A comment in support of a pro-Brexit letter in The York Press claims that Jean Monnet, said to be one of the founding fathers of the EU, had proposed the creation of a super state effectively by stealth. I have never heard this and I am not an expert on M. Monnet and everything he ever uttered, which I assume was quite a lot in his 91 years (he died in 1979).
"Europe's nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation."
Attributed to Jean Monnet Founding father of the European Union
The above is the doctrine followed by all the leaders of the present day E.U.
This did not sound quite right to me, especially since the original Treaty of Rome explicitly calls for ever closer union, so I was interested to see if it was true or just another myth. If I Google the quote, one of the hits is this blog (HERE). The blog author has done a lot of work to try and verify the quote but cannot find an original text . He does trace a reference to it on another blog post written in 2009 (HERE) by a Phillip Jones, who claims it was written by Monnet in a letter. But the letter cannot be found apparently.
The quote is also found in a book by Vaclav Klaus 'Europe: The shattering of illusions' although he claims it was in a speech by Monnet in 1952. But the blog author traces what seems to be the speech given in 1952 but nowhere in it are the words attributed to him.
In another Google hit I find this at the New World Encyclopaedia (HERE)
"The following quote is often attributed to Jean Monnet; in fact it is a paraphrase of a characterization of Monnet's intentions by British Conservative Adrian Hilton:
"Europe's nations should be guided towards a super state without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation.""Monnet is reported to have expressed somewhat similar sentiments, but without the notion of intentional deception, saying "Via money Europe could become political in five years" and "… the current communities should be completed by a Finance Common Market which would lead us to European economic unity. Only then would … the mutual commitments make it fairly easy to produce the political union which is the goal."
And in an FT article (HERE) from 2004 I find this:
Some 25 years after his death, debate is raging in Brussels over words attributed to the iconic Frenchman that appear in huge letters in an exhibition staged by the Dutch EU presidency. "Europe's nations should be guided to the super-state without the people understanding what is happening," he is alleged to have said in 1950. "This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose, but which will eventually and irreversibly lead to federation." It is certainly grist to the eurosceptics' mill. Yet David Price, an eminent European historian, yesterday said he had been unable to find any evidence that Monnet had ever said such a thing, and challenged the European Commission to defend their founding father's honour.
So, I think it is one of those myths surrounding the EU and calling into question the motives of those who fought to create in Europe something that has undoubtedly contributed to peace, friendship and common understanding across the continent.
I suspect that the EU will endure long after the xenophobic, narrow minded, little Englanders have gone.
I suspect that the EU will endure long after the xenophobic, narrow minded, little Englanders have gone.
