THE ORIGINAL CONCEPT OF SUPRANATIONAL DEMOCRACY FOR EUROPE BROUGHT LONG-LASTING PEACE TO THE CONTINENT. EU'S FOUNDER ROBERT SCHUMAN DESCRIBED DEMOCRACY AS BEING IN THE SERVICE OF THE PEOPLE AND ACTING IN AGREEMENT WITH THE PEOPLE. WHAT'S GOING ON TODAY? SEE ALSO WWW.SCHUMAN.INFO AND HTTP://DEMOCRACY.BLOGACTIV.EU .YOUR DEMOCRACY IN EUROPE
16 APRIL, 2011
Monnet7: Can YOU discern if Jean Monnet was an egotistical mythmaker and a charlatan?
`Schuman did not really understand the Treaty which bore his name.'
29 MARCH, 2011
Truth12: EU's refusal to celebrate Europe's 60th Anniversary of Peace and Democracy means it is set again on the way of war.
23 MARCH, 2011
Lobby3: MEPs, caught as bribe-taking lobbyists, say Corruption is 'normal' in Europe's parliaments
15 MARCH, 2011
Truth11 : Is the Commission mad, bad, ignorant or incompetent to refuse to publish Europe's founding Declaration of Interdependence?
Primarily an economic organisation at its inception, the EU has evolved into a project to guarantee high levels of social protection for its citizens.
Sunday, 17 April 2011
Why do people read blogs or history books, for that matter? Facts, you might say. A broader purpose is the search for truth. How do you examine history books? Do you always agree with them? Some blogs might seem to be convincing but are they really the truth or smooth public relations? To get at the truth, readers need discernment, logical analysis and background knowledge.
Are you up to the task?
If you doubt, what do you do? You check a reference book. But are they reliable? Take this comment which has found its way from the Memoirs of former Commission President Roy Jenkins into such reference books as the Penguin Companion to the European Union.
This is obviously balderdash but it would appear that both authors (the reference book and the Commission President Roy Jenkins) thought the comment of the original critic, X, was worth recording.
Or do you think it is possibly true? Can you be sure and defend your opinion?
Firstly, it seems rather extraordinary that anyone would make such a claim. The European Community is one of the most successful ventures in history. The author of the remark, X, quoted by Jenkins says the EU's originator, Schuman, did not understand what he was doing. Secondly, it is probably more astounding that someone somewhere believed this comment whoever made it. Did they have evidence? None is given. Does this mean that that Jenkins and the reference book's author were wise judges or parrots? All we can say is that they do not treat the reader as having any intelligence because they expect us to accept it purely on their own reputation. What is their reputation? Beyond that we have to suspend judgement on the facts for the moment.
The first rule is that we should have material evidence and logic for our opinions. We should not take any critic at face value. We should examine his credentials but more importantly we should examine the logic and facts first, without getting involved in personalities or opinions, whether a reference book, a Commission president or the original source of the quotation, X. Secondly we should then examine the motivation of the person, X, making the remarks.
The public accept a lot of advertising, propaganda and distortions without reflection. Many clever, well paid people fashioned them in a way to make people swallow them without thought. What a reader should ask is: What is the motivation of this critic and the purpose does he want to achieve? What critic would level such a obvious slander against someone who was considered one of the greatest experts on international treaties?
Let us assume that Roy Jenkins has reported the criticism correctly. This should be checked against other parts of his books. Let us get to the substance of the remark.
So what treaty is the critic is addressing? Schuman's name is associated with so many. The critic betrays his background and also lack of knowledge. No one treaty actually bears Schuman's name. So we must question whether the critic is a proven expert. Was he really familiar with diplomacy and treaty-making?
Schuman was involved in most of the key treaties that are still the democratic foundation of modern Germany, the foundation of modern Europe and trans-Atlantic relations. The understanding and wisdom of these agreements shows his expertise in the matter of treaty writing. Treaties were not only the exclusive prerogative of the Foreign Minister but Schuman as an international lawyer with three decades of experience, was a great specialist.
