For the second interview for ‘Next Europe’ I travelled to The Hague. At the Campus of the University of Leiden, I spoke with Margriet Krijtenburg about her research on Robert Schuman, the Père de l’Europe who is now in the process of beatification by the Catholic Church. Krijtenburg gives presentations in Europe on her findings, writes articles, organizes seminars and lectures at various educational institutes.
In this interview she explains the unknown drivers of Schuman’s idealism.
‘I was always intrigued about who was this Schuman behind the Schuman declaration’, says Krijtenburg. The declaration she refers to, basically started the European integration process in 1950. ‘Could it shed some light on the crisis situation of today, why are people so eurosceptic or europhobic?’
‘The real reason of European integration is hardly known by anyone. I know it personally because of my research,’ Krijtenburg claims, as she went into the Schuman archives that opened in 2007. Robert Schuman was a German who switched nationality several times because his home area – Elzas Lorraine – was swapped between France and Germany again and again, as a source of huge conflict. Instead of settling through war, Schuman believed, ‘the only way forward was a panacea of reconcilitation.’ Working together on an instrument of war, coal and steel, and changing it to an instrument of peace, would do the trick, and lead to a culture of solidarity between the two arch enemies.
Surely, it will also have been as well a coincidence of the right men in the right place at the right time, as the three founders (Schuman, Adenauer and De Gasperi) shared important features. All three of them came from a conflictive border region; all three of them had German as their mother tongue; both Schuman and De Gasperi had undergone the experience of a change of nationality. All three of them were Roman Catholics and known for their integrity of life, and wanted a European integration based on the common spiritual and cultural European heritage.
‘And with this we arrive at the quid of the European unification!’ says Krijtenburg. ‘Then, it’s precisely this common European heritage that according to these Founding Fathers forms the raison d’être of the entire European unification project! Schuman calls it the soul of the entire European unification project. He warns that if this soul is not taken into account, the whole project might sooner or later fall apart. Living the virtues, such as honesty, loyalty, thoroughness and a spirit of service by citizens and thus also and even more by businessmen, politicians and EU officials forms part of this.’ This form of cooperation between sovereign countries is unique in the world, says the Dutch researcher. ‘Since the year zero, the days of August, we haven’t had such a long period without war in Europe.’
It is necessary to stress, adds Krijtenburg after the interview, that Schuman and not Monnet, the economist, is the main intellectual father of the plan. The project came forth from a Catholic philosophy of life; main concepts for proper unification such as human dignity, reconciliation, forgiving, supranationality, subsidiarity and solidarity so as to foster man’s dignity and peace among the people(s), form an integral part of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church.
Back to the current crisis in the European Union in 2013. What happened with the soul (or the spirit) of Schuman’s European ideal? According to Margriet Krijtenburg, we are focusing too much on the economy and less on ‘man and its transcendence.‘ The process has gone very fast and citizens have trouble digesting it, for instance the euro. ‘With all the consequences.’
Now the biggest risk is that we do not show enough solidarity and ‘see another self in our neighbor’. We should be awfully happy with the EU. The Greeks are our neighbours, just as much as the Germans. But what lacks, says the researchers, are personal virtues like honesty and transparency. ‘Therefor it is logical that citizens start to protest.’
Krijtenburg’s favorite quote from Robert Schuman is (in the English translation): ‘Each person has a huge task in life, much more beautiful that he or she could ever think of, which goes beyond imagination.‘ That basis is now ‘completely forgotten. The economy is therefore a MEANS not a goal of European integration. Man is NOT at the service of the economy, but the other way around.’
Check out the interview in this video (11 minutes)
Additional information: Who is this citizen according to Schuman? (text is from Margriet Krijtenburg)
Using Schuman’s words “We are all instruments, however imperfect, of a Providence who uses them to accomplish grand designs which surpass us. This certainty obliges us to a great deal of modesty but also confers on us a serenity that our own personal experiences would not justify if we consider them from a purely human point of view.”(1942) He tried to live up to this ideal during his entire life. He himself would never ever have thought that he would be the protagonist in establishing peace on the European continent ….. “The saints of the future will be saints in suit” as his friend Eschbach told him at a crucial moment in his life (1911) seems to have found a realization in Schuman’s person as he is currently in a process of beatification.
It’s a “radical” change in the literal and possibly real sense of the word , as it concerns an essential and extremely human change that might require small and bold reforms as all problem-causing issues would need to be checked and re-arranged if needed, from the human perspective.
This “man at the centre” focus – consistent with the European heritage – and the solidarity, subsidiarity and supranationality aspects that flow from it are precisely what makes “the old continent” a prime example of cooperation and of human values for the rest of the world.