Robert Schuman on Hungary and Europe

003-016 Avery.qxd 6/10/10 1:48 PM Page 3 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE Graham Avery provided by Cadmus, EUI Research Repository Robert Schuman on Hungary and Europe obert Schuman (1886–1963), French statesman and ‘founding father’ of REuropean integration, once declared: Nous devons faire l’Europe non seulement dans l’intérêt des pays libres, mais aussi pour pouvoir y accueillir les peuples de l’Est qui, délivrés des sujétions qu’elles ont subies jusqu’à présent, nous demanderont leur adhésion et notre appui moral. We must make Europe not only in the interest of the free countries, but also to be able to welcome the peoples of the East who, freed from the subjection that they have suffered until now, will ask to join us and request our moral support. (my translation) During the enlargement of the European Union (EU) to include the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, which I helped to plan in the European Commission in Brussels, I often quoted this far-sighted remark of Schuman. Before 1989 he was practically the only politician in the West to predict that one day we would welcome into the EU the Europeans who were separated from us by the Iron Curtain. But I had a problem: I could not discover the source of the quotation. It was not in Schuman’s published writings, and although the secondary sources dated it to 1963, I could not find a reference to the original documentary source. This irritated me, and I even began to wonder whether the quotation was authentic. Since much of the literature concerning Schuman is hagio- graphic in nature, maybe one of his followers had invented it. However, I recently discovered that the quotation was first published in 1963, just after Schuman’s death, in an article dedicated to him,1 and that in 1 ■ France-Forum, no. 52, November 1963. Graham Avery is Visiting Fellow at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, Senior Member of St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford and Honorary Director General of the European Commission. 3 Robert Schuman on Hungary and Europe 003-016 Avery.qxd 6/10/10 1:48 PM Page 4 fact he made the remark in a speech in Luxembourg on 3 November 1956, of which I have obtained a transcript.2 It is clear from other remarks in the speech—whose text has not previously been published—that Schuman’s appeal to Europe to “welcome the people of the East” was a response to the events in Budapest of October-November 1956, of which reports were reaching the West when he made the speech. Together with the discovery of the true date and source of the quotation, I found that Schuman had a particular interest in Hungary, beginning with visits to Budapest in the 1930s and continuing in the postwar period. So in this article3 I will: ■ describe briefly Robert Schuman’s life, his visits to Hungary, and his relations with Hungarians in France ■ reproduce the relevant extracts from his speech of 1956, of which only a few phrases have been published before ■ conclude with some reflections on Schuman’s vision of European integration. Schuman’s life obert Schuman was born in Luxembourg in 1886 into a family and a culture Rthat was both German and French. His father, Jean-Pierre Schuman, was from Moselle in the French region of Lorraine, but as a result of the transfer of Lorraine to Germany in 1871 he became a German citizen; after settling in Luxembourg, he married a Luxembourg woman, who consequently became German, and their son Robert, born in Luxembourg, also had German nationality according to the principle of jus sanguinis. Although his mother tongue was Letzbuergisch, the language of Luxem- bourg and neighbouring regions, Robert Schuman was also fluent in German and French. After studying law at the universities of Bonn, Munich, Berlin and Strasbourg, he began a legal practice in Metz in Lorraine, which was then part of the German Reich. Recruited into the German army in the Great War, he was seconded into the civil service. After the war Lorraine was transferred to France in 1918, so Schuman became a French citizen, and in 1919 he was elected to the French Parliament as a representative of Moselle. In political life Schuman was a member of parties of the Christian Democrat family, and from his early days was a militant social Catholic. He probably 2 ■ I am indebted to David Price, director of the Schuman Project (http://www.schuman.info), for informing me of this document and for kindly making a copy available to me. 3 ■ In the preparation of this article I am grateful for advice, comments and encouragement received from László Bruszt, Professor at the European University Institute; Györgyi Kocsis, Deputy Editor-in- chief of the political and economic weekly HVG; Jean-Marie Palayret, Director of the Historical Archives of the European Union; Jean-Marie Majerus, Robert Schuman Centre for European Studies and Research (CERE); David Price, Director of the Schuman Project; János Rainer, Director of the Institute for the History of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution; Zsófia Zachár, Editor of The Hungarian Quarterly. 