The Schuman Project
The project is an independent research activity
devoted to understanding the bases of Robert Schuman's thought and work.
Since the 1970s a number of books and academic articles have been published
as part of further biographical and background research. A technical research
library (Problembibliothek) provides some means to analyze the project's
collection of Schuman's writings and speeches. Tape recorded interviews
with former colleagues also form part of the work material of the project.
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INTRODUCTION
Major changes were introduced in Europe’s postwar policy
during Robert Schuman’s two premierships of France in 1947-8: re-establishment
of a sound democracy against insurrectional movements, a balanced budget
and a healthy economy, Marshall Aid and the beginning of NATO. His government
proposed Europe’s first parliamentary assembly. The Council of Europe became
the “beacon” and “laboratory” for a major scientific experiment in peace.
In 1949 in a series of speeches in London, Strasbourg, Brussels and in
North America, Robert Schuman called for the development of a new political
entity, a supranational Community of Europe. He defined its democracy and
its final frontiers. He set its long-term policy objectives and strategy
including the democratic means of unifying Europe then divided by the Cold
War. He predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union before the end of the
twentieth century. He was clear that a supranational Community would achieve
lasting peace in Europe. It has. It would be an example that the world
can follow in other areas.
On 9 May 1950 the France became the world’s first government to agree to these democratic, supranational principles in the Schuman Declaration. The European Coal and Steel Community embracing five supranational institutions pioneered this new epoch for the world.
SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY
Schuman described the supranational philosophy behind
the Community as being like ‘a scientific discovery’. He said that he was
undertaking an ‘experiment’ to confirm the scientific laws for eternal
peace between nations and for the wellbeing of the world.
The aims of the Schuman Project are to conduct in-depth research for a biography of Schuman and to investigate his political philosophy, the theory and political practice behind the beginnings of our Europe and the predictions he made about its future. It involves a programme of research, based on more than thirty years of investigation and analysis, on the origin of the European Community and, across more than 2000 years of Europe’s history, the unprecedented peace and prosperity that it instigated. The aim is to make the results of this research available to governments, scholars and the general public via publications and the website, schuman.info
RESOURCES
The Schuman Project has its own large, private collection
of Schuman material and archives. It has a critical library resource of
some 17,000 specialized books and documents to research Schuman-related
issues on history, economics, philosophy, theology and politics. The Schuman
Project is completely independent.
Books
NEW BOOK: THE
DEMOCRATIC VISION FOR EUROPE.
AN OPEN LETTER TO THE EU PRESIDENT
Europe is in a constitutional crisis after resounding No votes in the
French and Dutch referendums. Is this popular distrust due to a democratic
deficit? If so why did Europe's founding fathers and all parliaments of
the Community agree to a less than democratic system? Or is the truth simply
that the new supranational democracy has been subverted by self-seeking
politicians over the years? Robert Schuman warned in 1963 that political
counterfeiters were already undermining European democracy. You need to
know what happened! Read the surprising answers in this Open Letter sent
to all heads of government of members states and all presidents of the
EU institutions. This guide on European democracy describes the five key
institutions created by Schuman, the founding fathers and democratically
agreed in the parliaments of the member states. It describes how institutions
should have developed to fulfill these democratic pledges. David Heilbron
Price describes how self-serving politicians and others altered the five
institutions and how the European Court judged this political subversion
that reduced democratic consultation. It shows how Schuman’s own scientific
test can easily show up counterfeit democracy. It predicts that restoration
of real democracy in those five institutions can provide coherence, peace
and prosperity and an example to the planet such as never previously seen
in history.
ISBN: 0952727668.
6 euros.Book available from
European Bookshop, 1 rue de l'Orme, Brussels 1040.
www.libeurop.be
NEW BOOK: ‘SCHUMAN
OR MONNET? THE REAL ARCHITECT OF EUROPE’
SCHUMAN’S CALL FOR EUROPEAN DEMOCRACY. WHAT IS STILL TO BE DONE.
The Councils of Ministers should be open to the public and the press. That is what Robert Schuman, the founder of the European Union, wrote about fifty years ago but little progress has been made since. Councils, he said, ‘must be under the control of public opinion.’ Sessions should not customarily be closed, but should conform to democratically agreed European rules for openness ‘at the service of the people and acting in agreement with them.’