Does the statement agree with impartial judges? An American diplomatic historian of the US State Department wrote Schuman ‘derived great intellectual delight in the subtleties of international agreement’. Any such postwar treaty also entailed political risks. An effective treaty-writer had to be both an expert lawyer and and expert politician. The international negotiations to create the Council of Europe had taken a great deal of energy and time. There is hardly a lawyer one could name in the postwar period that was more expert in treaties, so this criticism seems on any ground, bizarre.
Let us assume that the critic, X, refers to the European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, not the Statutes of London, the European Convention of Human Rights or the Treaty of Washington that created NATO or the numerous others.
We come to specifics. Was it a matter about the technical industry, coking quality, iron ore trade and other details of processing of coal and steel? Did Schuman not understand new innovations and rolling mills? Was he ignorant about coal and steel cartels? That would require someone with enormous knowledge and experience to say that Schuman was inadequate in this department.
Schuman had been a member of the French Parliament for around four decades. He was elected without fail every election for his constituency of Thionville. This city of Lorraine is know as France's city of steel. The area was rich in iron ore but poor in the right sort of coal. It had to be imported mainly from the German Ruhr area. Schuman knew the ins and outs of the trade and also how the German iron, steel and coal barons had over the centuries manipulated and controlled the market against French interests.
Schuman was well aware that various wars with France were largely over asserting primacy for this main sector of the industrial revolution and the modern economy. In the postwar years Schuman had been continuously involved in Allied discussions about German steel production in all its ramifications. In his youth he had spent a great deal of tie in Germany, received his education there and had a large network of German friends. Monnet did not know the language, the commerce, politics or the people.
There was probably no politician in France who knew more about the technical processes of steel making than Schuman. His long speech in Brussels in 1949, well before Monnet had anything to do with the Schuman Declaration, shows his vast encyclopedic knowledge of both coal and steel techniques and hot political issues.
Was it, according to this critic, in the area of European Finance in the treaty that Schuman was so disastrously ignorant? Schuman had as Minister of Finance and Prime Minister achieved what many politicians considered impossible -- tackling simultaneously rampant inflation and balancing the books, both of government accounts and trade balance. In the interwar period he was considered one of Europe's great experts in international finance.
So who is this acerbic critic who says that Schuman did not understand the treaty that bore his name? So secondly, we should analyse the critic himself carefully.
Let's now start asking more personal questions. Who was this genius who far outclassed this intellectual, democratic and political accomplishments of Prime Minister Schuman? Was the critic more experienced in national finance? Did he have a greater political record? Schuman greatly desired that he would become a professor of the subject he had studied all his life -- the history of international and constitutional law.
He was well qualified for such a post, but he had devoted his life to practical work rather than ivory tower expositions. Schuman had been largely responsible both for the Lex Schuman, a consolidation of numerous laws and the civil, criminal and administrative codes that re-united Alsace and Lorraine after the First World War. He had been instrumental in the treaties of NATO, the Council of Europe, the Convention of Human Rights and of course the European Community.
The latter was based on a remarkable new innovation in the history of international law called supranational democracy. This was based on a deep analysis of political and moral philosophy as well as a life long study of how in history constitutions from the time of the Greek city states fail.
So if this critic was correct then to find the errors and mistakes of Schuman, he must have an intellect that far outclassed him and a critical sense. He must have political experience greater than a man who had twice been Prime Minister of France. One would have thought so.
Who was he? None other than Jean Monnet. What were his qualifications? He had never been elected to any democratic office. He knew very little about coal and steel. He inherited a brandy firm of Monnet and Co. His lacks when it came to understanding the coal and steel sector are clear from the time he was an administrator of the French economic plan. (This showed he had little grasp of the geopolitical position of the sectors and the key elements in it.)
Did Jean Monnet really understand the treaty of which he was supposed by de Gaulle to have been the inspirer? That epithet 'inspirer' started as a Gaullist slander and later found its way into sycophantic books and biographies.
What was Monnet's background and interest? One of the most in-depth studies of the period was accomplished by historian Georgette Elgey. What did she say about Monnet after interviewing him and his colleagues?
