Happy Europe Day!
I confess that I hadn't realised until now that 9 May was celebrated as Europe Day (details
here) in honour of the Schuman Declaration of 1950 (
here) proposing what became the European Coal and Steel Community and eventually the European Union.
The declaration is relatively dull (text
here). But since Europe Day is apparently sometimes known as Schuman Day, it's perhaps worth exploring Robert Schuman's role a little more deeply. (The Wikipedia biography of him is
here.) A rather fuller account of Schuman's ideals in promoting the EU can be found in his Strasbourg 1949 speech
here:
We are carrying out a great experiment, the fulfillment of the same recurrent dream that for ten centuries has revisited the peoples of Europe: creating between them an organization putting an end to war and guaranteeing an eternal peace. The Roman church of the Middle Ages failed finally in its attempts that were inspired by humane and human preoccupations. Another idea, that of a world empire constituted under the auspices of German emperors was less disinterested; it already relied on the unacceptable pretensions of a ‘Führertum’ (domination by dictatorship) whose 'charms' we have all experienced.
Audacious minds, such as Dante, Erasmus, Abbé de St-Pierre, Rousseau, Kant and Proudhon, had created in the abstract the framework for systems that were both ingenious and generous. The title of one of these systems became the synonym of all that is impractical: Utopia, itself a work of genius, written by Thomas More, the Chancellor of Henry VIII, King of England.
...
Today, the commencement {of the Council of Europe} is characterized by a timorousness which many people will find disappointing. In this period while our States have not yet consented to renouncing any part of their sovereignty, and, when they make international decisions, they do not submit themselves willingly to each other as an engagement that they are fully observing their decisions, the debates of the Parliamentary Assembly {of the Council of Europe} can still have a moral and psychological effect. At least I hope so. They can influence the Governments and national Parliaments but they will create by themselves neither rights nor obligations. We are still at the start of things. We would do well to bridle our impatience. If not, we are likely to make the doubters more distrustful and what is more serious, endanger not only the experiment but also the whole idea of a united Europe.
As is probably obvious from that extract, Schuman was a devout Catholic and much influenced by the social teaching of the Church. (An article on the Catholic background to the EU is
here.) He mentions Dante as one of his inspirations in that Strasbourg speech and Dante's
De Monarchia (putting aside its other concern of the relative ranking of Papacy and Emperor) also envisages the merits of international government:
Wherever strife is a possibility, in that place must be judgment; otherwise imperfection would exist without its perfecting agent. This could not be, for God and Nature are not wanting in necessary things. It is self-evident that between any two princes, neither of whom owes allegiance to the other, controversy may arise either by their own fault or by the fault of their subjects. For such, judgment is necessary. And inasmuch as one owing no allegiance to the other can recognize no authority in him (for an equal cannot control an equal), there must be a third prince with more ample jurisdiction, who may govern both within the circle of his right. This prince will be or will not be a Monarch. If he is, our purpose is fulfilled; if not, he will again have a coequal beyond the circle of his jurisdiction, and again a third prince will be required. And thus either the process will be carried to infinity, which is impossible, or that primal and highest judge will be reached, by whose judgments all disputes are settled mediately or immediately. And this judge will be Monarch, or Emperor. Monarchy is therefore indispensable to the world, and this truth the Philosopher saw when he said, “Things have no desire to be wrongly ordered; inasmuch as a multitude of Princedoms is wrong, let there be one Prince.”
(Chapter X, Book I. Full text
here.)
Bearing in mind the coming referendum, the general lines of a powerful argument in favour of European integration under one government can be seen here. But what might be the arguments against it? It strikes me that there are two paths here. First, and
in principle, you might reject the very idea of the benefits of
international institutions. (This might take a strong form (denial of the benefits of any international institutionalised
order) or a weak form (denial of the benefits of any form of
government beyond the nation). Whatever the merits of such an approach, it is relatively difficult to reconcile with Cathiolic social teaching and I therefore put it aside, at least for now. Secondly, you might argue that,
in fact, this particular institution of the EU has turned out to be a counterproductive form of institutionalisation. Again, this might take two forms: a denial of the effectiveness of the institutions; or a denial of the more concrete forms that the general principles have been realised by in the current EU. Questions of the effectiveness of institutions are rather tricky to deal with in a blog, but the often heard criticism that the EU's regulations dampen economic development would be an example of that line of criticism. Having noted the possibility, I again put it aside for now.
This leaves us with the criticism that the EU as it has developed, has adopted concrete principles that are damaging either specifically to the UK or more generally to European countries. One example of this criticism is contained in the interview linked previously with Alan Fimister (
here) :
However, its [ie the EU's]
embracing of the culture of death would have appalled him. Schuman’s slightly more ambitious goals also led him to appreciate more vividly than Maritain the possible consequences of the corruption of his vision. “An anti-Christian democracy,” he said, “would be a caricature ending in anarchy or tyranny.”
Another criticism would be that the form of international government actually realised by the EU is antithetical to the principles of subsidiarity and nationhood envisaged by the Church:
The rights of nations are nothing but “‘human rights' fostered at the specific level of community life”. A nation has a “fundamental right to existence”, to “its own language and culture, through which a people expresses and promotes ... its fundamental spiritual ‘sovereignty”', to “shape its life according to its own traditions, excluding, of course, every abuse of basic human rights and in particular the oppression of minorities”, to “build its future by providing an appropriate education for the younger generation”. The international order requires a balance between particularity and universality, which all nations are called to bring about, for their primary duty is to live in a posture of peace, respect and solidarity with other nations.
[From section 157, Compendium of Social Doctrine
here]
Finally, in view of the rather secularised environment we now inhabit, Schuman's reflections on Christianity and democracy make rather interesting reading:
This is where the Christian doctrine comes in. Democracy owes its existence to Christianity. It was born the day that man was called to realise in this temporary life, the dignity of each human person, in his individual liberty in the respect of the rights of each and by the practice of brotherly love to all. Never before Christ were such ideas formulated. Democracy is therefore bound to Christianity, doctrinally and chronologically. It took shape with it by stages and with periods of stumbling, sometimes at the price of errors and falling back into barbarism.
[Full piece here.]
[Image details:
here]
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