Philippe Capelle-Dumont

“…until Europe as a “geographical unit” becomes Europe as “spiritual community”

  Léon Brunschvicg,

 L’Esprit européen. Être et penser, 1947.

I extended my deepest gratitude to Antanas Gailius, the founder of the Nida Forum for the invitation and welcome. This trip to Lithuania is my fourth. I first came here in 2010, and no less than three times over the pas year! And I fail to express all my joy to be here with you again, in your country with such a rich history full of brave deeds, suffering and resilience – I find it all fascinating.

In response to your invitation, I formulate two goals for my presentation: first, to evaluate and contextualize Charles de Gaulle’s, Jean Monnet’s and Raymond Aron’s contribution in the creation of politic, economic and cultural Europe which took place after the catastrophe of WWII; second, based on such evaluation, to raise the question of whether and how their different, sometimes opposite intuitions, which were also corrected over multiple decades, shape the inspiration for a Europe that could be coherent with its inherited traditions, stable in the features of its identity, open and respected in the universal field of world’s civilizations. I realize the limitations of such a choice of authors: I have not mentioned the Italians Alcido de Gasperi and Altiero Spinelli, the German Konrad Adenauer, the Belgian Paul-Henri Spaak, or even the Polish Pope John Paul II. But I made this choice not only due to the time limitations for my presentation, but especially because, as we will see, the triptych that I suggest will reveal a certain thematic dialectic, which, I believe, has something to teach us in these complicated and threatening times.

I. Between tragedy and hope. In search of common ground

“There is a clear contrast between the expectations and demands of those who tried to unite Europe by any means immediately after WWII and those who intend to continue this project today.”[1] This Habermas’ observation could serve as an introduction to our reflections. In the middle of the 20th century, tragedy destroyed hope in Europe. But since the 60s, hope has been dangerously associated with the forgetting of the tragedy. Today hope in Europe has many faces which often disagree with each other, and the tragedy threatens to return.

Thus, the question of philosophical, spiritual, cultural, religious inspiration for Europe is today pertinent like never. (a) As the classic Greek-Latin-Jewish-Christian anthropology is considered alternative to the demands of gender studies, from now on integrated not only into university research, but to primary and secondary education programs (see Appendix), (b) as certain religious anthropologies that deny the equality between man and woman, and the lobbyist representing them, receive public sector funding from the European Union funds, (c) as the idea of separating political and religious institutions, essentially Christian in its origins, is theoretically and practically denied for the sake of certain growing communitarianisms, (d), as, finally, empires re-emerge in various spots on the planet, and the politic Europe, succumbing to this movement, intends to absorb its nations into a certain whole regulated by “values” – we must again raise the question of the European spirit as deeply as it was raised by the historic personalities that survived the tragedies of war and fostered a concern to be free of them.

1. The European conflict of “world visions”

Charles de Gaulle deemed the new European organization to be the guarantee of the international peace that cost so much. But he also thought that the development of Europe must not depend on the hegemonic plans that both the USSR and the USA fostered. He did not even consider that Europe could somehow submit to or become dependent on the political or commercial powers that are foreign to its two thousand years of history and its peculiar needs. He also did not consider the idea that Europe could give up the force that is characteristic of its nations, its own political and cultural force.

In fact, de Gaulle’s concept of Europe was classic. He was inspired by two different thinkers: Maurice Barres (1862-1923) and Charles Peguy (1873-1914). The first adhered to the German ideology of Urvolk, and the second was both a socialist and a fervent patriot at the same time. Thus, de Gaulle’s attitude to the European question varied over six decades between “universalism” and “patriotism”, between glorification of national independence, that to him was symbolized by Jeanne d’Arc, to the imperative of justice, symbolically represented by the King Louis IX, St. Louis[2]. This makes it obvious that the nation cult fostered by de Gauller cannot be opposed to the imperative to respect other nations, ethnicities, cultures. On the contrary, he believed the time of nationalism to be over, and the openness of a nation he understood to be and tried to realize no longer as inter-continental reality, but as inter-national, or rather, inter-state one, created by free agreements. Especially sensitive to excessive efforts of the USA and the USSR to satellitize France and other European countries, de Gaulle remained adamant in demanding his state’s rightful place in collaborations between countries. On the one hand, although he was a friend of America, especially Kennedy, when he became president, de Gaulle developed a powerful military, nuclear and industrial arsenal and left NATO’s military structure in 1966. On the other hand, in 1948 he still imagined a tight collaboration with Russia[3] (in spite of a sober attitude to the dangers that the Soviets posed that he expressed already in 1947), but eventually he cut the ties with Nikita Khrushchev, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1956-64 due to his expansionist will.

