1957 – Come Together

What do the English son of a merchant seaman brought up by his aunt and a Frenchman born into a family of cognac merchants have in common; one, prodigiously inventive, writing songs about love, drugs and disaster; the other doggedly and determinedly seeking an improbable goal.  Almost nothing, except they’re linked by the phrase ‘come together’: Jean Monnet devoted his life to it; John Lennon made it famous in a song, with its memorable last lines:

He say I know you, you know me
One thing I can tell you is
You got to be free
Come together, right now
Over me.
[i]

According to Ian MacDonald, John Lennon had explained Come Together was inspired by a request from Timothy Leary for a campaign song while running against Ronald Reagan for the Governorship of California, an attempt which didn’t last long because Leary was sentenced to prison for possessing marihuana! [ii]  Ah, those good old days!  Interviewed by David Sheff, John Lennon later recalled:  “The thing was created in the studio.  It’s gobbledygook; Come Together was an expression that Leary had come up with for his attempt at being president or whatever he wanted to be, and he asked me to write a campaign song.  I tried and tried, but I couldn’t come up with one.  But I came up with this, Come Together, which would’ve been no good to him – you couldn’t have a campaign song like that, right?” [iii]  It might have suited a time of drugs and sexual freedom, but John Lennon knew it didn’t make a good theme for a Governor: too explicit!

Is it a political impossibility to come together?  John Lennon’s lyrics might be said to imply the best way requires both sides understand each other, and freely choose to unite.  Leaving on one side the parlous situation in the US today, where the country can’t even come together internally, the broader question is whether two countries can do so at the end of a war or after decades of intermittent hostilities.  History suggests enmities tend to continue unresolved, allowing and even encouraging new fights to flare up.  On a hide to nothing, the outcome is almost always the same:  lose a battle and be resentful, or win a battle and be boastful.  Of course, sometimes it can be worse:  lose the war, be overrun, and disappear, absorbed into the winner’s territory.

If the lesson of history appears to be win, lose, or be absorbed, a new choice for the future could be to create something that steps over past tensions, creating a structure within which the two opponents could become parts of a greater whole.  Could such a path be followed, or are yet more years of tension, aggression and damaging disagreements always inevitable?

Europe faced that problem after the Second World War, and especially France and Germany.  Desperately seeking to encourage and speed up economic reconstruction, it would take both farsightedness and political courage to imagine that two could live together and dismiss the threat of further conflict.  There was another path, one on which the first steps were taken in the early 1950’s.  They were small but were very practical, a beginning centred around coal and steel.  Why there?  Because those two industries were critical to rebuilding economies.  In 1951, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands signed the Treaty of Paris, creating the European Coal and Steel Community.  Truly innovative, this was a treaty based on international law, designed to help reconstruct the economies of the European continent, and intended to prevent another war in Europe by ensuring a basis for lasting peace.

The origins of the approach had been developed by Jean Monnet, a senior French civil servant. His aim was to pool Franco-West German coal and steel production, because the two raw materials were the basis of manufacturing and power generation for the two countries. He envisioned Franco-West German coal and steel production could be placed under an overarching authority, and which could be open for participation to other European countries.  However, as he intended, the real political objective of the European Coal and Steel Community was to strengthen Franco-German cooperation and banish the likelihood of any more wars.

Jean Monnet is a fascinating man. He was born in 1888, into a family of cognac merchants, and as an adult joined the family business.  When the First World War began, he argued victory would come from  Britain and France coordinating war resources.  Although progress was limited, by the end of the war he helped establish cooperation in wheat and transport.  Small beginnings, but it was his first step into a career focussed on international cooperation.  After the war, Monnet was appointed Deputy Secretary-General of the newly inaugurated League of Nations.  However, he found its processes slow and frustrating, unanimity hard to achieve, and he resigned, returning to the family cognac business.  Before long he moved on to banking in the USA, and from there into international politics and international finance.  By 1935 he was considered one of the most connected persons of his time. [iv]  At the start of the Second World War, he went to London, returning to the familiar task of uniting French and British industries.

By 1943, Monnet was a member of De Gaulle’s National Liberation Committee, part of the  French government-in-exile.  That year, he declared, “There will be no peace in Europe if the states are reconstituted on the basis of national sovereignty … The countries of Europe are too small to guarantee their peoples the necessary prosperity and social development.  The European states must constitute themselves into a federation.” [v]  He set his broader vision on hold after the war, focussing on crafting agreements over coal, iron and steel in Europe between France and Germany.  Overcoming challenges between the two countries, Monnet and his team returned to his goal of creating a European community, enlarging the proposal to integrate the French and German coal and steel industries by putting them under joint control, and open to other European states.  The Schuman Declaration established the European Coal and Steel Community bringing together France, Italy, West Germany, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.  Signed on 9 May 1950, the date that was later adopted as Europe Day, it is recognised as the first stage in creating a European Union. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to read the UK declined to join, the first of a confusing series of refusals and agreements to mark its participation in a united Europe.

In 1955, Monnet founded the Action Committee for the United States of Europe which brought political parties and European trade unions together to become a driving force for the foundation of the European Union, as it would later become known.  The first stage was to form the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1958 (usually referred to as the ‘Common Market’), which was put in place by the Treaty of Rome in 1957.  This was followed by the European Communities (EC) in 1967.   Monnet believed in a gradualist approach, a successful strategy he pursued until he eventually resigned on 9 May 1975, on the 25th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration.  A remarkable career and a remarkable man, whose achievements had seen him move a long, long way beyond his early working life in that small family cognac business.

