EUROPEAN DIPLOMACY OF PEACE, PREVENTING CRISES
Photo: De Gasperi, Schuman and Adenauer in Strasbourg at the Dec. 11 summit at the Council of Europe.
AESI is convinced that the political future of the European Union has only one human, social and political dimension: solidarity! This is why every young European citizen must feel responsible for promoting a true culture of solidarity in favor of the human person and the common good.
AESI is committed to this project and addresses its message to the new generations asking them to promote a new Europe starting from its roots and preserving its identity. Being European citizens means participating in a common project that engages us all personally and requires strong human and professional motivation without which concrete results will not be achieved in everyday life.
AESI is working to ensure that among young people politics rediscovers its deep anthropological dimension and is at the service of the common good and truth. Being European is a challenge that we cannot give up.
AESI PRESIDENT : “EU peacefully resolved the crisis in Hungary and all of Eastern Europe by the great authority of diplomats and John Paul II ! Not a conflict but a dialogue for the new democracy in Eastern Europe !
The EU with the conflict in Ukraine is living the darkest period of its diplomacy and ability to have a capable and far-sighted foreign policy ! We are heading towards total confrontation because we are without a political vision and without diplomacy capable of opposing the war, fomented by the arms dealers !
AESI will continue to remind the EU that its roots are peace not war, they are law enforced by treaties achieved by politicians capable of bringing the parties in conflict to a table of dialogue. AESI wants its young people to be aware of their crucial responsibility to promote peace by knowing how to prevent crises, not by provoking their causes”
Prof. Massimo Maria Caneva
President On. Alcide De Gasperi
Address to the Assembly of the Council of Europe: “The Passing Chance” Strasbourg, December 10, 1951
“I wish first of all to thank, you, Mr. President, and with you the Assembly, for the invitation which you have extended to me and which enables me today to set out briefly my ideas and my concerns with regard to the serious problems before us. It is with great satisfaction that I have seen the ideas that we defend here go a long way on the path of concrete realizations. Despite the countless difficulties that have arisen, the Schuman Plan is on the verge of becoming a fait accompli. I believe that all the countries represented here now agree on the principle that we must arrive at a form of European integration. Opinions differ only on how to get there. If I interpret your wish exactly, it is not a question for me of setting out on general lines my thinking – which is, moreover, quite well known – but of specifying it with regard to the concrete problem that has arisen from the urgency of a common defense.
The need for security created the Atlantic Pact, that is, an organization that tends to restore the balance of forces. That is the first line of defense against external danger: it is based on the integration of national effort with collective effort. The Atlantic Community, while having as its fundamental purpose defense on the military plane, also aims to strengthen this solidarity above a human plane, where all our spiritual values form a common heritage and allow the development of an operant fraternity. But the essential condition for an effective external resistance is in Europe the internal defense against a baleful legacy of civil wars – such must be considered the European wars from the point of view of universal history – this alternation, that is, of aggression and revenge, of hegemonic spirit, of greed for wealth and space, of anarchy and tyranny, which has left us our otherwise so glorious history: it is therefore against these germs of disintegration and decline, of mutual distrust and moral decomposition, that we must fight with all our might.
We all agree that we must defend our hearths, our institutions, our civilization in the moment of danger. But the new generations that tend toward an integral and dynamic conception of life hesitate before a choice that may decide their fate: to resume the interrupted road of war, a road sown with claims and conflicts that are inspired by an absolute ethical conception of the nation; or to move toward the coordination of these forces, sometimes ideal and rational, sometimes still instinctive and irrational, with a view to a higher expansion and a wider and more fraternal solidarity. Which path should be chosen to maintain what is human and noble in those national forces, while coordinating them toward a goal of supranational civilization that can balance, summarize and compose them into an irresistible current of progress?