Monnet 'did not possess the faintest understanding of international law.'
Did he then learn on the job? Monnet's own career would indicate he knew little about the working of the treaty because he did not last long as a president of the first Commission, called the High Authority. That whole experience lasted two years nine month at the Commission. Is this period really long enough for Monnet to be able to make up his opinion? Schuman talked about long-term processes, such as that for Europe's national democracies that already took a thousand years.
For Monnet when he was responsible for aspects of the treaty from 10 Aug 1952 to 1 June 1955, he was obviously not concentrating on his job. His mind was elsewhere. During that time he resigned a couple of times but withdrew his first resignation so that his period there might have been rather shorter. He hardly had his mind on the treaty. And he died well before he could see the effects that Schuman predicted such as the re-unification of Europe after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
A clear discrepancy is apparent with Monnet's story and the legend he and his friends constructed for him. For someone who claimed to be the inspirer too, it is obvious that this is false because if the first Community were his work he would have stayed longer. He stayed long enough with the high salary he set himself to clear his old debts. Then he left, presumably on a good pension. Monnet was known to make false claims over other aspects of the origin of the European Community.
Was he a great intellectual? Monnet never went to university so we have no way to make proper assessment. Was he a great learner? His biographer, Francois Duchene says he was 'little attracted to books, he left school at sixteen.' (Jean Monnet p30). His father told him not to read books. Was he an expert in coal and steel? Hardly. His family business was cognac and he was a cognac salesman. Was he an expert in finance? At one stage he was a banker but he lost his fortune in a crash.
What then were his talents? Paul Reuter, an international lawyer who worked for Schuman at the Foreign Ministry as deputy jurisconsult, had this to say: 'he was small and stocky ... and sometimes had a sly smile. I have seen him wrapping people round his little finger, seducing them. He could do that.' (Jean Monnet, p24). He was therefore a great manipulator, keen to persuade. As Monnet might or might not know -- he gives little clue in his Memoirs, since he calls Reuter a university professor -- a jurisconsult is a top lawyer at the Foreign Ministry and as a lawyer can plead the case of France before international courts dealing with treaties. He is paid to have discernment.
On 20 February 1978 the then Commission President Roy Jenkins went to meet with Jean Monnet, who was then 89. Jenkins describes Monnet as 'remarkably sharp' in his published diaries. Jenkins gives every indication that he also was seduced by Monnet. It would seem that many people including successive Commission have been seduced and waylaid by him too. They devoted all the Community's propaganda power to shoring up the Monnet myth.
So what great illumination did Monnet have about the treaty that Schuman lacked? Schuman spoke at length in many speeches in French, German and English about the great innovation of the Treaty of Paris, Europe's first Community. He described the democratic bases of the Community. He signed with the other Founding Fathers the Great Charter of the Community, that redefined Europe's history from war to peace, from nationalism to international cooperation, from dictatorship to democracy.
During the whole period of Monnet's presidency of the High Authority there is no evidence that he published this great document. It said that the supranational principle was the foundation stone of the new Europe.
Nor did he publish the correct version of the Schuman Declaration. He published his own version cutting out all Schuman's introduction that put it in a historic and geopolitical context.
Schuman said a great new innovation, 'a scientific discovery' lay behind all of this new opportunity for peace and prosperity. It was the supranational principle. What did Monnet think of this, how did he analyse it and what did he say about it? Simply this. 'I did not fancy the word (supranational) then and I have never liked it.' That seems the height of incompetence and willful ignorance.
It might be a smart or glib remark for someone to make in a bistro with a glass of brandy in his hand. It is hardly fitting coming from someone who was employed by the public tax-payer to defend the principle of supranational democracy.
The public should begin to analyse whether this part of the work of Monnet is the work of a charlatan or a con artist. It is much like someone who is secretary general of NATO saying I do not really believe in defence or the military. It is rather like a supreme court judge saying I do not believe in the rule of law, do not know what the term means and never liked the idea as far as I grasp it.
