Jean Monnet: Father of the European Union

Introduction:

Jean Monnet, considered the father of the European Union, worked tirelessly to promote common institutions for a new Europe. His work had a lasting impact on Europe through his relationships with key leaders in the United States, Europe, and the rest of the world. His career in international affairs extended from the frontier of Canada in the first decade of the Twentieth Century to personal relationships with heads of state from throughout the world during and beyond World War II. He is described as a technocrat, lacking direct political ambition, but capable of mobilizing his connections to promote goals of international cooperation.

Objectives:

Analyze the life and leadership style of a man dedicated to bringing peace to Europe.

Explain the transition from Europe at war to a Europe at peace by learning about the life and work of Jean Monnet.

Materials and Preparation:

Make copies of the Time Magazine Cover Story on Jean Monnet and Timeline of Jean Monnet’s Life handouts for all students.

Teaching Time: 2 class periods

Procedure:

1. Tell students that, in 1961, Time magazine featured a story about Jean Monnet, father of the European Union. Ask: Has anyone heard of him? Provide students with the handout featuring the Time magazine picture, opening paragraph of the story and quote from a letter from John F. Kennedy written in 1963. Ask: If this man is so famous, why don’t we know more about him? Given this data, what do you want to know? http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,19611006,00.htmlhttp://www.ena.lu/letter_john_kennedy_jean_monnet_23_january_1963-020401667.html

2. Distribute the Timeline of Monnet’s Life handout. Have students research Monnet’s life from the perspective of an editor of Time planning an article on Monnet, 50 years after the original story. Explain that the quotes on the time line are found in Jean Monnet’s Memoirs. (Jean Monnet: Memoirs, Doubleday and Co. New York, 1978) Students should study the timeline and select five personal or

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professional events from his life that they think explain his vision and his successes. Each student should also select five quotes that represent his philosophy about international and European cooperation.

3. Ask students to share the results of their analysis in small groups or in a whole-class discussion. Debrief student work with using some of these questions:

a) How would you describe Jean Monnet’s method of solving problems? Leadership style?

b) What current international issues could benefit from a Jean Monnet approach?

c) Why do you think that Monnet preferred to work behind the scenes instead of running for public office?

4. Assign students to write an essay from the perspective of Time’s editor, explaining why Monnet was chosen as the subject of a Time feature story.

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Handout Page 1 of 2

Time Magazine Cover Story on Jean Monnet

In October 1961, Jean Monnet appeared on the cover of Time magazine. The story begins:

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Handout Page 1 of 2

Opening paragraph from Time Cover Story about Jean Monnet

There lives today near Paris an ascetic, unobtrusive Frenchman who may ultimately succeed where others from Charlemagne to Napoleon, ultimately failed. He commands no armies or popular following, but his work is worth uncounted divisions to the West. He has neither title nor portfolio, but he has privileged access to every chancellery of Western Europe. He has no formal higher education, but the world’s most brilliant economists regard him as their peer. He has never joined a political party, but parliamentarians across Europe flock to his summons. His name is Jean Monnet, and he is the practical apostle of European unity whose new, growing organizations—notably the Common Market—are remaking the scarred old face of Europe and changing the balance of power throughout the world.

Letter to Jean Monnet from John Kennedy Dated January 22, 1963

Dear Mr. Monnet:

I am delighted to join my friends at Freedom House in doing honor to your great achievements. You come at a moment of high importance – and you come as the exemplar of disinterested service to Europe and to the Atlantic World. For centuries, emperors, kings and dictators have sought to impose unity on Europe by force. For better or worse, they have failed. But under your inspiration, Europe has moved closer to unity in less than twenty years than it had done before in a thousand. You and your associates have built with the mortar of reason and the brick of economic and political interest. You are transforming Europe by the power of a constructive idea. Ever since the war the reconstruction and the knitting together of Europe have been objectives of United States policy, for we have recognized with you that in unity lies strength. And we have also recognized with you that a strong Europe would be good not only for Europeans but for the world. America and a united Europe, working in full and effective partnership can find solutions to those urgent problems that confront all mankind in this crucial time.

Sincerely,

John F. KennedyPresident of the United States

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Handout

Timeline of Jean Monnet’s Life

Date/Age/Location

Personal and Professional Life WorldEvent

Quote

1888-Small child;Cognac

Monnet learned the family cognac business from the dinner table. Visits from clients from throughout the world provided a window to international affairs.

Patience is certainly something that I learned from where I grew up. The people of Cognac were not nationalist, at a time when France was.

1904-16 years;London

Monnet lived with the family of a wine merchant in London to learn English – the language of important clients – as well as their habits and ways. The traditions of British business circles demonstrated the benefits of collective action.