Towards the end of WWII, General de Gaulle became the leader of the Temporary Government in 1944. His political thought at the time was already ideologically opposed to the thinking of Jean Monnet. The latter was appointed head of the French Acquisitions Council, and in 1946 became the first Commissar of the Plan, and eventually, in 1952, the President of the European Coal and Steel Community. Ever since the early 20th century he was especially interested in Great Britain, the USA and China, was a talented banker and expert of international finance as well as cognac negotiator, when the League of Nations was founded in 1919, he was its Deputy General Secretary. Monnet believed that the spirit of national supremacy had to be quelled, and the nations led to a shared understanding of problems instead of mere care for shared human needs[4]. “We connect people, not states,” he said in his Washington speech on the 30th of April, 1952[5]. He expected, possibly naively, that institutional changes would eventually define the behavior of the citizens.

However, the oppositions of these two men were rather nuanced. Of course, during the 4th Republich, de Gaulle was in “opposition” and harshly criticized the European policy, which was essentially inspired by Monnet. And once he came to power in 1958, he looked for ways to push his own vision of Europe and force Monnet out, as the latter lost his influence on the government, although he kept his connections to the multiple protagonists of the international political relations. However, their opinions regarding the political identity of Europe were often shared, especially regarding the necessity for the European countries to remain autonomous, on the one hand, from the English and the Americans, and on the other hand, from the Soviets. In 1943, Monnet wrote (although he will slightly adjust his position in the 60s): “Of all the allies, France alone is European, and European problem is precisely the one to be solved. All the rest – the English, Americans, Russians – have their own world in which they can shelter for some time. France depends on Europe. It cannot escape it. The life of France will depend on the solution to the European problem”[6]. At the same time, on the 18th of March, 1944, de Gaulle as the head of the National Liberation Committee defended at the advisory Assembly “the European role that France will have to play tomorrow for the benefit of all… A certain Western grouping realized along with us, as broad as possible and essentially based in economy, could have numerous advantages”[7]. 15 years later, in 1959, de Gaulle will reiterate his ambition to connect the fates of France and Europe: “We must politically, economically, strategically group the states near the Alps, Rhine, Pyrenees. Turn this civilization into one of the three powers of the planet, and if one day the need arises, an arbiter between the two other camps, the Soviets and the Anglo-Saxons. I have worked for that ever since 1940 and I can say that I have been preparing possibilities for that”[8]. However, this Europe still had to consist of independent states, “organized so that any possible hegemony might be prevented, and a balance necessary for peace established between two competitive elements” (June 29thm 1947).

However, as General de Gaulle vlearly understood the main danger caused by the Soviet communism, he also believed such search for geopolitical balance to be an illusion and preferred belonging to the West. Monnet completely agreed with him. Their shared view was slightly surprising: create a “European federation”. In 1948, de Gaulle said: “To the serious threats to Europe, the world and us, which come from the domination ambitions of the Soviet Russia and nothing else, we have a solution. It is the European Federation on economic and defense levels”. The same year, Monnet stated: “In order to respond to the circumstances, the danger that threatens us and the American efforts, the Western European efforts mus really become such that the Western Federation comes to exist”[9]!

De Gaulle and Monnet were strictly against the attitudes of neutrality, whereby Europe would only be the field were East and West make peace. Monnet, as he supported the American financial investments in Europe, even had reservations about the rush with which the USA government was rebuilding the conquered Germany and installing nuclear weapons on the European continent. He supported creating “dynamic Europe” and added: “An association of the “free” nations, which includes the USA, does not reject the creation of Europe. On the contrary, as this association is grounded in freedom, which means, in diversity, Europe will adjust to the new global conditions and develop its creative powers”[10].

During the same period, de Gaulle was also worried about this expansionist will of the Americans. He believed that rebuilding Germany had to be an exclusively European concern. However, the positions of the two men diverted in June of 1950, as the communists took Korea. It was considered a threat to Western Europe. De Gaulle here saw an opportunity for the European unity and suggested founding a European defense system, led by France, similarly as England is running such a system in the Middle East, and the USA in the Pacific Ocean. Meanwhile, Monnet, who was in power, supported founding a common European army and the European Defense Community. He believed this army and the Community to be “not only an instrument of homogeneous defense, bus also a new school for the spirit”[11]. He even claimed to Rene Pleven that it might allow the Europeans to stand for themselves before the USA, or maybe even replace NATO[12]. De Gaulle disagreed with that categorically for two reasons: first, he could not imagine disarming France while arming Germany; second, he found it unacceptable that in fine the European defense would fall under NATO led only by the Americans and thus become an instrument in the American politics. When Stalin died in 1953, and the fear of a Soviet attack was relieved, the General Assembly on the 30th of August, 1954 rejected the project of the European army that it had supported two years previously.

