Shortly after the end of the Second World War, Jean Monnet realised that the Council of Europe would end up hamstrung, just as the League of Nations, which he’d once worked for, was hamstrung between two world wars. He persuaded Robert Schuman that a completely new approach was needed for the governance of Europe. Schuman’s grandiose words supporting the principle of sovereignty-sharing during his speech at the French Foreign Ministry on 20th June 1950 were essentially a triumph of the Monnet approach:
Never before have states delegated a fraction of their sovereignty jointly to an independent, supranational body. They have never even envisaged doing so…
Monnet was prepared to start with the countries which were willing to go forward on this basis. He rejected an approach which prefers comprehensiveness to effectiveness. Mark and John will argue that the Monnet approach is the right one for tacking climate change.
Speakers
Mark Corner (British, Cambridge University) is lecturer emeritus at Leuven University in economics and European affairs. He also writes on political and theological issues. He is the President of ACTION for Food Reserves, a non-governmental organisation promoting global food security. Book: The Binding of Nations: from European Union to World Union, published by Palgrave McMillan. It provides the intellectual argument for a democratic global climate and economic development community.
John McClintock (British and Irish, Oxford) is an environmental and agricultural economist. He worked for ten years in Africa. He was a ’fonctionnaire in the European Commission.
Book: The Uniting of Nations: an essay on global governance. Peter Lang, 2010. The book compares the European Union to the United Nations and argues that the EU has been successful because, in a limited number of areas, its member states share sovereignty.
