vol. VIII, Du Principe Federatif, Paris 1868, p. 177.
18. V. Hugo, op. cit., vol.IV, p. 295. Article entitled: Il Avenir.
19 F. Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, p. 256, then a posthumous fragment (which we quote) on the same subject.
20. Jean Variot: Propos de Georges Sorel, Paris 1935.
21. Paul Valery, Variete I, La Crise de l'Esprit (written 1919) Paris 1924.
22. It was in 1922 that Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi first launched in the Austrian and German press a first appeal for the creation of "Paneurope". His Paneuropean Manifesto was published in 1924. Aristide Briand, convinced by the young Austrian, decided in 1928 to lay plan for a European Confederation before the League of Nations. And he entrusted his closest collaborator, Alexis Léger, with the drafting of the Memorandum on the Organization of a Federal System for Europe, dated May 1st, 1930 (republished by the Cahiers de la Pleiade, special number in honour of Saint-John Perse -Alexis Léger's pseudonym- Paris 1950).
23. See the full text of his declaration by the resistance movements in L'Europe de Demain, Editions de la Baconière, Neuchatel 1945, which gives a detailed account of the secret meetings at Geneva.
24. The documents of the Montreux Congress, 27-31 August 1947, organized by H. Brugmans, Raymond Silva and Alexandre Marc, were published in one volume entitled Rapport du Premier Congrès annuel de l' Union Européenne des Fédéralistes, Geneva 1947, now unobtainable.
25. In these words Mr. Churchill made it clear that Britain would not be a member of the Union he was proposing"[...] France and Germany should together take the lead in the urgent task. Great Britain, the British Empire, powerful America and, I am sure, Soviet Russia -for relations were good at that time- should be friends and guarantors of the new Europe and champions of her right to live." (Cf. Généalogie des Grands Desseins européens, Bulletin of the EEC, No.6, 1960-61, p. 81).
26. On the career of J.-H. Retinger, see Hommage à un grand Européen J.-H. Retinger, by Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, Ambassador P. Quaroni, the painter F. Topolski, K. Jelenski, D. de Rougemont, etc., Bulletin of the EEC, No. 5, 1960-61.
27. Text of the Manifesto in L'Europe en Jeu, by D. de Rougemont, Ed. de la Baconière, Neuchatel 1948.
The Congress of Europe was held from the 7th to the 11th May at the Hague under the patronage of Winston Churchill, the Chairman being Duncan Sandys. Chairmen and rapporteurs of the three commissions were: political, Paul Ramadier, Rene Courtin and R.W.G. Mackay; economic, Paul van Zeeland, D. Serruys and Lord Layton; cultural, Salvador de Matariaga and D. Rougemont.
28. See Raymond Racine, Les Institutions Culturelles Européenes, invintaire de leurs activites dressé pour la "Fondation europénne de la Culture", Geneva 1959 (duplicated, 100 copies). This describes sixty governmental and private organizations, university teaching and research (institutions of) or international relations, Foundations, juries for "Prix europeens", etc. Many more institutes have been set up since then.
Out of this fearful war [the Thirty Years War]Europe came forth free and independent. In it she first learned to recognize herself as a community of nations. [Schiller]
Fondation Charles de Gaulle
Coudenhove-Kalergi / De Gaulle - Une certaine idée de l'Europe.
Cahiers de la Fondation Charles de Gaulle, n° 6, 1999, 279 p.
De Gaulle trouvait un écho bienveillant chez le comte Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, promoteur infatigable dès les années 20 de l'idée de Paneurope. L'Europe de ces deux hommes, qui
correspondaient ensemble, se rencontraient, s'estimaient, est une Europe autonome, libre, démocratique, riche de ses diversités et de ses rencontres, une " Europe européenne pour les Européens ".
L'Europe souhaitée par Charles de Gaulle et Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, avec ses convergences, mais aussi ses divergences a été étudiée lors d'un colloque international qui s'est tenu à Nancy en novembre 1998 et qui a été organisé par la Fondation Charles de Gaulle, la Fondation Coudenhove-Kalergi et l'université de Nancy-II. Les textes de cette rencontre, ainsi que les débats féconds qui les ont suivis sont présentés dans ce recueil.
