What is Europe? is a question which ever resonates.
As to the regal model, 5 May 1747 was the birthday of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor and brother of Marie Antoinette.
The execution of his sister Marie Antionette would have as one of its consequences a twist on the model and so on 5 May 1821, His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleon I, By the Grace of God and the Constitution of the Republic, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation and Co-Prince of Andorra, died.
As to the democratic model, on 5 May 1949 the Council of Europe was founded to celebrate “peace and unity in Europe”. The Council is well and truly alive today but not without some confusion, the much better-known European Union snaffling the Council’s anthem and flag.
A particular curiosity is “Europe Day”. The Council celebrates it on 5 May, its own foundation, while the Union and its constituent nations opt for 9 May. This is sourced in the Schuman Declaration, presented by French foreign minister Robert Schuman on 9 May 1950 as a proposal for the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community.
The situation is the more intriguing when one takes into account Winston Churchill. While the bulldog image of Churchill served Brexitists well, it was Churchill who first publicly suggested the Council in a radio address in wartime 1943. Five years later, he gave another address which is, to say the least, a little at odds with more recent UK developments:
We hope to see a Europe where men of every country will think as much of being a European as of belonging to their native land, and that without losing any of their love and loyalty of their birthplace. We hope wherever they go in this wide domain, to which we set no limits in the European Continent, they will truly feel ‘Here I am at home. I am a citizen of this country too’. Let us meet together. Let us work together.
Without wishing to add more confusion, I merely record that Churchill’s 1948 address was on 9 May, two years before the Schuman Declaration, while Schuman was one of the signatories of the 5 May 1949 Statute of the Council of Europe… signed in London.
