United States of Europe

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The large Europe in the imagination of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi (borders of 1924).

The term “ United States of Europe ” (or “ United Europe ”) is a political slogan of the European movement that seeks to express greater European integration and political cooperation between the individual member states of the European Union . The term is often used synonymously with the concept of a European federal state .

Summing up all possibilities of European integration with the term “United States of Europe” is problematic, however, since not all visions are based on the states, but some also on cross-border and linguistically and culturally similar regions; see Europe of the Regions .

Based on the United States of America

The term and the concept are based on the model of the United States of America . The later first President of the United States, George Washington, wrote the following words in a letter to the Marquis de La Fayette in 1776 :

“We have sown a grain of freedom and unity that will gradually sprout across the world. One day, after the pattern of the United States, the United States of Europe will be formed. You will be legislators of all nationalities. "

In 1778 Benjamin Franklin sent a friend in Paris a proposal for a federal constitution for the European states, stating:

“If this succeeds, then I don't see why you shouldn't implement King Henry IV's project through the creation of a federal state and a great republic from all the different states and kingdoms and through a similar constitution, because we too had to have a lot of conflicting interests reconcile."

Origin of the term

Victor Hugo around 1875

The term came up in the middle of the 18th century by George Washington. The Scottish writer Charles Mackay claimed to have been the first to form the term “United States of Europe” in the spring of 1848, before Victor Hugo , Giuseppe Mazzini and Giuseppe Garibaldi . At the pacifist congress in Paris in 1849, Victor Hugo declared:

"The day will come when the two great groups of countries, the United States of America and the United States of Europe, will meet face to face across the seas."

As early as December 7, 1905 in Stockholm, the Swedish educational reformist Ellen Key called the United States of Europe a long-term goal of the previously broken Scandinavian Union (see Scandinavianism ) - the constant race between the Scandinavian nations should stop and more cooperation should be made.

1920s

The term has been used widely since the 1920s. Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi used the terms " Paneuropa " and "United States of Europe" in parallel, but preferred the former. The federation should consist of 26 large states and seven small territories. To the outside world, Pan-Europe was to form a counterweight to Pan America (as a union of the USA with the states of Latin America), a Russian Federal Empire , the British Federal Empire and an East Asia consisting of China and Japan in a “new system of world powers ” . The European colonies and mandate areas in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia should also belong to the pan-European confederation and be "managed" jointly by the member states. This large Europe would have had about 431 million inhabitants and an area of ​​about 25.6 million km².

Ludwig Quidde saw the United States of Europe as "a catchphrase from the beginnings of organized European pacifism ."

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

As the first major party in Europe , at the party congress from September 13 to 18, 1925 , the SPD included the demand for the realization of the United States of Europe in the Heidelberg program , which was valid until 1959 , with the formulation:

"She advocates the creation of a European economic unity, which has become imperative for economic reasons, for the formation of the United States of Europe in order to achieve the solidarity of interests of the peoples of all continents."

post war period

Konrad Adenauer in 1952
Winston Churchill

On March 6, 1946, the chairman of the zone committee of the CDU and later Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer spoke as part of his CDU keynote speech on the Northwest German Broadcasting Corporation about the establishment of the "United States of Europe" and the associated hope for lasting peace in Europe :

"I hope that in the not too distant future the United States of Europe, to which Germany would belong, will be created and that Europe, this continent so often raged by wars, will enjoy the blessings of a lasting peace."