Acteurs de la période, chercheurs français, suisses, autrichiens ont contribué à mieux faire connaître cet objet d'étude essentiel qu'est l'Europe, dans une perspective parfois très différente de celle que l'on connaît aujourd'hui. Le Professeur Larcan, Président du conseil scientifique de la Fondation Charles de Gaulle a notamment rassemblé en annexe l'ensemble de la correspondance établie entre Charles de Gaulle et Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, montrant sous diverses facettes la progression de leurs liens, de leurs projets et de leur réflexion sur l'Europe unie des États libres qui " le veulent et qui le peuvent "...
Paris, Fondation Charles de Gaulle, 1999
The Eurasian Politician - Issue 1 (May 21st, 2000)
“The Second Chance“
An essay on Europe’s political development
Present Europe is in a situation that resembles the interwar situation of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s time: Russia and Yugoslavia were not neutralised like Austro-Hungarian and Turkish Empires, but instead, like Weimar Germany and Soviet Russia, they stay as time-bombs to threaten European peace in the 90s. The fatal axis of France and Germany seems much more promising now than in Coudenhove-Kalergi’s Europe, but the fatal question of present Europe is the one concerning Intermediate Europe. The biggest danger of our times is the desire of Russia and the USA to share Intermediate Europe. Because of that, the grey zone must be neutralised by guaranteeing entrance to Europe for more than five East-European countries. The Baltics, Romania and Moldova are in the most instant threat.
Author: Anssi Kullberg
The father of the Paneuropean idea, Count Richard Nicolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi, wrote his famous “Paneuropa“ in the twenties, to be a manifesto for a new, more secure, Europe. He warned Europe for what could happen if the free Mazzinian states of the new Europe of his time, the post-Vienna-Congress Europe of the inter-war period, would not take seriously the world-political dilemma, which Coudenhove-Kalergi called ‘the European Question’.
In the situation of Inter-War Europe, four empires had fallen; German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian and Turkish. Quite correctly, Coudenhove-Kalergi was especially concerned of the revanchism of Germany and Russia, and these superpowers’ common desire to share the Intermediate Europe, Europe between Germany and the emerged Soviet Russia. Where it came to the Habsburgian and Ottoman Empires, they had witnessed identity shifts that were enough to chance the nature of these former empires in a way that they no more were direct threats to Europe.
Germany and the aggressive Soviet Union that had emerged by the Russian revolution, were direct threats against European stability. Because the Russian Empire, in the form of the Soviet Union, had taken an explicitly totalitarian shape, Coudenhove-Kalergi quite correctly excluded it from Europe. Weimar Germany, on the other hand, was in a state of interregnum and identity crisis, and Coudenhove-Kalergi found it crucial for Europe to integrate Germany with the rest of Europe. Because of that the axis between France and Germany was what Coudenhove-Kalergi called the fatal axis of Europe. Because of that, too, the greatest danger to emerge against Europe would be an alliance between Germany and Russia to share Eastern Europe. This great danger was even greater threat because the geopolitical situation had created a grey zone of weak small countries, from Finland to Albania, as a belt between revanchist Germany and aggressive Soviet Union. In most of these countries the dangerous geopolitical position brought about more or less authoritarian regimes in response to the communist and fascist threats.
Fascism and national socialism per se were a reply to communist internationalism, an attempt to suit socialism and the kind of ethical cynicism, about which Nietzsche had warned Europe, to a xenophobic and nationalist form. Paul Johnson, in his eminent History of Modern Times, has pointed out the logical development from the nihilism of the 1800s thinkers like Karl Marx, to the two totalitarian schools of socialism. An early poem by Karl Marx describes the influence of his (and others’) later theories well: “I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind;
Ha! Eternity! She is an eternal grief!“
In a situation where Lenin’s Bolshevik terror had made Marx’s dark prophecies true, where the communists, inspired by the Soviet Union, were threatening the legal order and democracy in most of the Intermediate countries, and where new fascist movements arose as a counter-twin of communism, the authoritarian regimes in e.g. the three Baltic States were more or less necessities against both these threats. Socialist interpretations often claim the authoritarian regime of Estonian President Konstantin Päts as ‘fascist’, but they forget two relevant things: First, Päts (who was a social-democrat, yet of course Mussolini was a social-democrat, too) took over in fear of a democratic victory for the Vapsi movement, i.e. Estonian fascist-inspired veterans. Secondly, the Baltic regimes, even during the authoritarian era, were much more liberal than most of the Intermediate regimes, for instance Marshal Józef Pilsudski’s Poland and Marshal Ion Antonescu’s Romania. Let alone the superpowers Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, between whom “Zwischeneuropa“ had been sandwiched.