Schuman’s definition of DEMOCRACY is quoted in a new book: SCHUMAN OR MONNET? THE REAL ARCHITECT OF EUROPE (ISBN: 09527276 41). The book contains:
The success of the Community system is indisputable. After being the cockpit of wars for two thousand years, Europe is now enjoying the longest period of democratic peace and prosperity in its history. It is now having positive, stabilising effects on world politics. The supranational method was a ‘scientific discovery’. Schuman applied it in his ‘European experiment’ as Prime Minister in 1947-8, and Foreign Minister, despite fierce, nationalistic opposition.
How did Schuman reconcile deadly, ancestral enemies? Reconciling principles
are vital today: the Union now embraces about half a billion diverse peoples.
New democracies too must define, agree and apply the Constitutional Treaty.
‘Could one careless flaw in the Treaty rip the European edifice asunder?
The failure of so many public referendums on different European issues
should be a warning to us all,’ the book says. ‘The planet’s fate
is linked to a smoothly working architecture for Europe.’ A return
to selfish nationalism would be catastrophic. According to Schuman’s own
definition of democracy, the present European Union still does not measure
up. The book gives examples where European institutions are failing the
European citizen. The method Schuman initiated can improve both European
solidarity and broader cultural diversity.
Book available from European Bookshop, 1 rue de l'Orme, Brussels
1040. www.libeurop.be
Schuman's Warning of
the Nazi Destruction of the Jews by D Heilbron Price, 32pp
Edition 2004.
ISBN: 095272765X
Robert Schuman was one of the first European politicians to warn of
the systematic destruction of the Jews by the Nazis as German government
policy. His story is extraordinary. Schuman had been the first French Deputy
to be arrested by the Nazis for his resistance to oppression in his native
Lorraine. While still a prisoner in Germany of the Gauleiter and with amazing
sang-froid using a network of contacts in Germany and France, Schuman conducted
his own intelligence work. He escaped and in August 1942 and reported to
the authorities in France, the church and the Resistance the gruesome facts.
The Jews had already been brutally and completely destroyed in the Ukraine
and the Nazis were systematically destroying Jews elsewhere. This publication
also describes some of Schuman's links with anti-Nazi German Resistance
figures and their role in the development of the supranational European
Community after the war.
Book available from European Bookshop, 244 rue de la Loi, Brussels
1040. www.libeurop.be
Russia and the danger
for the European Union by D Heilbron Price, 280pp Edition
2000. ISBN: 0952727609
In a few short years following the collapse of Soviet power, Russia
lost half its economic production, a far more traumatic experience than
the USA in the years of the Great Depression of the 1930s. Wild capitalism,
crime, corruption have pauperized the general population. The IMF now rates
Russia among the world's most corrupt states. Lack of investment is a major
problem. The Soviet and Russian collapse is of planetary importance. It
is Europe's central problem.
Vladimir Putin, ex-KGB operative has created a new structure based on 'the dictatorship of law', unification of political forces in Parliament, and promised an increase in military pride and a more controlled press. Will his reforms lead to a more stable and democratic Europe? What can the European Union do to help not only human rights and democratisation of Russia but the other countries formerly in the Soviet orbit such as Belarus and the Ukraine? The economic life and death of the two halves of the European continent are in fact becoming more and more dependent. Will, however, Russia with its long-drawn out civil war in Chechnya veer towards autocratic fascism, neo-militarism, oligarchic gangsterism or state-control? Schuman's ideas on supranational institutions show how democracy and human rights can be safeguarded as in postwar western Europe. Several scenarios are described to create a new supranational system across the European continent where peace and security can be assured. Energy is Russia’s main economic-foreign policy lever. The European Union has a duty to sustain Russia on a democratic path. At the same time the Community’s vital interests and freedoms are compromised by its gas and petroleum energy dependence on countries like those of the former Soviet Union. David Price traces the geo-political history of pipeline politics with these countries. He proposes a supranational Energy Community that will act as a strategic bridge of common interests across the Continent. Its institutions would act like the Coal and Steel Community did for Western Europe. This would accelerate the adhesion of central and eastern European Countries to the EU. Based on the democratizing, reconciling principles of Robert Schuman, the book defines a concrete project for real European security, foreign and energy policy. A number of chapters describe how, by extending the supranational system down to a cell financial structure at the microeconomic level, growth and anti-corruption can be encouraged.
New Cold War or Common
European Home? The question of the millennium by D Heilbron
Price,100pp ISBN:0952727617
The Soviet Union would collapse before the end of the century, Robert
Schuman, then president of the European Parliamentary Assembly, told some
younger politicians. 'I may not see it,' he said, 'but if you leave a normal
lifetime you will.' That prediction -- or 'certainty', as Schuman put it
-- has become a startling and sudden reality in our lifetime.