This can only be done by enlivening national forces with the common ideals of our history and giving them as their field of action the distinct and grand experiences of the common European civilization. It cannot be done otherwise than by realizing a meeting point where these experiences are compared, selected and thus generate new forms of common life, inspired by greater freedom and a more just social life. It is over an association of national sovereignties based on democratic constitutional institutions that these new forms can spread. As of now this purpose must be clear, determined and guaranteed, even if one leap alone will not suffice to achieve it, and if it cannot be achieved in all the areas it entails. Only if we can give as of now this constructive and luminous vision will we be able to attract the masses, inspire them with the necessary ideal impetus and above all gain the spirits of the new European generations.
The construction of tools and technical means, administrative solutions are undoubtedly necessary; and we should be grateful to those who take on the task. These constructions form the armor: they represent what the skeleton represents for the human body. But do we not run the risk that they will decay if a breath of life does not penetrate them to vivify them today? If we build nothing more than common administrations without there having been a higher political will, vivified by a central body, in which the national wills meet, specify and animate themselves in a higher synthesis, we run the risk that this European activity, appears in comparison with the particular national vitalities, without color, without ideal life; it might even appear at a certain moment a superstructure superfluous and perhaps even oppressive, such as the Holy Roman Empire appeared, in certain periods of its decline. In this case, the new generations, gripped by the most ardent drive of their blood and land, would look upon European construction as an instrument of embarrassment and oppression.
In this case, the danger of involution is clear. That is why, while having a clear consciousness of the need to look at construction, we judge that at no time will it be necessary to act and build in such a way that the end to be achieved is not clear, determined and guaranteed. This is all the more necessary when we come to pool that so essential so traditional instrument that is the military. The armed forces are also one of the nation’s highest moral bodies, the school of the highest military and civilian virtues. Their flags recall the glories of the past and are pledges of the sacrifices of the future. If we call the armed forces of the different countries to merge together into a permanent and constitutional body and, if need be, to defend a larger homeland, it is necessary that this homeland be visible, solid and alive; even if not all the construction is perfect, it is necessary that as of now its master walls be seen and that a common political will be ever vigilant, so that it summarizes the purest ideals of the associated nations and makes them shine in the light of a common hearth.
I am well aware that this European ideal is not yet sufficiently rooted in the crowds: there is but a portion of politicians, thinkers and idealists who manage to escape the daily care of the problems of rebuilding a common future. You, gentlemen Representatives, are of this number, by virtue of the mandate you have received from your colleagues, elected, like you, by the people. Now, although in Italy this idea has yet to make its way and must be the subject of in-depth debates in Parliament, I dare to hope before you, that in accordance with the spirit of the Constitution, the Italian nation which, although it has emerged bare from the war, will be willing to accept reasonable limits to its national sovereignty in union with the other European nations, if this can serve to broaden the field of its vital momentum. Certainly the most logical, most practical start, most in keeping with historical precedents would be a customs union, and, as far as we are concerned, we have solved this problem technically with France, and we hope for a positive political solution.
The second pillar would consist of a common budget, drawing a considerable part of its revenue from individual contributions, that is, from the system of taxation. History teaches us that the states’ form of contribution, as an exclusive system for bearing common expenses, can cause dangerous divergences and contain germs of dissolution. It is then not so difficult for each state to devolve the product of a monopoly or other tax for the benefit of the common budget.
This system seems to me to constitute a minimum necessary for this project to obtain the approval of Parliaments and the consent of the populations. When this army, thus organized and administered, is included in NATO, according to the vote of the Rome Conference, we will have achieved the union of all defensive forces and at the same time we will have created, within, a federal nucleus that will be the surest guarantee of our democratic solidarity. It is true that each of us has problems in his own country that press him from all sides, it is also true that some may wish to continue this work in other, easier areas, but each of us feels that this is the opportunity that passes and will never return. It must be grasped and inserted into the logic of history.
Having therefore paid tribute to the brave men who began this work and advanced it, I think it is time to urge us all to accomplish it. It is absolutely necessary that our task should not fail, and that it should find in our countries the cooperation of all the forces of democracy and social renewal, and revive at the same time in all our friends, particularly in America, faith in the destinies of Europe.
(Historical Archives of the European Union, ASUE – Alcide De Gasperi Fund, Foreign Affairs, X, b, 2