Events of the thirties proved Coudenhove-Kalergi’s concern more than accurate. The first chance of modern Paneurope, that could have broken the dark determinism of the nihilism of Marx’s and Nietzsche’s type, had been lost when two regents of the new dark type that Nietzsche foresaw to appear, Hitler and Stalin, came into alliance in the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The Devil was at large in Europe. Like Karl Marx wrote:
“See this sword?
The Prince of Darkness
sold it to me.
With Satan I have struck my deal,
he chalks the signs, beats time for me,
I play the death march fast and free!“
In the second world war, everything that Coudenhove-Kalergi had feared, happened. Europe was destroyed and divided. Fascism and nazism were wiped out of the state-map of Europe, but on the other hand half of Europe was given into the power of the Soviet Union, for a half century of red nightmare in the frozen atmosphere of the Cold War Europe. Stalin got everything that Hitler had dreamed of. However, during the darkest years of European division, Western Europe stayed free, and even the Paneuropean movement survived to preserve Coudenhove-Kalergi’s thoughts, the ideal of a free, tolerant and united Europe that could resist external aggressions from the East as well as economic competition from over the Atlantic. Present Paneuropean Union’s four fundaments (Libertarian, Christian, Social and European) indicate the ethical preservation of the values of Antiquity and Renaissance as well as the pacifism of the inter-war Europe, over the cold decades of Realpolitik to our days. Like the ideals of ancient Greece and civic order of the ancient Rome had once re-emerged in the form of Renaissance after the dark years of religious fundamentalism in medieval Europe, and like the European tolerant and liberal values had once taken over the narrow tyranny of Absolutism, and Mazzinian ideals triumphed against the empires, so Europe was once again re-born in the eve of a new millennium.
At the end of the eighties, a new cataclysm - and the most important one of the late modern times - proved that the hopes of the Paneuropeans had not been wasted, and that Liberation of Europe was not just a daydream of Wilsonian idealists. The Great Liberation of Eastern Europe and finally the fall of the Soviet Union ended an era of lethargy in Europe, and offered the Second Chance for Paneurope. New European statesmen appeared to heal the ignored ideals of inter-war thinkers like Coudenhove-Kalergi, Aristide Briand, Tomáš Masaryk, and Gustav Stresemann, not to forget Otto von Habsburg who has got the chance to witness this new Renaissance of Europe. Among the new eminent statesmen most came from the former oppressed countries that had been under the communist yoke: Václav Havel, Emil Constantinescu, Lech Walesa, Mart Laar, Lennart Meri, Ivan Kostov and Vytautas Landsbergis can be called our decade’s great European statesmen, but we must neither forget those who have been forced to defend European values against hostile armed oppressors. Thus, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, Dzoxar Dudayev and Ibrahim Rugova also deserve their place in the European memory, even though their dreams were crushed in a cruel way.
Here we come to the dark side of the similarity between present post-Cold-War situation and the inter-war situation of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s times. An interregnum, like for example Stratfor Global Intelligence Update calls the nineties in their annual forecast for 1999, titled “A New and Dangerous World“. Because of that it is time to repeat Coudenhove-Kalergi’s warnings for Europe, as an Ultimatum called “The Second Chance“. This Ultimatum should have been taken seriously already at the beginning of the nineties, because already in 1992 and 1993 Europe had to witness an end of the short euphoria of the Great Liberation. Serbian and Russian aggressions against their neighbour nations, in form of armed invasion or totalitarian coup d’état by the old nomenclature, proved the fragility of the New European dream, in the Balkans, in the Caucasus, and in Moldova. Also in countries that avoided direct armed conflict, the old era showed its ability to resist a change: Ion Iliescu’s five-year reign in Romania before Constantinescu’s liberal regime took over in 1995-96, and Vladimir Meciar’s rule in Slovakia until May 1999, are evidence that features of totalitarianism have not disappeared even from fully European states. In the Balkans, the nationalist communist tyranny of Serbia is not entirely alone in authoritarianism; Franjo Tudjman’s Croatia, divided and artificial Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Republic of Macedonia that has been loyal to Serbian interests, cannot yet be called fully European regimes.