2. The foundations of the political Europe and their institutional significance

Intensive debates fired up regarding the arming of Germany. It was an issue that we might consider to be paradigmatic. Due to the partners’ fear Germany gave up nuclear weapons and agreed to reconsider integrating its army in the Western European Union and NATO. It all happened under the watchful and even suspicious stare of de Gaulle. Later events revealed that this union was not effective. Its role decreased, while NATO’s increased.

The debates between our two protagonists also raged regarding accepting nuclear weapons in Europe. Monnet supported that, and de Gaulle forcefully resisted, as he suspected possible emergence of dependence on the Americans. The socialist Guy Mollet, head of the French Ministers’ Council, supported de Gaulle. However, the framework for the relationship between the USA and the uniting Europe had to be defined more broadly, so that both powers were equal politically and, if possible, economically. Thus the question of Great Britain joining the European Community arose. It was related to the President Kennedy’s suggestion expressed in January 1962 to sign the trade agreement between the USA and Europe on equal standing, but with almost unconcealed intention to maintain the USA’s political and military advantage. Here de Gaulle saw a trap. He held on to the French independence unconditionally and under no circumstances wanted Europe to be subjugated to the will of the USA. Already in September 1958, when he became president, he suggested establishing a NATO directorate consisting of three members, the USA, France and Great Britain. But other European countries resisted this suggestion, especially the Netherlands, Italy (influenced by Gasperi) and Belgium, who desired to keep the American “umbrella” of protection under all circumstances. However, de Gaulle managed to resist the pressure of Monnet, who was intensely working towards establishing “the United States of Europe”, and reject the Great Britain’s candidacy to the European Community on the grounds that it might increase the dependence on the USA. Regretful of the closer ties between Germany (run already by Adenauer’s successor) and the USA, de Gaulle on the 21stof February, 1966, announced that France is leaving the military structures of NATO. He even initiated closer contacts with the Soviet Union, run by Brezhnev, in an effort to induct the new European project (which, however, he had began considering immediately after the war): Europe “from the Atlantic to Ural”[13].

Now we can mention the third protagonist of thinking about Europe: Raymond Aron. He was no politician or financier, but a famous intellectual, philosopher and sociologist, who was very influential in making important state decisions. Professor of the French College from 1970-78, prolific journalist (1945 to his death in 1983), who always emphasized his status as an independent and free thinker, Aron uncompromisingly, but considerately criticized both de Gaulle and Monnet. According to Aron, the attitudes of these leaders were out of touch with the reality, were “uprooted”: de Gaulle’s concept of France was mythological and almost messianistic, whereas Monnet was too idealistic in his imaginings of the political rise of Europe. Aron himself supported political and economic realism which has resolutely shaken off any illusion: “Let us not deny: the idea of united Europe is primarily a concept of a thinking man, and not an emotion experienced by all”[14]. He regretted that Europe that had been in the process of creation since 1950 was essentially a trade project pushed by a mighty bureaucratic macine. Until his last texts he criticized the tangled system of functions, in which institutional decisions are based on purely economic motivations, leaving aside any political challenges[15]. In an article written in 1973 he raised the rhetorical question: “It is time Europe focused on something other than lemons, dollars and grain”[16]. Aron was also suspicious of arming Germany. He, of course, had no objection, but warned already in 1952: “What is right for light industry is not right for national defense”, and continued in the next paragraph: “Transferring the sovereignty to the High Authority or Committee is horrible to the very idea of Europe”[17].

In fact, Aron never approved of the political idea of a European federation. In his famous article of 1957, titled “Nations and Empires”, he expressed his doubts thus: “Would the nations of Europe agree with that? If the national feeling seems to be down, it does not yet mean that European feeling is up”[18]. A quarter of a century later, several years before his death, Aron still spoke in confusion: “I would have liked that the united Europe, as Monnet imagined it, had been possible. Bet I never put too much faith in it. I always maintained my drop of Lorraine patriotism. According to the circumstances, I always shifted one way and the other, but I always supported a certain unification of Europe and fought for it a lot, before I joined [de Gaulle’s party] and later, but I was skeptical about the possibility of erasing a thousand years of national history”[19].

These words express the essence of Aron’s “national sovereignty”. But that was precisely why he opposed de Gaulle, although it sound paradoxical. The identity of the political Europe was radically antinomous to national sovereignty. Aron encouraged to consider Europe politically, but could not support de Gaulle’s idea about Europe “from the Atlantic to Ural”. He believed that “peaceful Europe from the Atlantic to Ural is a pure dream or a task requiring such a long time that there is no chance of achieving it in the near future. Besides, it conceals a mistaken and dangerous idea: a radical opposition between the Europeans and the Atlantists. General de Gaulle gave the negative meaning to the term ‘Atlantists’”[20].

