Europe of the Fatherlands

The Europe of the Fatherlands , French l'Europe des patries , is a political slogan that describes a form of intergovernmental cooperation in Europe in which national sovereignty remains largely untouched and in which the supranational unification of states or the communitarisation of states Tasks in the sense of European integration are waived.

history

The term is mainly associated with the French President Charles de Gaulle , who made the catchphrase known as the doctrine of French European policy in the 1960s. With historical reference to the Franconian Empire , he had a kind of “ core Europe ” in mind that would be formed from West Germany , Italy , the Benelux countries and France and led by the latter. Its broadcast should help overcome the East-West conflict and enable cooperation between all European states (“Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals”).

With the catchphrase, de Gaulle took up a formulation that his Prime Minister Michel Debré had already introduced into a parliamentary debate in the National Assembly on January 15, 1959 : "l'Europe des patries et de la liberté" (Europe of the Fatherlands and Freedom).

In the EU finality debate , for example , the buzzword was and is taken up by scientists and political actors in order to identify a point of view that emphasizes an interest in safeguarding national sovereignty and, in this respect, an opposition or skepticism towards European integration, the European Union or the European Expresses federalism . In this sense, representatives of Les Républicains , Debout la France and the Rassemblement National as well as at the European level the parliamentary groups Europe of Nations , Union for the Europe of Nations and Europe of Nations and Freedom and the right-wing extremist party alliance European Alliance of the National Moves the term. In Germany, the term and the European policy concept it describes are represented by the Alternative für Deutschland .

See also

• Intergovernmentalism
• Sovereignty
• Gaullism
• Europe of the Regions

literature

• Hans-Dieter Lucas : Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals? European politics and thinking in France of the de Gaulle era (1958–1969) , dissertation, Bonn / Berlin 1992.

Web links

• Europe of the Fatherlands , entry in the “Europalexikon” of the Federal Agency for Civic Education
• Charles de Gaulle "L'Europe des patries" , Charles de Gaulle at a press conference on May 15, 1962, video (0:24 min) in the ina.fr portal( Institut national de l'audiovisuel )

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Laurent de Boissieu: Une certaine idée de l'Europe. Seconde partie: La doctrine Europeénne Gaulliste , website in the portal gaullisme.net , accessed on January 25, 2018
2. ↑ AfD election program: "Europe der Vaterländer" , article from March 15, 2019 in the portal br.de ( Bayerischer Rundfunk ), accessed on April 7, 2019