Winston Churchill a harbinger of European Union

Winston Churchill (1874–1965) made an important speech about European integration in Zurich (on 19 September 1946). This outstanding politician, popular writer and war hero proposed an organization where France and Germany could cooperate and avoid the possibility of a new war between them. Churchill’s main concern was a new conflict that could force the UK to participate in another world conflict. He was a politician born during the peak of the British Empire and still thought of the UK as a great power in the world, so the involvement of the British in this European organization was limited to being a friend and a supporter, but never a full member. He thought of four world powers—the USA, the Soviet Union, the UK and the future European Federation. According to Churchill, the organization had to be open to all the non-communist European states, based on democratic principles with a federal nature. The involvement of Germany and France was to be decisive and the center of the organization because the main objective was ensuring peace between France and Germany and all their allies. The working system of the organization was meant to be based on federalist principles. (Churchill, 1946).

Churchill’s famous speech had a great influence on the further development of the European Union, or as he called it, the United States of Europe. The British leader spoke about the necessity of integrating Europe in order to avoid future wars. According to his words, the center of the community must be France and Germany, two states which have had many conflicts in the past and which have led twice to a global confrontation in which the rest of the states, and specially the UK, were involved. Churchill supported integration, and saw it as a requisite for world peace. He thought of the UK as a promoter of the integration of continental Europe, as a father guiding France and Germany during the process, but never as an active partner in the integration. He thought of the USA, the Soviet Union and the UK as the world powers ruling the world. The great British premier, who many times before had been able to analyze the international situation with amazing exactitude, completely missed at that time the British reality and the British position in the new world after the Second World War. British contribution to the Congress of Europe was following a similar approach. The Congress was divided in three main groups: the supporters of the European Federation, the supporters of Cooperation, and the supporters of Pan Europe, Britain being the leader of the so called Unionists, or supporters of cooperation. Their attitude towards the process was mainly positive, but underlining the importance of national sovereignty and trade.