This event, comparable in historical moment to the fall of the Roman
empire, provided the best chance to unify the whole continent in peace.
In the twentieth century 60 million Europeans, both civilian and soldiers,
died in wars. Further millions were locked up in gulags and concentration
camps for their race, religion or politics. The great European revolution
of 1989-91 offered historic opportunity to unite the continent in peace.
Yet instead the European Union began decades-long negotiations for 'enlargement'.
.
This book describes Schuman's ideas on post-Soviet Europe, his attitude
to the unification of the continent, his method and his warnings. 'It is
our duty to be ready,' he told Europeans. Was the European Union ready?
In 1950 only five years after the destructive vortex of WW2, Schuman laid
new foundations. Will post-Soviet Europe have to wait ten, fifteen, twenty
years or more? Will it be too late for some countries? Today democracy
and human rights are under threat. Destructive and nationalistic forces
have wreaked havoc on European peoples from former Yugoslavia and
Albania to Belarus and Russia.
The Schuman approach to unify the entire continent including Russia
and to detoxify the errors of the past has yet to be applied. This
book describes what Schuman said that Europe should do. With the fall of
the Berlin Wall, Europe was offered an historic chance for the unity of
the whole continent. A number of chapters describe the conditions and means
necessary to create ‘the capital of trust’ for a Community system and the
‘supranational management of vital resources’. Unless Europe resolves its
monopoly/monopsony energy dependence it could find taps turned off in a
new cold world.
Robert Schuman and the Yugoslav crisis
36 pages ISBN: 0952727633
In 1934 after an extensive investigation of Yugoslavia, Robert Schuman
returned to France and wrote urgently to Foreign Minister Louis Barthou
warning him of pending dangers. The warning was ignored. Both King Alexander
and the French Foreign Minister were assassinated in Marseilles. European
politics took a decisive turn for the worse towards world war two. The
surprising article written by Schuman later and how his ideas were important
in the development of the European Union are detailed in this gripping
historic reconstruction.
Robert Schuman: jeteur de jalons de la paix
mondiale 18pages
Une super-puissance est entree sur la scene mondiale, apparemment sans
bouleverser les vieux etats-nations. C'est la plus grande puissance commerciale
au monde. Et pourtant les vieux et les nouveaux etats de l'Europe persistent,
plus robuste que jamais. Comment est-ce que ces changements majeurs ont
ete effectues? Le droit supranational ne cree pas une super-etat federal.
C'est le secret et l'oeuvre de Robert Schuman.
Reconciliation:
Schuman, Adenauer, Buchman and the salvation of Europe by
D Heilbron Price, 200pp
'Wars have ravaged hearts and minds more ruinously than material devastation,'
said Robert Schuman after the world war two had pulverized the old continent.
How was hate and distrust replaced by reconciliation between peoples and
nations? This study describes that process in the words and documents of
Schuman and Adenauer and Frank Buchman. Buchman's work for European reconciliation
was described by a German diplomat as being 'largely responsible' for this
major turning point in European history.
Theory and Application in Near East and Post-Soviet Europe
Pacifusion: making
peace permanent through the fusion of vital interests: paper
given by D H Price, International Institute for Peace, Vienna 1991.
ENERGY
Contribution to European Commission’s Green Paper on Energy Security
Europe's trillion dollar disaster?
EU's energy non-policy
VERS UNE COMMUNAUTÉ EUROPÉENNE DE L’ENERGIE
2002
Ecology management and Climate Change
WANTED A GLOBAL GUIDE FOR HUMANITY
EV 2001
Academic articles
Historical
Schuman, Acheson
and supranationality: paper given by D Heilbron Price at
ninth Lothian Conference, London 1994.
Schuman and the dynamics
of the new Europe: paper by D Heilbron Price for ECSA-USA
conference 1995.
Political Science of Schuman
A European Super-State?
Schuman's conception of Europe: paper by D Heilbron Price
at UACES research conference, Birmingham, UK, 1995.
Schuman and the golden
rule of politics: paper by D Heilbron Price for ECSA world
conference, Brussels 1993.
Application of Lewis Richardson's mathematical method to supranational
systems.
Newspaper articles
The Near East
Une Communaute au Proche-Orient:
by D H Price in Le Soir, Brussels French
version English
Version of text
Yugoslavia
Le message de Robert
Schuman: by D H Price in Le Monde, Paris
Russia
Europe's greatest
mistake: by D H Price in European Voice, Brussels
Hilft Russland jetzt!
by D Heilbron Price in Rheinischer Merkur, Bonn.
Go back to Welcome page
(c) D Heilbron Price Dec 1999, 2000