In May 1948 Salvador de Madariaga attended the Hague Congress organized by the European movement, and by himself, under the presidency of Winston Churchill. He writes down a premonitory phrase in a small notebook in his pocket: “Europe is threatened by its own suicidal tendencies”. Later we will see why this phrase is so relevant today. And why Europe tends, from time to time, to complicate its future.
Winston Churchill, who had been a major protagonist during and at the end of the Second World War, had commissioned his son-in-law, the Conservative MP Duncan Sandys, to coordinate the pro-European groups from different countries to establish a permanent organization.
Three years earlier, the great conflagration that left Europe devastated, after a long war of almost six years, had ended. Let us remember that only three decades had passed since the Great War (the First World War), which had been considered to date as the bloodiest and with the greatest number of victims in the History of Humanity, mainly on European soil.
These were times when it was urgently necessary to find ways to avoid future confrontations. Although Winston Churchill and his prominence in this conference raised suspicions like those of Henri Brugmans, Denis de Rougemont, or the Italian Minister Sforza, he is the clear protagonist who intervenes after the welcoming words of the Mayor of The Hague.
Different visions of the future of Europe are already visible in this Conference. On the one hand, those who believed in a Federal Europe in the long term, and on the other, the pragmatists who saw clear possibilities in agreements that would allow for the common resolution of common problems, and thus contribute to preserving a fragile peace in Europe. A Europe that had been permanently threatened by its own members, in recent centuries, and that had only enjoyed brief periods of peace.
The European Union (EU) has evolved, over several decades, from its origins in the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and the European Economic Community (EEC) to the political and economic organization it is today.
The idea of an economic and political union in Europe arose after the Second World Warwith the aim of promoting peace and prosperity on a war-torn continent.
On May 9, 1950, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed the creation of a supranational European entity to manage coal and steel production, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), considered the first step. towards European integration. Let us remember that both coal and steel were strategic in those years of reconstruction.
On March 25, 1957, the Treaties of Rome were signed, establishing the European Economic Community (EEC) and the European Atomic Energy Community (EURATOM)..
The EEC thus sought to create a common European market, eliminating tariffs and promoting the free movement of goods, services, people and capital between member states. Something that represented a definitive advance in the preservation of peace and, above all, in economic development.