Jean Monnet's Speech
“We are not forming coalitions of states, we are uniting men”
A Pragmatic Education
Jean Monnet was born on 9
November 1888 in Cognac, France, into a family of cognac merchants. At the age
of sixteen, after passing only the first pat of his university-entrance
examinations, he abandoned his formal education and moved to London. There, he
spent two years learning business and the primary language of commerce, English.
In 1906, his father sent him abroad to work for the family business. Do not
bring any books,” his father advised him. “No one can think for you. Look out
the window, talk to people...” Subsequently, Monnet made many business trips
worldwide, travelling to Scandinavia, Russia, Egypt, Canada, and the United
States.
“I
am not an optimist; I am determined”
In 1914, discharged from
the military for health reasons, Jean Monnet sought to serve his country in
other ways. In his mind, the only path that would lead to an Allied victory lay
in the fusion of France and England’s war efforts. However, he observed that, in
reality, the Allies were acting independently rather than collectively. He
proposed a plan that would co-ordinate the Allies’ war resources; the French
President of the Council agreed that it should be implemented.
Due to his effectiveness
during the war, Jean Monnet was named Secretary General of the League of Nations
upon its creation in 1919, at the age of thirty-one, by Clémenceau and Balfour.
He resigned from this position in 1923 in order to devote himself to managing
the family business, which was experiencing some difficulty. As an international
financier, he proved to be instrumental in the economic recovery of several
Central and Eastem European nations, helping to stabilise the Polish Zloty
in 1927 and the Romanian Leu in 1928. In 1929, his experience in
international finance led him to found and co-manage the Bancamerica-Blair, a
large U.S. bank in San Francisco. From 1934 to 1936, at the invitation of Chiang
Kai-shek, Monnet lived in China, assisting with the reorganisation of their
railway network.
lnitially commissioned in
1938 by Edouard Daladier to negotiate an order for French military aircraft with
the United States, Jean Monnet was sent to London in December 1939 by the French
and British governments. There, he oversaw the collectivisation of the two
countries’ production capacities. When the French were defeated in June 1940,
Monnet’s influence inspired de Gaulle and Churchill to accept the plan for the
total union of France and the United Kingdom — a fusion which was to enable the
two countries to stand up to Nazism — whereas Pétain accepted the defeat of
France and signed the armistice.
In August 1940, Jean Monnet
was sent to the United States by the British government as a member of the
British Supply Council, in order to negotiate the purchase of war supplies. Soon
after his arrival in Washington, he became one of President Roosevelt’s most
trusted advisers. He persuaded the President to launch a massive arms production
programme to supply the Allies with military material. Indeed, America was to
become the arsenal of democracies”; for months, Monnet worked unrelentingly
toward this goal. In 1941, President Roosevelt, with Churchill’s agreement,
launched the Victory Program, which represented the forceful entry of the United
States into the war effort. According to the economist Keynes, this “shortened
the war by one year.”
In 1943, Monnet became a
member of the National Liberation Committee, the free French government in
Algiers. On 5 August, he addressed the Committee:
“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.”
Following the Liberation,
at the request of General de Gaulle, Jean Monnet designed and implemented the
national modernisation and development plan that made it possible to revive the
French economy.
“To create Europe is to create peace”
In 1950, in the face of
rising international tensions, Jean Monnet felt that the time had come to
attempt an irreversible step toward uniting the European countries. In his house
in Houjarray, he and his team conceived the idea of the European Community. On 9
May 1950, with the agreement of Chancellor Adenauer, Robert Schuman made a
declaration in the name of the French government. Prepared by Jean Monnet, this
declaration proposed placing all the Franco-German production of steel and coal
under a common High Authority open to the other countries of Europe.
“Through the consolidation
of basic production and the institution of a new High Authority, whose decisions
will bind France, Germany and the other countries that join, this proposal
represents the first concrete step towards a European federation, imperative for
the preservation of peace,” declared
Robert Schuman. Soon the Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Belgium,
Luxembourg, and the Netherlands replied favourably. Thus the European Coal and
Steel Community (ECSC) was born, laying the foundation of the European
Community. In 1952, Jean Monnet became the first President of the High
Authority.
In 1955, in order to revive
European construction following the failure of the European Defence Community (EDC),
Jean Monnet founded the Action Committee for the United States of Europe.
Bolstered by his tireless impetus, this committee, which joined political
parties and European trade unions, became a driving force behind all initiatives
in favour of the European Union, including the creation of the Common Market,
the European Monetary System, the European Council, British membership in the
Cormmunity, and election to the European Parliament by universal suffrage.
Until even his last days,
Jean Monnet was firm in his conviction that the European nations had to unite in
order to survive. “Continue, continue, there is no
future for the people of Europe other than in union,” he repeated
constantly. Throughout his life, he had one objective:
“Make men work together show them that beyond their differences and geographical
boundaries there lies a common interest.”
Retired in his house at
Houjarray, Jean Monnet devoted his final energies to writing his Mémoires, in
which he recorded the lessons of his experience and his mode of action for
generations to come. He died on 16 March 1979 at the age of ninety-one. His
ashes are now in the Panthéon.
Jean Monnet liked to quote
this saying from Dwight Morrow “There are two categories of men: those who want
to be someone and those who want to do something.” It there was ever a man who
could be placed in the second category without hesitation, Monnet is that man.
In fact, he agreed wholeheartedly, adding, “There is Iess competition.”
At the European Council in
Luxembourg on 2 April 1976, the heads of State and government proclaimed Jean
Monnet an “Honorary Citizen of Europe”.
The Jean Monnet
Association
Juan
Carlos Ocaña