It is not a coincidence that the two aggressor states of the New Europe, Russia and Serbia, are the two master nations of the fallen empires of communist era: the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. As many analysts point out, Russian and Serbian identities are still haunted by inherent imperialism and revanchism, and they have been eager to use any opportunity to rehabilitate their imperial greatness. For the same reason authoritarian power ideals and totalitarianism in different forms (however, heritage of communism, now mixed with ugly nationalism and xenophobia) are strong and prosperous in these countries. Germany after World War II, Japan after Hiroshima, and for example Romania after the execution of Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu, were never the same. Then, why Russian and Serbian identities continue to favour imperialism and aggressiveness? Perhaps the reason is lack of a transition rite, a drastic shift in these nations’ identity, which could have allowed absolution from the heritage of communism. Absolution from the crimes of communism can only be given to those who really condemn the deeds of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Ceausescu, Hoxha, and Tito - perhaps it would call for a “Red Nuremberg“ which never appeared. When this identity shift is missing, the East-Slavonic identity automatically takes position to defend its former imperialism, and to oppose the West, i.e. also Europe, the great slogan of all the formerly oppressed nations, for whom it was easy to find the natural reference group, and blame the Russians and the Serbs of “kidnapping them from Europe to the Orient“, as expressed by Milan Kundera in his famous book “Tragedy of Central Europe“.
In this sense, it is understandable that Milosevic started the catastrophic Yugoslav wars, and that Yeltsin’s Russia - even during an era of reforms - supported dictatorial coups by former KGB generals in Georgia and Azerbaijan, attacked to Moldova and West Georgia, launched a massive and most dreadful war against the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and supported old communists into power in Central Asia and elsewhere in the area of former Soviet Union. But we must remember that the West carries its own burden for the tragedies of the nineties: By supporting imperialism and ignoring democratic demands for reforms and alterations of state pattern in the areas of the two fallen empires, the West practically allowed Russia and Serbia to act like they acted. This seems to be leading to the final isolation of East-Slavonic identity from the European one: Alyaksandr Lukashenka’s Belarus has rehabilitated the whole old Soviet identity, and it is to be feared that very soon Ukraine will be pressured to join the anti-European bloc of Russia, Belarus and Serbia. The Ukrainians may even do it voluntarily, due to their East-Slavonic identity.
But, as Stratfor suggests, the formation of a new Greater Russia hardly stays in the boundaries of a natural East-Slavonic Union. The Russian Federation already occupied areas of non-Russian nations in the North Caucasus, Idel-Ural Region, and Far East, and most of these peoples seek independence on some level. When facing aggressive reactions by Moscow, the freedom fight is ever more probable to be monopolised into ever more militant hands. “Afghanisation“ of Dagestan and practically all North Caucasus is an alarming sign of this development, and once again recalls the past of Russian and later Soviet colonialism in these non-Russian areas. Like seen in Serbia, too, conflicts call for ever more aggressive nationalism. Stratfor notices that “no-one can govern Russia any longer except on a powerful, nationalist platform“.
The situation of present Russia resembles the one of Weimar Germany which was still lacking the Nuremberg effect. Stratfor’s Forecast writes: “Unable to provide either prosperity or national security, Weimar Germany was replaced by a regime that used national security issues as a means to unite Germany and revive the economy through military spending. Yeltsin’s Russia has lost all credibility, failing to provide either prosperity or national security. Where Germany focused on the Rhineland, Sudetenland, and the Danzig Corridor, Russia will focus on the Baltics, Ukraine, and Central Asia.“ Belarus, Ukraine, and even Serbia, may choose to follow the Russian path, but like Nazi Germany, a new ultra-nationalist Russia under the leadership of Yeltsin’s followers, will hardly be satisfied with an East-Slavonic Union. It will next focus on the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Baltics, let alone the Balkans where the ally Serbia is still to be used. And none of these nations will accept Russian (or Serbian) dominion without serious resistance.