While Aron resisted de Gaulle, who was concerned with the French independence from the American hegemonic ambitions that he so disliked, he attempted to remain both European and Atlantist: “The idea of Europe is dying, regardless of its common market, because it must be partially Atlantist, and according to General de Gaulle, Europe can only be itself if it is not Atlantist”[21]. He demanded a smart balance between the inner unifying connections of Europe and the American guarantees. Everything depended on this balance, and soon after war he wrote: “An alliance is possible not as an American protectorate, but as a common project”[22]. However, three decades later, Aron regretted that the logic of a protectorate prevailed: “I do not think it’s indisputable that Europe should transfer the responsibility for its own security to the USA and live under the conditions of a protectorate”[23]. Analysts have observed this fundamental tension: the English, Germans, even the Dutch, in other words, northern Europe is more pulled towards the Atlantist side than their Mediterranean partners, in other words, southern Europe. Bet Aron believed that historical reasons and unions made based on them should not prevent pragmatic thinking and future possibilities: respect for the past must be combined with openness to the future, and tradition connected to creativity.

II. Europe’s fate among nations, traditions and unions. The alliance paradigm

The theoretical and even practical contribution of de Gaulle, Monnet and Aron raises complicated questions associated with the political organization of Europe after the WWII. But especially, the tripartite problem of the civilizational fate of Europe: its identitysovereignty and unity. Before trying to give some philosophical and theological consideration to this problem, we will examine the formula “from the Atlantic to Ural”. It has already been mentioned. It has been touted, criticized and even completely rejected.

1. “From the Atlantic to Ural”: a good, but wrong idea?

Let us remember that the Ural as the border between Europe and Asia was indicated in the early 18th century by Peter the Great’s geographer Vassily Tatikhchev. At the time, the Russian Empire included a part of Asia (Siberia and the Far East, Mongolia and Manchuria) and stretched to the Pacific ocean. The new demarcation did not represent the data of physical and cultural geography, but was useful geopolitically, because it strengthened the imperial status: it now included two continents, both Asia AND Europe.

De Gaulle came up with his formula of “Europe from the Atlantic to Ural” in an already different time, marked by the Chinese-Soviet conflict. Foreseeing the possibility that China might occupy the Siberia and the Russian Far East in the future (such a perspective is not entirely irrelevant today), he projected an intercontinental order balanced by the Paris-Moscow axis. Of course, such geopolitical orientation definitely did not mean any attraction to the Soviet rule! In fact, its aim was the opposite: foreseeing the fall of this rule and desiring it, de Gaulle cherished the hope that the countries of Eastern Europe will be able to be included in Western Europe.

In spite of that, de Gulle was quite too quick to identify the reality of the USSR with the secular Russia, which as we know is culturally related to France. Historians of Gaulle’ism explain this General’s vision by the need to have an alternative choice, because creating a solid partnership with Germany was not possible, as it preferred its connections with the USA. This situation is also still relevant. De Gaulle’s project failed when in 1968 the USSR occupied Czechoslovakia and thus again confirmed their totalitarian plans that had been evident already in the events in Hungary in 1956.

But interestingly, Karol Wojtyla, who became the Pope John Paul II and was ready to fight this particular totalitarianism, borrowed the same formula in 1980. But he put more emphasis on the connection of culture and Christianity which had been established in the parts that we are discussing[24], and the deep relationship between the Eastern and Western Church, which he considered to be “the two lungs of Europe”[25].

Today, in the first quarter of the first century of the third millennium, in the particularly stormy international context, the distinction no longer provides such a strong strategic argument. No one today expects Russia to turn towards democracy and free market. It had become apparent since its invasion in Georgia in 2008, and especially since the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the war in Ukraine. This Russia’s turn solidified in its agreements with China as well as North Korea and Iran, it seriously threatens juridic and ethical principles that are the basis of the relationships among the European natures and thus their vulnerability. This tension is willfully escalated by Russia: on the one hand, it is attempting to expand the Russian borders and to turn its neighboring countries to its satellites, and on the other, it is attempting to once again balance out the Western power.

Thus, as we see, Europe “from the Atlantic to Ural” has lost any geopolitical perspective, even it does make certain sense from the civilizational angle. If the mistakes made in considerations of the relationships between the civilizational and the politic spheres continue, the huge threat to all the nations of Europe is unavoidable. They could completely fracture Europe, abandoned by North America and helpless to resist the demands of Russia, in which the Asian influence continues to prevail.

Is it enough to speak of political solidarity in search of a solution? Is it enough to expect that shared security and commercial needs will solve everything? As is becoming apparent in what we have already discussed, the European unity, cultural and institutional, will in fact only be achieved by once again reconsidering the issue of sovereignty and identity. And in order to consider it to its full extent, the question of the role of Christianity must be permitted, as it has been completely pushed out of the European geopolitics: is Christianity capable of becoming the “spiritual leaven” in the anthropological and theological sense to a political project under the new circumstances?

