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[MUSIC]. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning.
To briefly recall what I explained in the first video, the European Union is a
supranational legal order consisting of 27 member states, and comprising
approximately 500 million people. The union, as it stands today, gradually
came into being, evolving from the original communities of six member states
to the current union of 27 In this second video, I shall focus predominantly on the
origins of the European integration process.
What brought the founding fathers of this European construct to relinquish parts of
their natural sovereignty and transfer it to the European level.
The answer is actually rather straightforward, the desire for peace and
welfare in Europe. In this video, I will tell you about the
Schuman Plan. I will tell you about European coal and
steel community, and the underlying idea of Jean Monnet, that it is better to
fight at a table than at the battlefield. But first things first, to fully
comprehend all this, it is necessary to look back in time.
The European continent has a long history of armed conflict.
In the words of the President of the European Council, Mr Herman Van Rompuy.
The European continent bears the scars of spears and swords, canons and guns,
trenches and tanks. All this culminated in the two great wars
of the last century, which involved almost all the world's great powers, and
had Europe as its main battlefield. Most contemporary accounts of European
integration begin with World War II. This war was preceded by the Wall Street
Crash of 1929. Which signaled the beginning of the great
depression in the thirties, and effected all western industrialized countries.
It led to economic recession, social hardship, and all this resulted in a
climate of increasing nationalism in Germany, which ultimately ended in war.
World War II created unprecedented havoc, it cost millions of lives and it left the
European continent shattered. World War Two was the deadliest conflict
in human history. In the aftermath of the war, there was a
widespread feeling that something needed to be done in order to prevent these
atrocities from happening all over again. This war memorial, erected after World
War I in Flanders Fields in Belgium, conveys this message loudly and clearly
in four different languages. No more war, Nie wieder Krieg, Plus
jamais de guerre, Nooit meer oorlog. This would become the driving force
behind European integration, Europe's first unofficial model.
Now, in the first post-war years, several forms of international cooperation were
created all over the world, and all with the same overarching goal of bringing an
end to divisions and war, and creating welfare.
To give some examples, in 1945 the United nations was founded to maintain and
promote international peace and security. One year later in 1946 the general
agreement on tariffs and trade was, was signed to liberalize world trade.
In 1948, the Organization for European Economic Cooperation, now the OECD, was
set up with the main purpose of administrating the marshal fund,
providing finanical aide from the U.S to Europe.
In 1949, on the onset of the Cold War, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization,
NATO, was created a military alliance with the objective of keeping the
Russians out, the Americans in and the Germans down to cite its first secretary
general. And also in 1949, the council of Europe
will set a regional cooperation able to insure respect for human rights,
democracy and rule of law. It's main realization, it's main
achievement, would become European convention looking for the protection of
human rights, besides the creation of the council of Europe.
Also other forms of corporation in political, economic, and defense matters
were formulated in Europe. Again, to give some examples, in 1946 in
the speech in Zurich, the then British Prime Minister Churchill advocated the
idea of a United States of Europe led by France and Germany with Britain on the
sidelines. This idea of a united Europe never really
caught on however. A couple of years later in 1950, the
then-French prime minister, Pleven, suggested the creation of a European
defense community with a European army. This instead of rearming Germany under
the auspices of the NATO. It was felt that if there was to be a
European Army, a common foreign and, a common foreign policy would be necessary.
In order to achieve that, plans for a European political community were drawn
up. These, however, never really left the
starting blocks. As the French assembly, which remained
wary about the German re-militarization failed to ratify the treaty on the
European defense community. Also, in 1950 the then French Minister
for Foreign Affairs, Sir Robert Schuman Proposed a plan to pool the Franco-German
resources of coal and steel. This plan for economic integration would
work. It would be the only one of the three
that would be successful in end. This is a clear indication of the fact
that already from the beginning the European integration process wasn't
linearly a, a straightforward success. There have been setbacks and
disappointments as well. Summarizing, in the first part of this
video We looked at the underlying motivation, for European states to
contemplate about collaboration at supranational level.
And we identified the first tentative attempt towards this collaboration.
In the second part of this video, we will focus on the European coal and steel
community. As the first real successful attempt at
super national cooperation. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]