Exactly 70 years ago, on 13th October 1955, Jean Monnet created his Action Committee for the United States of Europe. The project of a European Defense Community had just been defeated in the French Parliament, in a development that shook the confidence of pro-European forces. Monnet believed that he would be more effective in continuing his fight for Europe “from outside” than as the president of the High Authority of the Coal & Steel Community.
Having experienced – as Head of the French modernization plan – the power of bringing together worker unions and political parties to progress a common agenda, Monnet believed that the same principles could be applied to driving forward the European agenda. “The Committee, he explained, will bring about unity of action among its member organizations in order to attain by successive concrete achievements the United States of Europe”. The F (Federal) word was intentionally omitted as Monnet did not want to be tied to any predetermined institutional solution. The reference to United States was more a way to express the goal of becoming a true equal counterpart to the US of America.
At the top of his political prestige, Monnet managed to attract all the progressive, pro-Europe political parties and non-communist worker unions to his committee, representing 65% of the electorate of the six member states. In a spectacular show of unity that would make the envy any responsible politician today, Party and union leaders – who were otherwise opponents on their national scenes – would meet at the committee and adopt common positions on Europe, transcending traditional political lines. They would then forcefully support these resolutions with their respective government and public opinions.
The power of influence of this formidable lobby resided in the political credibility of political parties, worker unions, as well as on Monnet’s personal network and prestige. It played an important – at times critical -role in progressing the European project from 1955 to 1975 : Euratom, the common market, monetary and fiscal union, political union, adhesion of Great Britain, creation of the Council of government heads, election of the EP with universal suffrage, were some of the main projects either initiated or supported by Monnet’s Action Committee.
On 9 May 1975, 25 years to the day after the Schuman declaration, Monnet put an end to his Action Committee – He was 87 years old and reflected that it was time to let a new generation of politicians push forward with the European project. Valery Giscard d’Estaing and Helmut Schmidt – who had met in Monnet’s committee – were now in power and it was time for him to concentrate on writing his Memoirs and transmitting the lessons hos his action to the next generations.
The success of Monnet’s action committee was to mobilize key actors in the life of the nations behind the European project. Today, our challenge is to invent new forms of action, new mobilization vehicles with which to reach and engage a broad community of actors and citizens behind our common project.