2. Sovereignty and identity

“If we could start again, I would begin with culture.” This phrase, misattributed to Jean Monnet, expresses the rather recently formulated hesitation about how the creation of the political Europe took place: that this process was from the start quite consciously based only in induction politics of trade exchange. At first de Gaulle resisted both the “coal” Pool, and the admittance of Great Britain in the common market, because in these suggestions he saw not just a supra-national project (pretty much introduced as such) that would lead to federalism, but also a fundamental problem that Europe would face in search of its place in the world. As efficient economic unions grew stronger (cf. Airbus, space industry, military technologies), numerous analysts came to believe that de Gaulle was wrong. However, Raymond Aron subtly observed that “although the theory of unavoidable federalism did not pan out, […] de Gaulle’s vigilance refuted certain plans or fears”[26].

Of course, the statement that the intense trade both inside and outside Europe brought closer the “European being” and the (north) “American being”, pushing Russia aside, is indisputable, even bearing in mind the anti-American attitudes of some governments. But is it enough to create a truly cultural and political Europe, even if everyone subscribes to the idea of the common fate of Europe? If Americans move away from the political Europe (and in the near future, possibly also from the military one) along with a certain economic and fiscal aggression (shaped by strategic choices of the President Nixon and the less than friendly attitude of his minister Kissinger) leave only one way out: Europeans must define their own Europeanness. But based on what motives? Rational or spiritual? Pragmatic or idealist? Functional or traditional?

In search for an answer, we cannot avoid the question regarding the fate that awaits the typical European nation. We must also philosophically evaluate both of the opposing ideologies, “nationalism” and globalization “without borders”. Let us remember: after 1918, i. e., as WWI ended, the nationalist ideology was blamed for the tragedy of war and so criticized by numerous intellectuals that for decades the very idea of “nation” became dubious. Meanwhile, national relationships among the European partners, especially with Germany, the survivor of nazism, became free of any tendency of radical nationalism. Of course, if the idea of nation is confronted with the idea of Europe, it is possible to see just a mere “contract” regarding “common market”, o else to extend the interpretation to “relinquishing of sovereignty”. But whatever the evaluation, we should not forget the difference of the international status of the European nations: some of them have been institutionally represented in the major international organizations (like the Security Council), and others are recognized to be outside Europe as just trade partners, although it makes some of them especially rich (Switzerland, Sweden, Norway). Under such a variety, the transfers of sovereignty have been taking place for decades, ending not just in “common market”, but also in very inconvenient reglamentations affecting the percentage of national debt and the possibility of consuming everyday products. All of that has been viewed as “underground federalism”, and with good grounds. An especially serious step towards establishing supranationality would be the elimination of the single-vote principle, which has already been suggested in the 60s. It has not been accepted so far, but has recently resurfaced. Some European leaders believe that removing this principle would allow an efficient and subtle fight against the harmful effects of nationalisms. However, to opposite case is also threatening: it would, on the contrary, rouse new and strong nationalist tensions.

Part of the problem of sovereignty of nations and cultural identity is also the question of respecting “human rights”. For two hundred years, those rights were considered an achievement of civilization, but lately they came into conflicting duplication of “citizen’s rights”. As Aron has observed, this overlap has no political grounds[27]. Really, why should human rights go above the rights of nations and citizens, from which they stem and which have no qualms about connecting the natural law so religious or metaphysical transcendence? From this radical point of view, the question is, why should a supranational institution be above a national one regarding issues of human rights and citizens’ rights. How is it possible to separate traditional culture from citizenship? The questions are also pertinent if we remember that traditional culture created the conditions for the nations to develop the possibility to create the political unity of Europe.

Therefore the question of migration flows into the European continent must be raised. People exhausted by the political and economic crises in their own countries are exploited by the groups of “transporters” who make huge money from it. The history of immigration in Europe over the past century (of Russians, Hungarians, Poles, Jews or Christians, Armenians, Iranians, Algerians, Vietnamese…) is testament to the strong attraction of our continent: its very principles of life guarantee protection, save from dictatorships and totalitarianisms. However, if the European culture will be transformed by the multicultural melting pot or a law that follows the principles of shariah, these principles will be betrayed.

Of course, in this context, we often hear ideological and one-sided considerations about the Christian duty to welcome everyone. But it must be understood that Christianity cannot carry out this duty without regard to the social balance of the nation and the whole continent, as well as without bearing in mind the attempts to destabilize our democracies by the enemy countries.

This raises the necessity to again reconsider the meaning of “nation” in a fundamental manner and not just functionally. After the nazi catastrophe in Germany, Jacques Maritain maintained a similar position as once did Renan[28]: “Nation is a community of people who understand themselves the way they have been created by history, who cherish the treasures of the past and love each other the way they are in reality or imagination”[29]. In fact, nation is characterized by a deep-seated anthropology which implies a double belonging to the physical land and to the common moral Good, without separating or confounding them, without privilege to race or social conditions. Let me repeat, without separating or confounding them.