Like in Europe of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s times, the Russian troops are once again on the Polish frontier, and Intermediate Europe is weak, on a salver for imperialist desires of reviving hegemons, and of totalitarian and nationalist tendencies. The European countries in most immediate danger are the Baltic States, Romania and Moldova. Vladimir Putin’s regime has already increased the Russian pressure against the Baltic States, probably to manifest this power-card, as Stratfor remarks, so that nobody would interfere Russian imperial interests farther in the East. Moldova is unstable, once Russia occupied the Slavonic and Gagauz stripe of Transnistria, and forced a new regime to Moldova, also forcing the Romanian country to join the CIS instead of reunification with Romania. In Romania, Miron Cozma’s role as a destabiliser ended with imprisonment - luckily for Europe, as Romania is the key state for stability in East Europe and the Balkans. It is the only clearly Western-oriented nation between Russian and Serbian troops.
Then, what would be the agenda of a new manifesto for Paneurope’s Second Chance? One crucial problem of Coudenhove-Kalergi’s times has been solved: the question of Germany and the Franco-German axis. France, Germany and Poland all share good relations in present Europe. Still, a friction can be seen in French sympathy for Serbs and Russians, and clear anti-Americanism. For German and European interest, it would be dangerous to harm the Atlantic security relations in this flammable situation. Quite the contrary, NATO’s enlarging cannot end with Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary. Membership of Romania, Estonia, Latvia, and possibly also Lithuania in the NATO is absolutely crucial for Europe’s security, stability, and the future of Paneurope. Also immediate realisation of the first round of enlarging of the European Union to Estonia, Slovenia, Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic is necessary, and after this, accompanied with a structural change and abolition of the phlegmatic agriculture policy, membership of Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Bulgaria should be guaranteed. This all should be done in less than four years, as already year 2000 in Russia will probably bring about new serious threats for European security. The Yugoslavian stalemate has not been solved, either. Besides, tensions between Greece and Turkey over Cyprus may prove very dangerous for Paneurope, by isolating all the Balkans and areas beyond it from European entity.
In the long run, NATO should include, besides the present members, Romania, the Baltics, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Moldova, Albania and possibly other regions of former Yugoslavia, depending on what the map looks like after a few years when the questions of Montenegro, Kosova, and Republika Srpska must inevitably be solved. At the same time, a parallel European security alliance should be formed, but it cannot be based on French hegemony, and it must imply Western values of liberal democracy and market economy, excluding totalitarianism, ethnic and religious intolerance, and imperialist colonialism of the Russian and Chinese type. The WEU may be a good base for that, but it must grow into a PEU, Pan-European Union.
Otherwise Europe will face a new era of division, where a large part of West-oriented former East, including Romania and the Baltic States, the Balkans and perhaps even Greece, will be sacrificed into the zone of constant instability and authoritarian rule, where the East-Slavonic countries, the Caucasus, and Central Asia already are. Also more or less totalitarian regents, relying on neo-communism or nationalism, will emerge in the area which stays as a grey zone. These regents will inevitably seek for support from the East, while the people’s desires in all those countries that do not share the Russian or Serbian identity, will stay in a tense contradict to the illegitimate regimes.
On the other hand, Paneuropean project well in process, and the security of the Baltic States and Romania, preferably also Bulgaria, Albania, Moldova etc. guaranteed by the West, the European development will stabilise also the neighbouring areas of Paneurope: East-Slavonic Union of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus; Turkey and its relative nations in Azerbaijan and Turkestan; the Caucasus; the Idel-Ural region with Turkic and Finno-Ugric nations which may become flammable if Russian nationalism still rises; Iran; and the Arabic Middle East and North Africa. With a strong and peaceful Paneurope with no grey zone in the east, the mental fear for American expansion towards Russia and Islam is diminished, and Russia, Iran, and Turkey are encouraged to continue their reform policies instead of turning into more protectionistic.
Anssi Kullberg
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