Jean Monnet’s Idea of a United Europe and Its Sovereignty

Abstract

The main aim of this political philosophy study is to analyze the two fundamental ideas developed by Jean Monnet, namely, the idea of a federally united Europe and its sovereignty. This analysis is combined with an attempt to capture at least some of the essential assumptions of his philosophical ideas and their evolution. The source materials on which the article is based are primarily Monnet’s Memories, his notes and official memoranda, the correspondence from the war and postwar period and the speeches he gave as the President of the High Authority of the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952-1955. They were supplemented with Memorandum of Aristide Briand (1930), the speech of Winston Churchill in Zurich (1946), Convention for European Economic Cooperation (1948) and Erinnerungen 1945-1953 by Konrad Adenauer. When it comes to literature, the author referred to the extensive bibliography on the subject contained in Suwerenność (2018) by Jacek Czaputowicz. The study uses the method of multidisciplinary analysis of sources and their historical, political and philosophical interpretation. The research conducted allows us to speak of certain philosophical assumptions in Monnet’s thinking about a united Europe and its future. Among the main components of his understanding we can enumerate: (1) necessity, (2) change, (3) specific strength, (4) development in stages and (5) incompleteness which is essentially characteristic to nature. The carried out analysis also allows us to formulate the hypothesis about Monnet’s philosophy of life and action, which can be understood as a certain phenomenology of the community in its becoming, and to situate it, at least partially, within the framework of the phenomenology of Europe as formulated by Erich Przywara in this treatise Idee Europe (1956).