To sum it up: the idea of nation is alternative, on the one hand, to the natural state, and on the other, to social contract with has its roots in the 18th century “bourgeois” spirit. I believe that its solid continuity arises of its surprising ability to combine the reasoning society and the feeling society (affectio societatis). Such distinction was already made by Aristotle[30], and in modern times formulated by Grotius[31]  (17th century) and the theologian philosopher Malebranche[32] (early 18th century). To put it briefly, we did not invent it, but we forgot a lot – precisely the parts that would allow nations to establish an ethical alliance.

3. Europe and the Christian inspiration

At the Liškiava conference in September 2023 I said: “The soul of Europe is the soul of culture, spiritual life and human communities, but it is no longer believed in. This disbelief, even confusion has complex causes. It arises from the forgotten Christian contribution to the European identity, which allowed the prevalence of formalist ethics. The latter makes decisions without exploring the essence of things, but it does not mean that it is not affected by ideological and financial lobby”[33]. Here we can see a certain return to heathenism. The theologian Henri de Lubac spoke similarly several decades ago: “We see plenty of efforts to destroy everything in the modern culture that comes from Judeo-Christianity, and to recreate the pagan world. That was Hitler’s aim. In different ways, various militant intellectuals and politicians aim for that today. Doctrinal and aggressive laicism, forced atheism threatens human dignity, and transferred to the sphere of political power, becomes a form of tyranny”[34].

Let us continue. If the association between Europe and Christianity is not accidental, but structural, it means that any consideration of the European sunset or future must include the weakened Christianity, of which there is no doubt. According to the studies of the political philosopher Pierre Manent[35], this idea emerged in the tension between the Empire and the Church, and it is not some sort of “third” element beside religion and political autonomy, but a socioinstitutional outcome of the Christian ethical-spiritual structure. Any historic explanation is met with ever growing resistance of the sensitive European institutions, which put more and more emphasis on the legal formalism of individual human rights. The European legacy to the nations implies a relationship with the contents of transcendence. Therefore to consider the national level to be below the European, the contents of which are just legal forms, would mean the same as the political ambition of empires (the threat of which is felt again in the 21st century) to turn nations into their vassals once meant.

There is also something more serious. The present formalism of individual rights allows the emergence of not so much a new religion as a new idol worship: having forgotten their historic origin, detached from their spiritual depth, refuted the limits that define them, these rights sometimes acquire the shape of early totalitarianism: “I have the right to have rights!”

Here we could learn from St Augustine’s wonderful opus The City of God, which theorizes the specifically Christian existence as citizens. The central concept here is “bonum commune”, taken over by Thomas Aquinus in the 13thcentury, who, besides St Augustine, integrated into it the texts of Isidore of Seville and Aristotle’s Politics. This concept has both a philosophical and a theological dimension: if the “common good” is first of all God himself, then the political mind, which is shaping the common good on the political level, is invited to open up to Him and be inspired by His message. The relationship between the divine law and political laws, so strongly debated today, must be considered by including this context. The “supremacy” of religion in not a suitable concept on some level, although the faithful of every religion claim nothing if not God’s supremacy over people, based on their faith. However, as part of the political society like any other citizen, the faithful could not remain loyal to God’s love and His laws if he brutally attacked (except in cases of fighting dictatorships) the norms that guarantee social peace. He is invited to join the process of dialogue based on arguments and, as a person of faith and reason, to represent the position that he believes to be right in the face of God and his conscience enlightened by His Spirit.

Christianity is entangled with this fundamental paradigm and must not beg for any role in the public political, economic, ecological or diplomatic discussions. It may no way be reduced to the function of “supplement to the soul”, however much respect for the Bergsonian concept we had. Even today Christianity is acting in the political space not as its product, but as, mutatis mutandis, the fabric of the European history, because it was precisely what gave birth to the unique complex that structures the relationship between spirit and politics.

4. Alliance: immemorial political principal for creating European

In order to support the following statement that all of my presentation so far has been in preparation of, I am introducing to our reflection the word that has the value of principle in terms of both phenomenology and theology. Unfortunately, it is lacking in the contemporary debates about Europe. That word is alliance. I have introduced it in my other work[36]. It was used in the Middle East in the 3rd millennium BC, as soon as diplomacy emerged. From the time we have contracts made by sovereign kingdoms, as well as between sovereigns and vassals, where we find the concept. But here we speak of it because it has a metaphysical weight and may serve to regulate the relationships between people: alliance is the first grammar of the common world.

In the ancient Middle East, a political alliance functioned on three levels: 1) its object was the state, 2) its origin is the kingdom of initiating memory, 3) its purpose is to protect and develop interstate relationships.