What did Monnet think of his fellow Commissioners? There were two Germans, a Luxembourger, a Belgian, two Italians, and another Frenchman with a lifetime in the steel industry management. They included very experienced people, lawyers, diplomats, trade unionists, and other experts in the coal and steel industries. Indeed they covered all the experience and expertise that Monnet lacked.
Were they any better than Schuman? This is what Jenkins records. 'The German members of the Commission -- and indeed those of the other nations -- were pretty useless.'
I am afraid that this would probably be the opinion of M. Monnet on the present and past Commissions -- in fact it could well be his opinion on everyone else -- except of course M. Monnet.
Should European fighter aircraft be bombing and strafing tanks and killing soldiers across the EU's southern borders? Is there a better way, a way to peace? Can Europe's greatest success be applied across North Africa? The greatest event in recent European history -- perhaps in all of European history over the last recorded two thousand years -- is that Europe is now at peace.
Permanent Peace.
Until the creation of Europe's first Community, every generation across the Community territory knew war. Either the current generation was recovering from war, preparing war or actually fighting wars with its neighbours. Do the present leadership of Europe know of the Founding Fathers' plans to bring peace and prosperity to Africa? Do they ever discuss them? When has Brussels subsidized, funded or even encouraged a whisper of such an idea? Would it use its system of 'official' bribes to have someone talk about a supranational peace system for Africa?
On 18 April 1951 the Founding Fathers of Europe signed an agreement that would make war 'not only unthinkable but materially impossible'. They signed the Treaty of Paris. On the same day they also agreed to a Great Charter, declaring that they were setting out on a new adventure of Democracy. Their destinies because of this were now shared in this peace project.
Is the European Union going to celebrate this hugely important anniversary so that the whole world can learn the way of peace? Are European leaders going to explain how European democracy is supposed to work according to those supranational principles that the Governments said were the TRUE Foundation of Europe?
The European institutions have already refused to publish the full text of the Schuman Declaration for the 60th Anniversary of Robert Schuman's dramatic announcement at the French Foreign Ministry. Schuman repeated this statement on radio and for the press. Why are the European institutions so anti-Schuman? Is it something to do with a bad conscience about refusal to recognize referendums and the lack of democracy in the present Lisbon Treaty?
The present political cartel are apparently trying a new strategy unknown in the abysmal record of their devious and disgraceful Public Relations campaigns, such as the mendacious, multi-million 50th 'Birthday' campaign.
What's their new game? They will announce their plans of what, how, where Europe's 500 million citizens can celebrate Democracy AFTER the date is past! That way they hope no one will notice THEY HAD NO INTENTION EVER TO COMMEMORATE IT AND WITH IT DISCUSS EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY ITSELF. If any European wishes to celebrate European democracy, he or she can do it privately in their own homes! Who on earth will celebrate the appalling state of European democracy spontaneously -- that is WITHOUT a bribe, subvention, 'partial funding' or cash from the Brussels cartel? Who has any real enthusiasm?
No celebration confirms no democracy is now being built. Rather the reverse, a retreat from Democracy and the principles of Peace. A PolitBuro system is being erected based on the secretive European Council.
THAT HAS SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES. If you ignore the way of peace you are directing your steps to the WAY OF WAR. And not only for the Commission and the politicians of the European institutions. That means the leaders and their obedient officials are directing the EUROPEAN PEOPLES onto a war path. The whole Continent will suffer.
The following gives the last exchanges of my correspondence with the European Commission, started two years ago, asking them what are the EU's plans to celebrate the 60th anniversary of European Democracy on 18 April 2011.
Here is the banal correspondence on this the most important issue of our times.
I asked the European Commission what were its plans to publish:
Director General
DG Communication
European Commission
16 March 2011
Dear Mr Sorensen,
I have not yet received a reply to the following letter. I would be grateful to receive one as soon as possible.
