The Necessity for Peace and Pax ImperiiAn evaluation of the Monnet method and

European integration

The Polányi Centre

Juozas Kasputis

05.12.2016

Jean Monnet (1888 – 1979)

“I am not in the habit of quarrelling with necessity.” Jean Monnet, Memoirs, p. 99

The necessity and Monnet method

“To earn my living by selling brandy was for me the first form that necessity took.” (p. 41)

“I knew from experience that change can only come from outside, under the pressure of necessity, although not necessarily by violent means.” (p. 286)

“The federator was not any named individual, but always that same multifarious abstract force that operates on everyone: necessity.” (p. 422)

Jean Monnet, Memoirs

EU – the unidentified political object (UPO)

“Now it is hard to see how this European Union can be achieved until such time as it can function on the basis of unified institutions. That's not possible today, I freely admit…. For we must face the fact that in 30 or 40 years Europe will constitute a UPO-a sort of unidentified political object-unless we weld it into an entity enabling each of our countries to benefit from the European dimension and to prosper internally as well as hold its own externally.”

Jacques Delors (President of the European Commission)The First Intergovernmental Conference (IGC), Luxembourg, 9 September 1985

The Legacy of Jean Monnet (1)

Jacques Delors (President of the Commission of the European Communities):

“One of the Commission's key roles is to record the history of European integration.…Jean Monnet is still seen as a model.”

Francois Duchene (Professor at the University of Sussex):

“To know where to begin is the kernel of the Monnet approach. The point of departure is crisis. For Monnet, crises need not be catastrophes.”

Proceedings of Centenary Symposium JEAN MONNET organized by the Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, 10 November 1988

The Legacy of Jean Monnet (2)

Karl-Heinz Narjes (Vice-President of the Commission of the European Communities, 1984-1988):“We are on the threshold of a new century, and must prepare ourselves for its political realities and challenges, a century in which the change in power relations will be to the clear disadvantage of the two present superpowers.”

Etienne Davignon (Vice-President of the Societe generale de Belgique):

“Stalin is one of the founding fathers of Europe….What is the external federator today? There is none-we have only ourselves to rely on.”

Proceedings of Centenary Symposium JEAN MONNET organized by the Commission of the European Communities, Brussels, 10 November 1988

Nobel Peace Prize 2012Awarded to European Union (EU)

Herman Van Rompuy (President of the European Council):“But symbolic gestures alone cannot cement peace. This is where the European Union's "secret weapon" comes into play: an unrivalled way of binding our interests so tightly that war becomes materially impossible.”

José Manuel Durão Barroso (President of the European Commission):“My message today is: you can count on our efforts to fight for lasting peace, freedom and justice in Europe and in the world.”

Nobel Prize Lecture

‘Formalisation’ of Monnet method

Hierarchical approach

Formal procedures

Universal, rigid rules

Top-down institutional engineering

Constructing ‘Monnet model’ – hypothetical/functional model with idealised parameters

The idea of final achievement, like The End of History (F. Fukuyama, 1989)

but does it work?

‘Progressive symptoms’ warnings – V. Soloviev (1853-1900)

Criticism of the concept of material progress

Rejection of “European” as universal idea with “definite content” but “expanding capacity”

Proponent of social Christianity – linking morality and politics, anti-laissez faire approach, the notion of welfare state, similarity with Pope’s Leo XIII encyclics

Advocacy for the abolition of West-East divide - “I am both Catholic and Orthodox; let the police work that out!”

Theological utopianism – Christian politics – Social project – Kingdom of God

Progressive arrogance

‘Lower’ precursor

Intermediate stage

‘Higher’ stage of evolution – “the end of history”

Managing the necessity: challenges for EUPax Romana – Pax Europaea – Pax Imperii

Unequal success of peace processes inside and outside EU – migrant crisis

The promotion and export of social values – missing internal economic and social cohesion

Economic ‘soft power’ as EU’s foreign policy – rigid and dogmatic economic mainstream thinking

Complex governance structure – missing external ‘federators’

Non-Hierarchical Monnet

“…none of them [ministers, civil servants] ever accepted as natural a method of work which on occasion ignored official hierarchies and upset normal routines - although in a crisis, when action is needed, this is often the only way.” p. 260

“…I had never in fact had the feeling that I was pursuing a career or that I belonged to a hierarchy, whether French, British, American, or European…” p. 405

Jean Monnet, Memoirs