For Europe” “

Robert Schuman has disembarked in Eastern Europe; he is beginning to make proselytes in the countries of new accession and in those still waiting outside the doors of the EU. His writings are contributing to the growth of the “European sensibility” and his book “Pour l’Europe”, published in the year of his death, 1963, has now been translated into English, German, Polish, Russian, Croat, Bulgarian, Serb, Slovak, Macedonian, Lithuanian, Estonian, Romanian, Slovenian and Albanian. A STATESMAN ON THE ROAD TO BEATIFICATION. The Foundation named after Schuman has its headquarters in Paris, with a branch office in Brussels. It is very active; its programmes comprise conferences, meetings, publications and pronouncements on the most burning issues of the continent today. An institute named after St. Benedict, Patron of Europe, has also been founded in France: the Institut Saint Benoît Patron de l’Europe, with its seat at Scy-Chazelles, the “buen retiro”, of the great French statesman from Lorraine (Schuman was born in Luxembourg in 1886 and spoke perfect French and German). The institute is promoting the cause of his beatification. In the spring of 2004, Bishop Pierre Raffin of Metz closed the diocesan phase of the process of beatification, opened in 1990. Depositions were taken from two hundred witnesses. All Schuman’s public and private writings were scrutinized. All the stages in his life were examined. Now the results of the inquiry (50,000 pages in all) have been transferred to Rome, to the Congregation for the Cause of Saints. Meanwhile associations, groups and initiatives that bear his name have sprouted throughout Europe. In Warsaw, for example, an annual march takes place in the spring; inspired by the European message of Schuman, it brings thousands of people onto the streets. CONSTRUCTOR OF THE “COMMON HOME”. The life of this “frontiersman” is fascinating. After donning the uniform of the German army in the First World War, he decided to take French citizenship. He chose a life of celibacy and dedicated time and energy to the poor. He committed himself to political life, first as municipal councillor in Metz, then as MP for Moselle. During the Second World War he was interned in Germany. On returning to France, he was one of the founders of the French Christian Democratic Party, the Mouvement Républicain Populaire. Newly elected to the National Assembly, he entered the cabinet and – in the difficult phase of economic reconstruction and the Cold War – held the post of Minister of Finance. He became President of the Council in 1947-48. Between 1948 and 1953 he headed the Quay d’Orsay: as French Foreign Minister, he led France to join the Marshall Plan and the Council of Europe and made a decisive contribution to reconciliation with Germany. On 9 May 1950 he presented the famous “Declaration”, formulated with the decisive contribution of Jean Monnet, which would lead to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community. The foundations of the “common home” had been laid. The date of 9 May is so important that it is now the annual “Festival of Europe”, a day of celebration also enshrined in the EU Constitutional Treaty. “AMBASSADOR” OF THE EUROPEAN CAUSE. In the 1950s Schuman forged relations of mutual esteem with other “fathers” of Europe, notably with the German Konrad Adenauer and the Italian Alcide De Gasperi. On leaving ministerial office, Robert Schuman became “ambassador” of the European cause and toured France and Western Europe giving lectures, writing articles, and meeting politicians, intellectuals and ordinary citizens. In 1958 he was elected President of the Assembly in Strasbourg, a post he held for two years. In 1962, at the end of his parliamentary term, by now weakened in body, he retired to Scy-Chazelles, where he reflected on his life, put his papers in order and dedicated himself to writing his book “Pour l’Europe “ which contains his political testament. He died on 4 September 1963. SOLIDARITY, SECULAR STATE. “For Schuman – as Ulrich Lappenküper, expert on the life and work of the French statesman, has recently remarked – the unification of Europe was not an obligation deriving from external motives, for example the dependence on the aid of the American Marshall Plan or the dangers of the Cold War: it was born, instead, from the internal need of an interdependent order of States. After two devastating world wars, the old world had to recognize that there was a common good that transcended national interests: solidarity. It could only be achieved if the democratic states of Europe succeeded in overcoming the hostility of their frontiers”. According to Schuman, who was “a profound believer, a pacified Europe had to be built on the basic democratic and Christian values. ‘Democracy will either be Christian or it will not exist at all’, he confirmed in his ‘testament’ of foreign policy, the already cited “Pour l’Europe”. Nonetheless, according to Lappenküper, he “knew very well how to distinguish between a ‘kingdom of God’ and a kingdom of the ‘Kaiser’ and how to separate the responsibilities of the two powers”.