My father said, “Don’t take any books. No one can do your thinking for you. Pay attention to your neighbor. Look out the window, talk to people.” I learned to weigh my words. At sixteen, I was already a traveler.

1906-18 years; Canada, U.S.,Egypt, China, Russia, Sweden, and Greece

Rather than go to the university, Monnet traveled and built the reputation of his family’s cognac business. His relationship with the Hudson Bay Company became particularly important.

Here, I encountered a new way of looking at things. Individual initiative could be accepted as a contribution to the general good. When he needed a horse to visit a client, the blacksmith told me: “You can always take this animal. When you come back, just hitch up in the same place.” If I had shown him how surprised I was [at his confidence}, he would certainly have been hurt. It was a different notion of law and order here. In North America, there was dynamism – a world on the move.

1914-26 years;France and England

Discharged from the military for health reasons, Monnet served France in other ways. He proposed a plan for an Allied victory lay by fusing France and England’s war efforts.

WorldWar I

Allied solidarity must be total. Neither side must be free to use its men, its supplies . . . that haven’t been agreed to by both.I know the British well enough to be sure that we can reach a real agreement with them if we appeal to their loyalty and if we play fair.Friendship, to me, is the result of joint action rather than the reason for it.

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1919-31 years; U.S.

Due to his effectiveness during the war, at the age of 31, Monnet was named Deputy Secretary General of the League of Nations upon its creation.

League of Nations

Bringing governments together, getting national officials to cooperate, is well-intentioned enough; but the method breaks down as soon as national interests conflict, unless there is an independent political body that can take a common view of the problem and arrive at a common decision.

1923-35 years; U.S.,Europe, Asia

Monet worked as an international financier, consulting on a railway in China and founding a bank in San Francisco.In 1931, published an essay “United States of Europe”

1938-50 years;England

Jean Monnet was sent to London by the French and British governments to oversee the integration of the two nation’s production capacities.When the French were defeated, Monnet inspired de Gaulle and Churchill to take a united stand against Nazism.

WorldWar II

There will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on the basis of national sovereignty, with its implications of prestige politics and economic protection. The countries of Europe are not strong enough individually to be able to guarantee prosperity and social development for their peoples. The States of Europe must therefore form a federation or a European entity that would make them into a common economic unit.

1940-1941-early 50s; U.S.

The British government sent Jean Monnet to the U.S. to negotiate the purchase of war supplies. He became one of President Roosevelt’s most trusted advisers – using a “balance sheet” to persuade Roosevelt to launch the Victory Program, a massive arms production program to supply the Allies with military material.

With a balance sheet in hand, it was easy to demonstrate there was no other way. The balance sheet of needs and resources, which ought to be the starting point of all administration, is often the last thing the administrators think of. (See sample balance sheet.)

You must use your best efforts to smooth out differences and bring about joint decisions by adopting an Allied rather than a national point of view.

1947-59; France

Monnet headed the Planning Commissariat which distributed Marshall aid to great effect.

Cold War Marshall Plan

Thus, for the first time, responsibility was to be shared, and Europe was asked to come together to draw up a balance sheet of its needs and resources. I myself played no direct part in the diplomatic negotiations which culminated in the Soviets’ refusal to join in an

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overall programme, on the grounds that it would infringe national sovereignty.

1950s-60s Monet and his team conceived the idea of the European Community. The Coal Steel Agreement, (prepared in secret), to place all the Franco-German production of steel and coal under a common High Authority open to the other countries of Europe. In 1950, Schuman made the declaration in the name of the French government. In 1952, Jean Monnet became the first President of the High Authority.

Coal and Steel Agreement

In the 4th version, the High Authority was described as the supranational; but I disliked the word, and always have. What mattered was the task it implied and our work was eventually summed up in one sentence. By pooling of basic production and the establishment of a new High Authority whose decisions will be binding on France, Germany, and the countries that join them, this proposal will lay the first concrete foundation of the European Federation which is indispensable to the maintenance of peace.

Let us all — Germans, Belgians, French, Dutch, Italians and Luxembourgers — become Europeans. There will no longer be German coal or French steel, but European coal and steel, moving freely between our countries as if within a single country of 155 million consumers

1957 European Economic Market

Once a common market interest has been created, then political union will come naturally. We are not forming coalitions between States, but union among people.

1963 Jean Monnet received an award from Freedom House. Later that year, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Johnson.

See letter from President Kennedy attached.

1979-91 years; France

Jean Monnet died in Houjarey, France at the age of 91. His ashes are in the Pantheon. His home is now a museum owned by the European Union.

Europe will not be conjured up in a stroke, nor by an overall design. It will be attained by concrete achievements generating an active community of interest.

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