Yours sincerely,
The letter asks about the Commission's plans for celebrating the 60th Anniversary of European Democracy on 18 April 2011. It makes plain that the FULL text of the Schuman Declaration should be published by the Commission instead of the abbreviated or censored version it usually publishes. It explains what is the authentic text and where it is. The EU should also publish for the first time in the Commission's history the Great Charter of European Inter-Dependence signed by the Founding Fathers, France's Schuman, Germany's Adenauer, Belgium's Van Zeeland, Meurice, Luxembourg's Bech, Italy's Sforza, The Netherlands' Stikker and van den Brink.
I introduced a second complaint to the European Ombudsman, following my earlier one 1200/2011/RT on the same subject.
The following email arrived Mar 24, 2011 4:50 pm from DG Communication of the Commission .
Please find enclosed a letter that was sent to you on Friday the 11th of March to explain to you that your letter was being analysed.
Please rest assured that you will get a reply within the deadline indicated in the attached letter.
Yours etc
The attached letter, dated 11 March, said
Thank you for your letter to Director General Claus H Sorensen which has received our fullest attention.
The answer to your letter requires further work which is currently in progress.
You can normally expect a reply within six weeks of this letter.
Yours sincerely.
DG Communication
Emphasis added.
I replied as following on Friday, 25 March 2011, 1:04 am
Subject: Re: 60th Anniversary of Europe's Great Charter and Treaty of Paris: legal texts
Dear Ms C
Thank you for your email. I have no record of receiving this letter earlier. That is why I asked the Ombudsman to act a second time. May I draw to your attention to the fact that I asked the question about what measures the Commission would be taking to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the European Charter of Inter-dependence two years ago. I have had a mixture of refusal to reply and obfuscation since then. This is hard for me to understand as the query was about the 60th anniversary of a public event, the signature by the Founding Fathers of what they considered the foundational document for Europe, after having brought into existence the foundational supranational Community of Europe. Both the treaty signing and this Charter are well recorded in the public records, newspapers, radio, photographs, film and books. It should not be a surprise to a civil service that is used to commemorate important events. Yet I have still had no inkling of what, if anything, is being prepared.
You have now given me a deadline for your response which is the 'normally' before 22 April 2011 -- several days after the date of 18 April 2011. This would seem to render futile any and all attempts over these two years to remind the Commission to assume correctly its public responsibilities as guardian of the treaties. What conclusion may I draw from this?
Yours sincerely,
On Monday 28 March 2011 I wrote the following to the European Ombudsman with copies to Mr Barroso and DG Communication
U R G E N T
Complaint No: 0663/2011/RT
Dear Mr Ombudsman,
I have received the following email from the Commission which makes a mockery out of all my correspondence with them over the last several years. It is an affront to European democracy. I asked the Commission about EU plans to celebrate the 60th anniversary of European democracy, as defined by the Founding Fathers and refusal so far to publish what the Founding Fathers said and signed as a Charter of Democracy.
The enclosed letter says that the Commission will reply to me within six weeks -- that is after the 60th Anniversary on the 18 April!!! Even if they replied today it would be practically useless.
I ask you to take urgent action in relation to my complaint. Please expose this flagrant maladministration against European democracy publicly.
Many thanks for your help,
Yours sincerely,
David P
Schuman Project
www.schuman.info
http://democracy.blogactiv.eu
Three Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have been caught in alleged corrupt practice. Demanding loads of money, they agreed to make amendments to legislation that favoured a private financial interest. Or so they thought. It turned out that the offer came from reporters of London's Sunday Times. They had been caught in a public exposure.
The Lisbon system --
* where organized non-political civil society no longer has a voice,
* where the government ministers act more like party politicians and cut deals in private
--will bring more and more corruption.
European citizens can note recurrent facts that show the trend of corruption in the European system. That has arisen because political parties are trying to stifle supranational democracy.
1. High level politicians: the trio included a former deputy prime minister, a former interior minister and a former foreign minister. This implies that behaviour involving this level of corruption is usual at the very highest levels of European governments.
2. Countries: a wide dispersion of Member States are involved Austria, Slovenia and Romania. No one can say that it is a question of new Member States or those without sufficient political infrastructure and inadequate justice systems.
