I'm not sure that focusing on founding fathers is terribly helpful, given the structural forces driving the European nation-states towards some limited forms of integration in the post-war period. See splendidly skeptical note on the role of federalist inspired "founding fathers" expressed by Alan Milward in his The European Rescue of the Nation State. For Milward, the driving idea was not federalism (overcoming the nation-state) but limited integration as a means of rescuing the nation-state. This passage from Chapter Six of his book captures the key point:
For a critique of the Milward thesis--namely, that European Integration represented an effort to rescue the nation-state rather than overcome or replace it--see Robert Bideleux, "European Integration: Rescue of the Nation-State," The Oxford Handbook of Modern European History (available on the course blackboard website).
My own view of this historian's dispute--both Milward and Bideleux are right and wrong. Like a lot of things that happen in life, people support projects for different, sometimes conflicting, reasons.
Nonetheless, if one were going to focus on key individuals rather than structural factors; the usual suspects include:
Churchill's status as a founding father of European Integration is much contested.
Yes, his famous Zurich speech can be quoted in support of his position as a FF:
Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted by the great majority of people in many lands, would as by a miracle transform the whole scene and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and happy as Switzerland is today. What is this sovereign remedy? It is to recreate the European fabric, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, safety and freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living. The process is simple. All that is needed is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women to do right instead of wrong and to gain as their reward blessing instead of cursing.
But Churchill never expected Britain to be a member and remained a nationalist and an imperialist.
See the very useful materials gathered on Jon Danzig's blog page. Danzig, however, take the view--which I don't share--that Churchill would have been in favor of British membership in the EU.
Robert Schuman,
Jean Monnet,
Alcide de Gasperi,
Henri Louis Spaak
Konrad Adenauer.
Altierro Spinelli
One other figure sometimes makes this list--but I think he doesn't belong on it--is Winston Churchill
Churchill's status as a founding father of European Integration is much contested.Yes, his famous Zurich speech can be quoted in support of his position as a FF:
Yet all the while there is a remedy which, if it were generally and spontaneously adopted by the great majority of people in many lands, would as by a miracle transform the whole scene and would in a few years make all Europe, or the greater part of it, as free and happy as Switzerland is today. What is this sovereign remedy? It is to recreate the European fabric, or as much of it as we can, and to provide it with a structure under which it can dwell in peace, safety and freedom. We must build a kind of United States of Europe. In this way only will hundreds of millions of toilers be able to regain the simple joys and hopes which make life worth living. The process is simple. All that is needed is the resolve of hundreds of millions of men and women to do right instead of wrong and to gain as their reward blessing instead of cursing.
But Churchill never expected Britain to be a member and remained a nationalist and an imperialist.
WINSTON CHURCHILL
“Great Britain, the British Commonwealth of Nations, mighty America, and I trust Soviet Russia must be the friends and sponsors of the new Europe and must champion its right to live and shine.”
As Prime Minister in 1953, he was explicit that Britain should not be part of the arrangement. He told the Commons: “Where do we stand? We are not members of the European Defence Community, nor do we intend to be merged in a Federal European system. We feel we have a special relation to both. This can be expressed by prepositions, by the preposition ‘with’ but not ‘of’ – we are with them, but not of them. We have our own Commonwealth and Empire.”
See the very useful materials gathered on Jon Danzig's blog page. Danzig, however, take the view--which I don't share--that Churchill would have been in favor of British membership in the EU.
A more interesting and important question is the role played by the United States in the project of European Integration. I think the US was key. Every US President from Eisenhower threw until Obama has supported the EU--largely for self-interested reasons. Trump is the exception.
A remarkable feature of the present time--Trump's America, Xi Jinping's China, and Putin's Russia all share one important foreign policy goal--the destruction of the EU.
For the initial (secret) support of the US foreign policy establishment for the EU, see this article Richard J. Aldrich. "OSS, CIA and European unity: The American committee on United Europe,
1948-60," Diplomacy and Statecraft.
I will have a lot more to say about US support for the EU in the postwar period (see my "America and European Unity: From Roosevelt to Trump.")
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