4 The Hungarian Quarterly 003-016 Avery.qxd 6/10/10 1:48 PM Page 5 considered the possibility of becoming a priest; he never married, and was involved in many Roman Catholic causes. However, his actions and writings show no trace of the anti-Semitism that was common in Catholic circles. Since his death, the procedure has begun in Rome for his beatification. As a parliamentarian in the 1920s and 1930s Schuman was active in the politics of Alsace-Lorraine, and with his international background he naturally became interested in foreign affairs. He travelled in Central Europe, visiting Germany and countries of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, including Hungary in 1930, 1934 and 1935. In 1940, after the outbreak of the Second World War, he was appointed to a junior post in the French government, but resigned at the time of the Armistice, and on his return to Metz was arrested by the Gestapo because he refused to collaborate with the new regime.4 He was put under house arrest in Germany, but after escaping in 1942 he remained in hiding in various places in France for the rest of the war. After the war he was elected again to the French Parliament, serving as a representative of Moselle from 1945 to 1962. During the period from 1946 to 1955 he was a member of several French governments, as finance minister, prime minister, foreign minister and justice minister. Later he was the first president of the European Parliament and president of the European Movement. Already before the war Schuman had developed ideas for new European structures and for the reconciliation of the peoples of Europe, which he put into action after 1945. The French government of which he was a member launched plans for what became the Council of Europe and the Convention of Human Rights. In an important speech on 9 May 1950, as foreign minister and with the approval of the French government, he launched the Schuman Plan. This proposed the creation of a supranational Community for coal and steel, with a High Authority based on a new type of European legal order. Schuman had already outlined in speeches his ideas for European integration, but they were opposed by other politicians—nationalists, Gaullists and Communists—and by officials in the Foreign Ministry. To avoid the plan being sabotaged, the text of Schuman’s declaration was drafted secretly by trusted colleagues in the Foreign Ministry, with the aid of Jean Monnet, head of the French planning bureau. Schuman’s initiative led to the European Coal and Steel Community being created by the Treaty of Paris in 1951; this was the precursor of the European Economic Community created by the Treaty of Brussels in 1956, and later of the European Union created by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993. Schuman is 4 ■ François Roth, Robert Schuman. Du Lorrain des frontières au père de l’Europe. Paris: Fayard, 2008, p. 235. 5 Robert Schuman on Hungary and Europe 003-016 Avery.qxd 6/10/10 1:48 PM Page 6 thus considered to be one of the ‘founding fathers’ of the European Union, and the ‘Europe Day’ celebrated in many countries on 9 May commemorates his 1950 declaration. Although Robert Schuman held high office in France, he was more honoured abroad than at home; in the eyes of French Gaullists he was too German, and he was also criticized for being too Catholic and too austere. He was in fact a true internationalist, both by experience and by conviction, and his speeches and writings on European integration have had a lasting influence. Schuman’s visits to Hungary n August 1930 Schuman took part in a visit to Budapest organized for a I‘Groupe d’études de l’Europe centrale’ (Study Group for Central Europe) of French parliamentarians.5 Its leader was Abbé Bergey, a Catholic priest and member of the French parliament, who had already organized visits to Hungary and sympathized with the ‘National Christian’ ideas prevalent in Magyar circles, as did many Catholic conservatives in France. In Budapest Schuman and Bergey stayed—as they requested—in a seminary rather than a hotel. The official purpose of the visit was to attend ceremonies for the 900th anniversary of Saint Imre (Emerich), son of Saint István (King Stephen), but it also responded to the Hungarian government’s wish for better links with French political circles.

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