3. Sums involved: MEPs expect retainers of up to 100,000 euros for a bribery contract. One said he had five retainers paying up to this rate. Daily rates at around 4000 euros are expected. It should be recalled that many ordinary Europeans on low income or pensions may have to survive on 4000 euros or so for a YEAR. Where do MEPs' salaries come from? From tax of companies but also of citizens on low income who worked a lifetime and never saw such money.
4. Political Parties: corruption seems to recognize no ideology. Left and right-wing parties are involved. Greed is universal. Stalin never succeeded in removing human nature; neither did the rightwingers like Mussolini or Hitler. Greed is alive and active in major parties of Europe's Lisbon system.
5. Blatant Immorality: Who was the alleged source requiring the amendments? Certainly not an orphans' charity. The reporters told them they were working for a financial group. The MEPs were to water down the Deposit Guarantee Schemes directive, a key financial reform for correcting the financial crisis. It was designed to protect customers’ deposits in the event of another banking collapse. Thus the amendment was useful for the clique of white collar criminals who robbed citizens and who bent rules and ethics getting Europe into a financial crisis. Bent money bends and blinds the conscience of the people's representatives. It encourages political psychopaths.
6. Techniques: The amendment was not necessarily introduced by the MEP being bribed. One of the trio tried to get other MEPs to introduce the measure so that there would be no direct trace leading back to him. He took the money. Someone else actually had his name on the public documents of Parliament. Clever, heh? This requires a network of buddies so that the blame can be shifted and everyone appears innocent. Unfortunately for him the source of the bribery was not a real one. The reporters were able to trace the work methodology. The MEPs' system and its technique only work to hide the evidence when real bribery is involved. That is most of the time.
7. Prevention systems: Apparently none exists. Firms should note that a directory of corrupt MEPs will be useful for their own activities. Perhaps some entrepreneur will make available a (paying) database of corrupt politicians! It's safe. No citizen is likely to blow the whistle. The lack of whistle-blowers proves this. They are more than discouraged about spilling the beans. The MEPs say that such practices of corruption are widespread. But it took investigating journalists to break the story. That shows that the sanctions and threats against any would-be whistler are so severe that no one wants to try. Does this mean that the parties -- that is governmental systems -- would mass their forces to make the whistler's life a misery? Apparently so. Who would be foolish enough to take on the three major parties in 27 governments simultaneously?
8. Widespread practice. This is not an isolated incident. Nor is the action of MEPs unusual. MEPs admit it. This is what one of the three MEPs said:
“I didn’t do anything that was, let’s say, illegal or against any normal behaviour that we have here.”
There you have an admission that bribery is normal and acceptable. The MEPs showed confusion as to whether they were lobbyists themselves or representatives of the people. That is because the parties themselves are in the same lobbying business.
Political parties are Europe's largest lobbyists. They accept funds, sometimes secretly, and advocate the clients' causes.They should also be on the Lobby Register. The only alternative to this logic is to re-instate the supranational democratic system.
They also act as a CARTEL. They are in complete control about how much they should award themselves for salaries and assistants. If they are dissatisfied by not getting enough from public money, they can make 'revolving door' deals with companies -- the party goes soft on legislation and politicians get plush jobs when they resign or cease parliamentary functions.
Thus Europe is again re-living the abusive system of the interwar period. Large interest groups or cartels -- whether labour or companies -- control political parties. Today's political parties are becoming again lobbyists and worse -- secret cartels.
Instead Europeans need to return to the morally sound principles of supranational democracy.
The following letter was sent to Mr Barroso and the European Commissioners about the continuing refusal to publish the Great Charter of Interdependence made by the Founding Fathers of the European Community on 18 April 1951.
That Declaration of Inter-dependence marks its 60 years anniversary on 18 APRIL 2011
Why is the Commission not preparing to celebrate the founding of European Democracy?? Refusal to publish the Foundational Charter and the correct version of the Schuman Declaration is one thing. It amounts to censorship and propaganda.