1) State alliance. An alliance is primarily concerned with members of the state and all the definitions that give rise to politeia, i. e., the citizens as well as the organization of the state, but also the people, country, “nation”, even ethnos; all of these things require a mutual desire to be together and are no strangers to what Aristotle said: the goal of a state is “good life”[37]. This goal is only achieved by kainonia, as the community of mutual interest (inter-esse) takes shape, the members of which are different and may be at odds. The state is precisely the system of alliance, which allows to supersede the conflicts and to employ the differences for long-term togetherness. The state arises out of alliance, employing its mutual potential. Money trade is not only a means of economic regulation, but also a tool of quelling conflict and satisfying security needs, which establishes regulated collaboration.

2) Alliance and kingdom of memory. Political alliance is possible because it arises from the principle deep in memory, from the present and absent element, which guarantees its mysterious inspiration. It also gives grounds to the aim of “good life”. This principle is not u-topian, it is the initiator of the political community, its presence is steeped in deep memory and exactly because of that can inspire the future. The state alliance expresses the immanent order of relationships, and the alliance of deep memory expresses the authority of the transcendence.

3) Interstate alliance. Alliance is not just a matter of interpersonal relationships. It is collective, representative and guaranteed from the very beginning. Collective: the direction and fate of the state and Kingdom depends on alliance, because it establishes connections with other political institutions in search of long-term peace. Representative: protected by political authority, alliance expresses relationships between generations, assuring the progeny all the good acquired by it. Guaranteed: it guarantees the imanence of political relations, but also transcendence, by guaranteeing the authority that arises from “deep memory”.

Political alliance is established once the tripartite alterity is recognized: between the government and the people; between the governments of two foreign states; between the protagonists of the earthly order and transcendence. But it is no less established by mutual commitments, even if they are not mutually respected: commitment to oneself and one’s nation; commitment to allies; commitment to the double sacral dimension of memory and immemorial depth.

Thus we realize that a political alliance, like any other, not only inserts itself into the flow of time, but also creates it, directs it and gives it a new intention. It is shaped according to the umatched variety, by opening the instance of the beginning, activating initiatives that both move away from the past and paradoxically fulfill it. Such is the tripartite alliance: it is the principle of immanence, transcendence and creative freedom, which may not be replaced by any other principle without giving rise to dictatorship or anarchy. The European unity will emerge when the sovereignties of citizens’ identities will be united in their openness to transcendence. It will have to be created in the world where artificially united powers are causing serious and various threats, hoping to fracture Europe. But the treasures of its thousands years of past, very distant or igniting, should provide the healing inspiration.


[1]    Jürgen HABERMAS, « Conférence de Jürgen Habermas : Pourquoi l’Europe a-t-elle besoin d’un cadre constitutionnel ? », Cahiers de l’Urmis, 7, Paris/Nice, 2001.

[2]    Pierre MAILLARD, De Gaulle et L’Europe entre la nation et Maastricht. Paris, Taillandier, 1995, p. 27ss.

[3]    „Kai laisvasis pasaulis pagaliau bus realiai susiorganizavęs ir solidarus, jam reiks atsigręžti į Rusiją ir bandyti su ja sutarti dėl tikros taikos sąlygų (iš 1948 m. balandžio 18 d. kalbos).

[4]    Pascal FONTAINE, Jean Monnet, l’Inspirateur. Préface de Jacques Delors, Paris, Grancher, 1988. Žr. taip pat Éric ROUSSEL, Jean Monnet 1888-1979. Paris, Fayard, 1996.

[5]    Šis teiginys buvo simboliškai paverstas Jean Monnet Atsiminimų antrašte (Paris, Fayard, 1976).

[6]    Ištraukos iš In L’Europe, une longue marche. Lausanne, Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, 1985, p.13-14. Žr. taip pat Gérard BOSSUAT, L’Europe des Français (1943-1959). La IVe République aux sources de l’Europe communautaire. Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1996, p. 29.

[7]    Cf. Edmond JOUVE, Le Général de Gaulle et la construction de l’Europe. T. II. Paris, L.G.D.J., 1967, p. 112.

[8]    Charles DE GAULLE. Mémoires de guerre, le Salut (1944-1946). Paris, Plon, 1959, p. 210-211.

[9]    Jean Monnet laiškas Robert‘ui Schuman‘ui, 1948 m. liepos 18 d., in Jean Monnet – Robert Schuman, Correspondance 1947-1953. Lausanne, Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, 1986, p. 37.

[10]  Ištrauka iš 1950 m. gegužės 3 d. užrašų, in l’Europe, une longue marcheop. cit., p. 42-48.

[11]  Cituota in Pascal FONTAINE, Jean Monnet, Actualité d’un bâtisseur de l’Europe unie. Paris, Economica, Fondation Jean Monnet pour l’Europe, 2013, p.59.