On September 19, 1946, the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill gave his famous "Speech to the Academic Youth" at the University of Zurich , in which he drew conclusions from European history with the following words:

Commemorative plaque for Winston Churchill's speech in the auditorium of the University of Zurich

“And yet there has been a means throughout time which, if it were applied generally and spontaneously by the great majority of people in many countries, would miraculously change the whole scene and in a few years all of Europe, or at least most of it , made as free and happy as Switzerland is today. What is this excellent remedy? It is the new creation of the European family of peoples, or at least as much of it as possible, by giving it a structure in which it can exist in peace, security and freedom. We have to build a kind of United States of Europe. Only in this way will hundreds of millions of struggling people be able to regain those simple joys and hopes that make life worth living. "

In the same year a congress of the European federalists took place in Hertenstein, Switzerland. Twelve theses were written there which, as the Hertenstein program, became the basis of European work in the post-war years and at the same time became the political founding document of the European Union of Germany . The aim to this day is a “European community established on a federal basis”. One of the important supporters was v. a. in the 1960s the American Committee on United Europe . In 1955, the French entrepreneur Jean Monnet founded the Action Committee for the United States of Europe to promote the idea. It was involved in the creation of the European Council and as a result disbanded in 1975. Other sponsors included the Socialist Movement for the United States of Europe , which resulted in the Mouvement Gauche Européenne in 1959 and the European Social Democratic Movement in 1971 .

After Churchill became British Prime Minister again in 1951, he largely kept his country away from European integration. In 1930 he had made it clear that the United Kingdom should not belong to a European association of states:

“We stand by Europe, but do not belong to it; we don't belong to a single continent, but to all of them. "

Development since the beginning of the integration

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher expressly rejected the United States of Europe in her Bruges speech of September 20, 1988.

Against Eurosceptics in the Union parties ( CDU and CSU ), Helmut Kohl emphasized that although he was striving for a “federal solution” for the European Community , this “should by no means be misunderstood as a kind of 'United States of Europe'”. In 1993 Kohl called the United States of Europe an "ambiguous formula".

In the course of the euro crisis - the public became aware of it from autumn 2009 through the Greek financial crisis - the term is often used.

In August 2011 Ursula von der Leyen (now President of the Commission ) said: "My goal is the United States of Europe - along the lines of the federal states of Switzerland, Germany or the USA."

During a state visit to the EU Commission on April 17, 2012, Federal President Joachim Gauck said : “We are not there yet, the change in mentality is much slower than the development of the intellect… I have to remain a realist, I can still see it at the moment not. I wish it because individual states, no matter how they think of themselves, no longer have the economic strength. "

During an EU summit in Brussels on November 7, 2012, Chancellor Angela Merkel advocated giving the European Union state-like powers in the long term: "I am in favor of the Commission one day being something like a European government."

Viviane Reding , member of the European Commission , also promoted the model of the United States of Europe when the Union was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize .

Under the motto “now or never”, the Italian Foreign Minister Emma Bonino endorsed the United States of Europe as a goal to be achieved.

The Spinelli Group is committed to a federal Europe, it relies on Altiero Spinelli , who said “It will be the moment of new action and it will be the moment for new men: the moment for a free and united Europe” pronounced. The Spinelli group also set up a manifest on their website that is accessible to everyone and can be signed publicly or privately.

In the citizens' program of the FDP for the 2013 federal election there is the following program: "At the end of the development, a European federal state should be legitimized by a Europe-wide referendum ."

Emma Bonino , defended in a report published on February 6, 2014 interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung , the German policy during the Euro crisis and spoke in favor of the United States of Europe.

As part of the Charlemagne Prize award ceremony and the European elections , the head of the Institute for Economic Research ( Ifo ) Hans-Werner Sinn called for the European Union to be expanded into a federal state similar to that of the USA.

