The Schuman Declaration’s 75th anniversary

Europe Day, 9 May, is the 75^th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, a daring document that is now considered the taproot of the European Union. Ever since 1985, 9 May has been celebrated as Europe Day. 

The Declaration was exceptionally short: the English version is under a thousand words. But its message was revolutionary from the iconic first line: 

“World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.”

Schuman proposed a merger between French and German coal and steel productions, placing them under a common “High Authority”. He envisaged “the fusion of markets” as the price of peace between two nations that had, in the previous 80 years, fought three wars.

“The pooling of coal and steel production”, he wrote, “should immediately provide… common foundations for… a first step in the federation of Europe.”

Schuman’s early life was a perfect example of the continent’s fault lines. He was born in Clausen (Luxembourg) to a Luxembourgish mother and a French father who had become a German subject after the annexation of French Lorraine in 1871. He was educated in France (Metz and Strasbourg) and Germany (Berlin, Bonn and Munich). He had bounced between the two countries that were so often at war.

During World War II, he refused to work with the Nazi occupiers of France or to flee to Britain. He was arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo. During that incarceration, he wrote: 

“The borders that separate us today must not be a barrier between peoples, between men who, in the final analysis, have never themselves been the source of conflict.”

He suggested a strategy to end “the notion of the ‘hereditary enemy’”, proposing “that our peoples form a community that will one day be the foundation of a European homeland... If we do this, we will have fulfilled the last wishes of the dead of all countries.”

Eight years later, having been French Prime Minister and then Foreign Minister, Schuman echoed that cry to lay down arms. He intended to make war “not merely unthinkable, but materially impossible”. 

“There was this fundamental belief”, says Pilvi Torsti, ETF’s Director, “that economic collaboration was the sustainable mechanism for cooperation and, hence, peace.”

The Declaration grew out of various documents in the preceding years. The Ventotene Manifesto, written in June 1941, was penned by three Italians and adopted as the programme of the European Federalist Movement two years later. In Algiers, in 1944, the Resistance’s Combat Network adopted the Revolutionary Charter of Free Men, deriding “illusory sovereignty” and urging a “march towards unity”. 

Given rising nationalisms and brutal invasions, the Schuman Doctrine resonates loudly today.

 “The European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) wasn’t just a peace project”, says Patrick Weiten, President of the Robert Schuman European Centre (CERS). “The other objective was to overcome nationalisms [because] competition between states for natural resources, territory, spheres of influence and market-share always leads, ultimately, to war.”

One of Schuman’s closest collaborators on the 1950 document was Jean Monnet, the son of a successful Cognac merchant. He was an internationalist and philanthropist who dominated French politics behind the scenes in the post-war period. 

“Monnet was an interesting figure,” says Torsti, “someone who brought people together. He was a connector and an inspirer.” Torsti describes a recent training day in which Monnet’s wisdom was used: “‘If you’re not meeting resistance, you are actually not proposing significant or meaningful change.' And, ‘You must say the same thing to everyone’ – which, I think, is an excellent leadership philosophy.”

It’s notable that one of the deepest legacies of Schuman and his colleagues is in the area of education. CERS provides educational tools to teach the history, challenges and possible futures of Europe, offering training to almost 5,000 students and 1,200 teacher-trainees.

Torsti sees Schuman’s mission blossoming through education. 

“I think it's very interesting to recognise”, she says, “that whenever the EU has taken steps in the field of education and learning, it has become very popular. It has become so commonplace to study for parts of your degree in another country that if you talk to someone born after the 1970s, they don’t even know that the Erasmus exchange hasn’t always been there.” 

There are other overlaps between Schuman’s vision and that of the ETF. Schuman perceived that Europe had to be far wider than a Franco-German alliance: he looked East (roundly condemning the USSR’s repression in Budapest in October-November 1956) and he spoke of enabling “the development of the African continent”. With the ETF working in education well beyond the EU’s borders, its affinities with Schuman and the CERS are deep. 

“If you were to return to 1950 and ask anyone if it was likely that France and Germany would go to war”, says Torsti, “most people would have said yes. Now they would say you are crazy.”

Torsti witnessed first-hand that sense of the inevitability of war when she was working in the Balkans in the early 1990s. “People just knew conflict was coming. But what has happened in recent decades is that we have managed to change the common perception as to how likely it is to have a violent conflict between powers in Europe. The EU has become a driver for peace and that’s a real achievement.”

“We have faced three crises in quick succession: Covid, Ukraine and a third shock which we can’t yet fully analyse because we’re in the middle of a paradigm change.” 

She refers, of course, to the election of Donald Trump as US president, causing the yo-yoing of tariffs and the realignment of alliances. 

“But the EU’s response to the first two, very complex situations was encouraging. Generally speaking, it was notable how aligned the continent was, being able to pull together and collect funds and so on.”

“It’s interesting when you look back at foundational documents. We marked the ETF’s 30^th anniversary last year and were thinking about our mission. All the statements and hopes from the past help with self-understanding and soul-searching. Internally, at the ETF, we are living an interesting moment and our mission statement is all about being a global catalyst for change.”

Schuman was a devout Christian who used his faith to glimpse a path towards peace, but he was also a pragmatist, regretting that the French parliament had refused to ratify the European Defence Community treaty in 1954. He anticipated the urgent questions the EU is now asking itself about defence. 

“One of the consequences of the Russian war in Ukraine”, says Weiten, “is that the European Union, which was built on indifference to power and a collective preference for influence, exchange and interdependence, is now asking itself how it can be powerful enough to remain not just influential, but free and independent.”

As we mark 75 years since his eponymous Declaration, Schuman’s life is a reminder of the creativity and vulnerability of peace.