[12]  „Monnet nekantriai laukė tos dienos, kai Jungtinių Europos Valstijų kariuomenė galės atlikti NATO vaidmenį be pernelyg didelio amerikiečių įsikišimo“, cituota Philippe VIAL, « Jean Monnet, un père pour la CED ? », in René GIRAULT, Gérard BOSSUAT, Europe brisée, Europe retrouvée. Nouvelles réflexions sur l’unité européenne au XXe siècle. Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1994, p. 238.

[13]  Šiuo klausimu, žr. Georges-Henri SOUTOU, L’alliance incertaine. Les rapports politico-stratégiques franco-allemands, 1954-1996. Paris, Fayard, 1996, ypač p. 301-305.

[14]  Raymond ARON, « Y a-t-il une civilisation européenne ?». Semaines étudiantes internationales, 5 août 1947 [1947 m. rugpjūčio 5 d.]

[15]  Idem, « Notre sort se joue ailleurs ». L’Express, 9-15 juin 1979 [1979 m. birželio 9-15 d.] 

[16]  Idem, « L’année de l’Europe ». Le Figaro, 1er juin 1973 [1973 birželio 1 d.]

[17]  Idem, « Le réarmement de l’Allemagne. III – La possible révision ». Le Figaro, 24 novembre 1952 [1952 m. lapkričio 24 d.]

[18]  Idem, « Nations et Empires ». L’Encyclopédie française, T. XI. Paris, 1957.

[19]  Idem, Le spectateur engagé. Entretiens avec Jean-Louis Missika et Dominique Wolton, Paris, Julliard, 1981.

[20]  IdemMémoires, 50 ans de réflexion politique. Paris, Presses Pocket, 1990, p. 435. 

[21]  Idem, « Le verbe gaulliste et la réalité ». Le Figaro, 4 novembre 1966 [1966 m. lapkričio 4 d.]

[22]  Idem, « Le réarmement de l’Europe ». Le Figaro, 5 août 1949 [1949 m. rugpjūčio 5 d.]

[23]  Idem, « L’Europe, interdite ou impuissante », L’Express, 2-9 décembre 1978 [1978 m. gruodžio 2-9 d.]

[24]  „Be abejo, nebus perdėta tvirtinti, remiantis daugybe faktų, kad visa Europa – nuo Atlanto iki Uralo – liudija apie ryšį tarp kultūros ir krikščionybės, gyvuojantį kiekvienos tautos istorijoje ir visoje bendrijoje“, Jonas Paulius II, Kalba UNESCO, Paryžius, 1980 m. birželio 2 d., Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1980, nr. 9. 

[25]  Jonas Paulius II, 2001 m. birželio 9 d. kalba, grįžus iš savo apaštalinės kelionės į Ukrainą. Agence de presse internationale catholique (apic), 2001.06.29 

[26]  Raymond Aron, „L’échec politique“. Le Figaro. 1966 m. lapkričio 17 d.

[27]  „Valstybė gali garantuoti tas pačias ekonomines ir socialines teises kitos valstybės piliečiams, tačiau nesuteikti jiems politinių teisių, tame nėra jokio prieštaravimo“, R. Aron, pranešimas New York School for Social Research, perskaitytas 1974 m. balandžio 5 d., publikuotas Commentaire, 1991, nr. 56, p. 695-704.  

[28]  „Nacija yra siela, dvasinis principas. Šią sielą, šį dvasinį principą sudaro du dalykai, kurie, tiesą pasakius, yra viena. Vienas jų yra praeityje, antras – dabartyje. Vienas – tai bendra viso praeities paveldo atmintis; antras – dabartinis nusiteikimas, troškimas gyventi kartu, valia tęsti brangų paveldą, kurį paveldėjo kiekvienas“, Ernest Renan, „Qu’est-ce qu‘une nation?“, iš kalbos Sorbonoje, 1882 m. kovo 11 d.

[29]  Jacques Maritain, L‘Homme et l‘Etat. Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 1951. 

[30]  Aristotelis, Politika, 1251a-1253a. 

[31]  Hugo Grotius, Prolegomena au De iure belli ac pacis, § 6.

[32]  Nicolas Malebranche, De la recherche de la vérité, livre II, partie I, chapitre V, § 1, in Œuvres complètes, T. 1. Paris, Vrin, 1958.

[33]  Philippe Capelle-Dumont, „Europos dvasinės dimensijos“. Naujasis židinys, 2024, nr. 5, p. 15-21.  

[34]  Henri de Lubac, Entretien autour de Vatican II. Paris, Cerf, 1985.

[35]  Pierre Manent, La raison des nations (2006); Les métamorphoses de la cité (2010).

[36]  Philippe Capelle-Dumont, Le principe alliance. T. 1: Phénoménologie de l’alliance. Paris, Hermann, 2021. Ruošiama spaudai T. 2: Métaphysique de temps, ir T. 3: Théologie de la kénose.

[37]  Aristotelis. Politika.