Refusal to even take notice of the foundational dates in European history is quite another. It implies that the leadership is anti-democratic. It will not discuss democracy. Isn't that an extraordinary commentary on the leadership's LACK of Democracy and lack of confidence in a discussion about Democracy? Doesn't it permeate the whole Brussels political cartel ? Why is it not discussing HOW European Democracy is supposed to work -- according to the original treaties?
It fears a revolt. And now it has seen plenty of really worrying revolt on the southern borders. Will Europeans remain passive?
Faced with
the European political Cartel in Brussels is doing everything it can to avoid a referendum on any of these crucial issues. Given the need to change the faulty Lisbon Treaty, they know that any referendum will lead to revolt at their unacceptable behaviour. Not only taxpayers but riots in the streets.
There is one way to avoid revolt. It is easier too. Just introduce the supranational democracy that the treaties require them to install. In a true, supranational democratic system everyone -- individual, civil association or nation -- would have a voice and an influence plus a recourse in justice.
Why won't it publish the Charter and the Schuman Declaration? The Commission wrote that it will ONLY publish documents that are in the Archive of the European University Institute of Florence. Is this a case of willful ignorance or incompetence?
Here is my letter in reply:
To: the Director General of DG Communication and Members of the European Commission.
Schuman Project
David H Price
Editor
16 February 2011
Mr Claus Sørensen
Director General
DG Communication
European Commission
Ref: Ombudsman complaint: 1200/2010/RT
Dear Mr Sørensen and Commissioners,
Thank you for your reply of 5 July 2010 following my earlier correspondence about publishing the correct version of the Schuman Declaration and the need to publish what Schuman called the Charter of Europe’s Community.
Firstly, I would like to present to you the probable source of error that lies behind the Commission’s publishing the wrong version of the Declaration. I would renew my request that the correct version be published.
The Commission should be guardian of the treaties. This function requires that the Commission have a clear understanding of the letter and spirit of the treaties, where they are kept and also how to discern the truth and veracity of documents. The officials should know where to look for the original (which is clearly stated in the treaty). The officials quoted in your letter have chosen an archive that is obviously the wrong one. That is the European Institute in Florence. It is true that it is presently the official administrator of the EU’s historical archives. However I would like to point out the following:
(1) It can easily be shown that the real Declaration is not the document at Florence. The document there was presumably that provided during the Monnet presidency of the High Authority. It is not the correct one because the original was not made available at the time. Even the thirty year rule was not generally applied. The Florence archive of Commission documents was only set up by the Commission Decision of 1983. Officially it only deals with documents deposited since the European Coal and Steel Community started. Its archives started in 1952. The archive contains a dossier labeled the Schuman Declaration but when I checked it some years ago it was obvious that it does not contain the original of the Declaration. Nor does the archive contain important originals such as the Treaty of Paris, signed on 18 April 1951 or other foundational documents like the Charter of the Community (‘Europe Declaration of Interdependence’). These documents were apparently never in the Commission archive. That is because the Commission was never given legal power to act as a depository nor was it a designated recipient of an official copy. (There are possible reasons why the Commission never asked for official copies. Monnet did not like the wordsupranational, the foundational, legal term for the Community. “I do not like the wordsupranational and never fancied it.” Mémoires p 352.) At best the Commission’s alleged Schuman Declaration used so frequently by the European institutions and others is a shortened copy introduced by the Monnet team who have been proved to be unreliable when it comes to historical fact.