On July 14, 2015, French President François Hollande propagated the idea of ​​an “EU government” in a long television interview on the French national holiday . The former Federal Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich ( CSU ) reacted to the proposal of a “government of the euro zone” with a negative attitude.

literature

Concepts

research

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Johann Friederichs: Where is Europe stumbling?], Edition 1, August 4, 2015 (section “Europe” - a short story , page 10
  2. ↑ That actually referred to a suggestion of the French statesman Sully from 1641, who was working in France at the time of Henry of Navarre. Winston Churchill also spoke of this in 1948 in his opening speech on May 7, 1948 at the first congress for the unity of Europe in The Hague.
  3. ↑ Ruth Hemstad: Fra Indian Summer til nordisk vinter. Skandinavisk samarbeid, skandinavisme og unionsoppløsningen. Oslo 2008, p. 311 and note 1563
  4. ↑ Anita Prettenthaler-Ziegerhofer: Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894–1972). In: Winfried Böttcher (Ed.): Classics of European Thought. Ideas for peace and Europe from 700 years of European cultural history. Nomos, Baden-Baden 2014, ISBN 978-3-8329-7651-4 , pp. 592-598, here: p. 593.
  5. ^ Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi: Pan-Europa . 2nd edition, Pan-Europa, Vienna / Leipzig 1924, p. 20.
  6. ^ Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi: Pan-Europa . 2nd edition, Pan-Europa, Vienna / Leipzig 1924, p. 156 f.
  7. ^ Jacques Aldebert et al .: The European history book. From the beginning until today . 2nd edition, Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1998, ISBN 3-608-91855-8 , p. 333.
  8. ↑ Ludwig Quidde, United States of Europe, Berliner Tageblatt, May 22, 1926
  9. ↑ March 6, 1946: Keynote address in the North West German Broadcasting Corporation on the CDU program (section 26) , Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , accessed on September 6, 2015
  10. ↑ Quotations on Europe , Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, accessed on September 6, 2015
  11. ↑ “Unity and Law and Freedom. Life and Legacy of the Great German and European ”. German Bundestag , accessed on September 6, 2015
  12. ↑ Winston Churchill: Speech on Europe in the University of Zurich on September 19, 1946 . In: Website of the Europa Union Deutschland eV Accessed on September 19, 2021 (PDF, p. 2).
  13. ^ History of the European Union Germany
  14. ↑ Bert-Oliver Manig: Zurich “Europe Speech” 1946: When Winston Churchill became an icon of the European movement . Article from September 19, 2021 in the deutschlandfunk.de portal , accessed on September 19, 2021
  15. ↑ Saturday Evening Post , February 15, 1930 issue
  16. ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau , October 28, 1992, p. 4.
  17. ↑ Wirtschaftswoche , October 15, 1993, p. 14.
  18. ↑ zeit.de of August 29, 2011: Time for great European ideas (a comment by Wenke Husmann)
  19. ↑ How Brussels really works in the crisis. - Fear of the "United States of Europe"? The superstate will not exist. Zeit Online , September 29, 2011.
  20. ^ Zeit Online from August 27, 2011
  21. ↑ Spiegel Online from August 30, 2011
  22. ↑ Quotes from Joachim Gauck
  23. ↑ Merkel promotes the United States of Europe . In: Hamburger Abendblatt .
  24. ↑ Merkel's entire speech of November 7, 2012.
  25. ^ Dn: Nobel Peace Prize for the EU: Reding for "United States of Europe". In: Focus Online . December 10, 2012, accessed October 14, 2018 .
  26. ↑ L'Europa federale? Ora o mai più. In: Corriere della Sera , 19 maggio 2013 (Italian).
  27. ↑ The Spinelli-Group ( Memento of the original dated February 12, 2019 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.spinelligroup.eu
  28. ↑ Priorities of the Citizens' Program ( Memento of the original from September 4, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . fdp.de. Retrieved August 30, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fdp.de
  29. ↑ The criticism of Berlin is pretty petty. Retrieved on February 20, 2014 from sueddeutsche.de
  30. ↑ Hans-Werner Sinn calls for a “United States of Europe”. Outg. on May 22, 2014 from t-online.de
  31. ↑ Hollande demands the EU government , July 19, 2015, accessed on July 21, 2015 from welt.de
  32. ↑ Government for the euro zone: Union parliamentary group Vice Friedrich issues Hollande's proposal Abfuhr , July 20, 2015, accessed on July 21, 2015