MAY 9 - EUROPE DAY


MAY 9:
This day is EUROPE DAY.  The day, when the French foreign minister Robert Schuman on behalf of his government presented the so-called Schuman Plan.  Its essence was that European countries should start a very close cooperation with strong commitments, so that war between them would be impossible in the future.  How could you make war impossible? The participating countries had to give up their sovereignty over their coal and steel production and together create joint institutions, which would be responsible for the management of coal and steel in the future.  And as coal and steel are both essentials in any war, this would make war between the countries impossible.
The man behind the plan was the French official, Jean Monnet.
Six countries supported the proposal right away:  France, West Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.   And the new European institution, called the European Coal and Steel Community, started on July 23, 1952.  Its first president was Jean Monnet, and its headquarters was in Luxembourg.
But many important speeches and initiatives had been taken during the years before Robert Schuman made his proposal.  Here is a brief overview:
May 8, 1945:           World War II ends in Europe
March 5, 1946:        Winston Churchill makes a speech in Fulton, Missouri, USA, in which he for the first time talks about “An iron curtain has been put up in Europe between Stettin and the Adriatic” .  This was a reference to the Communist take-overs in Europe.

Listen to the speech here:  https://youtu.be/X2FM3_h33Tg    
Sept. 19, 1946:        Churchill makes another important speech, this time at the university in Zürich, Switzerland.  In this speech he says:  We must build a kind of United States of Europe!

This speech is by many seen as the first real step in the direction of integration in Europe.

Here is the text of the speech in English and in German:

https://www.churchill-in-zurich.ch/en/churchill/en-churchills-zurcher-rede/  



May 7-11, 1948:  The Congress of Europe in The Hague in the Netherlands.  About 750 top politicians from around Europe took part and discussed and decided on the next steps in cooperation in Europe.   One of the decisions was to create the Council of Europe.

Among the participants were Winston Churchill, Konrad Adenauer, Paul-Henri Spaak, Francois Mitterrand, Harold MacMillan, Altiero Spinelli, and many more.
May 5, 1949:  The Council of Europe is created at a conference in London.  It has today 47 European countries as members. And its headquarters are in Strasbourg in France.
May 9, 1950:   Robert Schuman’s proposal presented in Paris.

You can see the full text of the Schuman plan here:

https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day/schuman-declaration_en 



Many years later it was decided that Friedrich von Schiller’s poem ODE TO JOY from 1785 – together with part of Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9th symphony should be the  the HYMN FOR EUROPE.
I have found this very impressive presentation of the HYMN on France 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1rlMdeXR4I  



You can find the text of the hymn in many languages on the internet.

 




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