2(a) What is the original of the Schuman Declaration and how can it be identified and proved? The original Declaration is the authentic text of the actual speech that Schuman made on 9 May 1950 in the Salon de l’Horloge of the Quai d’Orsay, the Foreign Ministry building in Paris. Where is it? As might be expected, it is deposited at the French Foreign Ministry archives. Is it considered a secret matter, kept out of public view? Possibly. However, the Commission has at hand an authentic copy of the original text. It is annotated with corrections in the handwriting of Robert Schuman before delivery. That proves it is authentic. It contains the full text of the introduction that set the geopolitical context and describes the importance of the initiative. These vitally important paragraphs are always omitted from Commission publications. Where are these original pages? They are reproduced in colour facsimile in the book, ‘Un Changement d’Esperance’ published only in 2000 (fifty years after the event) by the Jean Monnet Foundation (JMF). A copy is to be found in the Central Library of the European Commission in Brussels. The book says that one copy of the important introductory paragraphs of the Declaration is to be found in the archives of the Jean Monnet Foundation, which also holds important private papers of Schuman. The last words are ‘Voici cette décision, avec les considérations qui l’ont inspirées.’ According to this book, Schuman’s corrected text of the rest of the Declaration is to be found at the French Foreign Ministry. It should be noted that the pages of the typescript are numbered and that page 3 starts with the phrase ‘La paix mondiale …’ (That is the part that the Commission uses with some changes on http://europa.eu/abc/symbols/9-may/decl_en.htm .) That page numbering would indicate the full text with Schuman’s corrections in his own hand is probably in the Ministry. The JMF copy of this first part of the Declaration is typed on a different typewriter and the book says that this is to be found at the JMF at Lausanne, Switzerland.
(2b) In your letter you wrote that in May 2010 a reconstitution of the Schuman Declaration took place at the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs as part of celebrations. It is not clear if this and the ‘re-lecture of the Schuman Declaration’ at Paris include the full text. Could you please confirm which version was read out.
(2c) The list of events that the Commission supported for the sixtieth anniversary of the Schuman Declaration includes many events having nothing to do with Schuman (Chopin, Nikowitz, cocktail parties and discussions of Gaullist ideas like ‘Franco-German engines’, which Schuman opposed. I am surprised that the Commission spending money supporting anti-communautaire ideas.) The letter fails to say how much money was spent directly on the Schuman Declaration celebrations compared with the so-called 50th Birthday campaign of 2007-8, called ‘Together since 1957’. I would be grateful if you could supply figures for funding of both projects.
3 (a) The French Foreign Ministry is also the Depository of the original text of the Treaty of Paris. According to Article 100 of the Treaty there is only one authentic copy and that is held in Paris. Certified copies of the Treaty are to be sent to Member States. The Commission is not mentioned as a depository.
(3b) The French Foreign Ministry is presumably the legal Depository of the Charter of the Community, the Europe Declaration of Interdependence. This document is of primary importance as it represents a signed agreement of all the Founding Fathers, the plenipotentiaries of the Six. It defines the spirit and purpose of the European Community. However it is not clear whether the French Ministry sent copies of the Charter of the Community to Member States. It is hard to find. After Schuman left the Foreign Ministry it came under even stronger Gaullist control. The Charter is printed in books about the Treaty such as Der Schuman Plan by Ulrich Sahm with a preference by Prof Walter Hallstein, the first President of the Commission of the Economic Community. It is titled ‘Gemeinsame Erklärung’. It is also published in newspapers of the time with great prominence. This Charter is, by some considerations, more important than the treaty itself as it describes the principles on which Europe should unite, such as freedom of thought and the free and wholehearted action of the people. In signing it, the Founding Fathers defined the federating principle for organizing Europe as supranational democracy. Schuman puts the Charter in the category of the Magna Carta for Europe.
May I ask you again that the Commission publish these foundational documents of the European Union, given the importance of the soon-coming 60th anniversary of the Treaty of Paris and the signing of the Charter on 18 April 1951. I would be grateful to receive your reply to this letter.
Yours etc
No reply to this letter has yet been received.
The present political cartel of the major parties controls the institutions. It refuses to have a Commission independent of political parties. All citizens except politically loyal members are denied. It denies a place for non-political civil society in its institutions.
The Cartel's website continues to publish obvious falsehoods like the following in its "Together since 1957' propaganda :
R U B B I S H ! ! !
The EU was in fact founded as a system to make War not only unthinkable but materially impossible. Commerce in history has often led to wars. Commerce without a real democratic foundation leads to corruption and cartels. Commerce with democracy leads to prosperity. That's why the Founding Fathers signed the European Charter of Inter-dependence.
The Community system was designed to deal with the problem of 2000 years of continuous war between its peoples. A Community or the EU could not be built without a system to stop war. When is the EU going to stop publishing such falsehoods?
Posts
