European Documentation and Information Center
The European Documentation and Information Center ( CEDI , French Center Européen de Documentation et d'Information , Spanish Centro Europeo de Documentación e Información ) was founded in 1952 - according to official statements, at the suggestion of the then director of the Instituto de Cultura Hispánica (ICH) Alfredo Sánchez Bella - launched with a first congress in Santander . Under the leadership of the CEDI, various Christian - conservative currents were to be brought together, which had formed in various Western European countries under the sign of the war-related reconstruction, the onset of the Cold War and the beginning of European integration. In the course of the late 1950s and 1960s, the CEDI developed - almost unnoticed by the public - into an important contact forum for European politics.
backgrounds
With the CEDI, Franco-Spain, at that time largely isolated in terms of foreign policy, was able to create a forum that enabled high-level representatives from politics, the military, business and culture to establish contact with conservative circles in other Western European countries. Under the guise of cultural exchange and the premise of an “occidental” togetherness, the CEDI aimed at a political, military and economic integration of Spain in the beginning Western European integration process.
Organization and members
At the annual congresses, almost without exception held in Spain, a large number of officials and dignitaries from the conservative milieu met. There were clear personal and content-related connections to other international and national institutions and organizations such as the Paneuropean Union or the German associations of expellees . In addition to the Spanish initiators of the CEDI such as Alberto Martín Artajo or the Marqués de Valdeiglesias , the central figures included Otto von Habsburg as founding and later honorary president, Hans-Joachim von Merkatz , Richard Jaeger , Eugen Gerstenmaier , Otto B. Roegele , Fürst Georg and his brother Alois Graf von Waldburg-Zeil , from France Edmond Michelet , Comte François de la Noë and Michel Habib-Deloncle as well as Chevalier Marcel de Roover from Belgium and Arvid Fredborg from Sweden. Over the years the Secretary General and later President Georg von Gaupp-Berghausen developed more and more into the organizational but also the programmatic head of the CEDI .
Content and ideological orientation
An integrating element was - in addition to the proclaimed Christian-Catholic heritage, traditionally existing contacts between the European noble houses, military connections and common economic interests - in particular a dedicated anti-communism . The scientifically designed lectures, which were the focus of the annual meeting, dealt with fundamental questions of European integration, block formation and internationally relevant social issues.
National centers
The German representatives in the CEDI proved to be particularly active; they first organized themselves in the Occidental Academy based in Eichstätt, and finally in 1957 the so-called European Institute for Political, Economic and Social Issues. V. based in Bad Godesberg . Further national centers existed in Spain , France , Belgium and Austria , later also in Great Britain , Liechtenstein , Switzerland , Sweden and Portugal .
development
With the constitution of the CEDI under association law in 1957, the seat of the international CEDI was finally relocated to Munich , although Madrid continued to function as the central office. Since the mid-1950s, the French Gaullists in particular have been involved in the CEDI. Since Charles de Gaulle's return to the political stage, the Gaullists have consistently used the CEDI as a foreign policy contact forum to convey their ideas about European policy. The rapprochement between the French Gaullists and the German Union parties was initiated in 1963 via the CEDI. When the Gaullist engagement subsided again in the mid-1960s, the Spanish influence made itself felt again. The CEDI became a forum for Spanish Latin American policy, but also put out feelers to Africa and Asia in order to finally turn to development policy issues. As a result of the political and socio-historical cuts towards the end of the 1960s, the CEDI had passed the zenith of its diplomatic activities. The urgent need to rejuvenate staff has been discussed again and again, but without any decisive consequences being drawn from it. Spain's transition to democracy in the mid-1970s deprived the CEDI of its last material and organizational foundations. With the end of the division of Europe through the fall of the communist regimes at the beginning of the 1990s, anti-communism lost its function as a means of integration.
literature
- Petra-Maria Weber: Spanish Policy on Germany 1945–1958. Disposal of the past . Saarbrücken / Fort Lauderdale 1992, in particular pp. 205-268.
- Birgit Aschmann : "Loyal friends ..."? West Germany and Spain 1945–1963 . Stuttgart 1999, in particular pp. 425-435.
- Vanessa Conze: The Europe of the Germans. Ideas of Europe in Germany between imperial tradition and western orientation (1920–1970) . Munich 2005, in particular pp. 169–206.
- Johannes Großmann: The International of Conservatives. Transnational elite circles and private foreign policy in Western Europe since 1945 . Munich 2014.
Individual evidence
- ^ Stefan Müller: Emperor and Caudillo . on www.zeit.de, November 25, 2010
- ^ CEDI - a blue-blooded conspiracy . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna July 7, 1962, p. 3 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).
- ^ Habsburg wants to shower Europe with propaganda . In: Arbeiter-Zeitung . Vienna July 8, 1962, p. 1 ( berufer-zeitung.at - the open online archive - digitized).