Amongst other events, a key date in the fulfilment of his vision was 25 March 1957, when Italy, Belgium, France, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and West Germany signed the Treaty of Rome, the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community, the EEC.  The ‘impossible’ had become real, with former enemies now committed to a supra-national authority.  What did that rather crazy Beatle’s song say?  “I know you, you know me, One thing I can tell you is. You got to be free, Come together, right now, Over me.”  The countries had known each other for centuries, but, in a previously almost unimaginable move, they did freely come together.

The original treaty included the progressive reduction of customs duties and charges, and the eventual creation of a common customs ‘union’.  It planned a single market for goods, labour, services, and capital across member states.  To prove more problematic than when first outlined, the Treaty also envisaged  a Common Agricultural Policy and a Common Transport Policy, as well as the establishment of a European Commission.  While the moves to abandon customs barriers and agree to common policies were important, the boldest element of the approach, and its centrepiece, was the European Commission.

The Commission is the executive arm of the Union, responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding treaties and overseeing the day-to-day business of the EU.  Following the well-established tripartite structure of many governments, it is complemented by the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament.  Commissioners are put forward on  the basis of suggestions made by national governments, and are appointed by the European Council (essentially the heads of state of the EU countries) after approval of the European Parliament.  Each member state of the EU has one commissioner, but they are bound to represent the general interest of the EU as a whole rather than their home state.  Legally the Commission is the 27 Commissioners (collectively called the College of Commissioners), but, of course, it also covers the administrative body, now including some 32,000 European civil servants, who work in several departments (directorates general), most based in Brussels.  The languages of the Commission are English, French and German.

Europe had come together.  The initial six countries in the EEC began to expand.  In 1973, Ireland, the United Kingdom (at last!), and Denmark joined.  Greenland joined in the same year, but it left in 1985, following a dispute over fishing areas.  Norway was planning to join in 1973, but following a referendum the country rejected membership.  Greece joined in 1981, Portugal and Spain in 1986, and in 1990, a reunited Germany brought in the former East Germany.  Collectively, this group of 12 countries now constituted the European Communities.

The next stage came in 1993 when the European Union (EU) was formed, under the Maastricht Treaty, a platform for further expansion.  In 1995, Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the EU, and seven years later, despite numerous squabbles, the euro was introduced in 2002, replacing the 12 national currencies of Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain.  Even after the old currencies ceased to be legal tender, many continued to be accepted by national central banks for periods ranging from several years to indefinitely (the latter for Austria, Germany, Ireland, Estonia and Latvia in banknotes and coins, and for Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia and Slovakia in banknotes only).  Are you confused?  So are travellers to some of these countries!  Ten more countries joined the EU in 2004, Cyprus, the Czech republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Other countries have joined since, including Bulgaria and Romania in 2007.

What was it again? “Come together, right now, Over me.”  It might have been a Beatles song, but the UK was the most difficult member.  There was considerable scope for disagreements among all the members, with the EU covering a single market, monetary and financial policy, industry, energy, infrastructure, farming and agriculture, labour, competition, social policy, environment, education, health care and safety, culture and sport!  Many countries can’t find agreement on these issues internally, let alone among a diverse membership like the EU, but compromises won out, except with the UK, which turned its arguments into an art form.

Despite various squabbles, in 2012, the EU received the Nobel Peace Prize for having “contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy, and human rights in Europe.”  Almost inevitably, it was almost exactly the same time as more significant troubles arose.  These included a debt crisis in some member countries, only solved through major efforts by Germany, and some extent France, and massive increases in (often illegal) immigration from Asia and Africa, resulting in some countries’ borders being closed within the EU.

Throughout this time, the UK remained consistently difficult!  Divided from Continental Europe by the English Channel, (La Manche for the French), the gap between Dover and Calais is a mere 21 miles, a short distance which is, in many other ways, a massive gulf:  everything east of England is foreign, and everything west of France is inconsequential!  More to the point, from the outset, the UK’s membership of the EU was marked by disagreement and refusal.  It did not take on the euro.  It refused to allow EU directives to impact on the labelling of the British pork sausage and the equally important Stilton cheese!  Despite its shrinking role in the world, this was that Churchill bulldog quality at its worst: no foreigner was going to tell the UK what to do.

Euroscepticism had emerged when the UK joined the EU, falling largely along party lines with Labour antagonistic to the ‘common market’ and the conservatives favourable.  However, in 1988, conservative PM Margaret Thatcher, who had previously supported the common market and the Single European Act, warned of “a European super-state exercising a new dominance from Brussels”.  Within five years, the UK Independence Party emerged, gradually increasing its vote in the European parliament elections, eventually taking first place in 2014 ahead of the two major parties, while at the same time bolstering support for the UK leaving the EU.

In 2016 the UK held a referendum on its membership of the EU, with 51.9% of participants voting to leave.  The UK formally notified the European Council of its decision to leave on 29 March 2017, and the UK left the European Union on 31 January 2020, though most areas of EU law will continue to apply to the UK for a transition period lasting until the end of 2020 or later.  Come together?  The UK and the EU had come apart, at a cost to both.  If Monnet had a vision for Europe and its peaceful future, the UK has suffered from isolationist short-sightedness.

[i] The Beatles, Come Together, 1969, Abbey Road

[ii] Ian McDonald, Revolution in the Head: The Beatles’ Records and the Sixties, (2nd edn. 2005), London: Pimlico

[iii] Sheff, All We Are Saying: the last major interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, NY St. Martin’s Press, 2000

[iv] More details of his extraordinary career can be found at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Monnet

[v] Strode Talbott, What Would Jean Monnet Have Done, The New York Times, 7 February 2014 s

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