Peace in our time?

Edward Spalton reports that with the approach of Armistice Day and Remembrance Sunday his local paper ran a doubtlessly sincere article which attributed peace in Europe since 1945 to the EU. He decided to respond but having had five articles published during the last month, felt that it may be unlikely that this latest letter would reach print. He also makes the point that the rather terse style is due to the paper's strict word limit. Edward continues: Mr. Cameron is actually encouraging the formation of a common government by the Eurozone countries. Under the Lisbon treaty, these German-dominated countries will shortly have a permanent majority over the other ten EU countries to do whatever they like. If he were not deadly serious, he would not be pouring billions of our money into bailing out the euro. It is as if Neville Chamberlain had gone to Munich not only prepared to sacrifice the independence of Czechoslovakia but to provide Germany with finance for its arms programme. The country whose independence Mr. Cameron is sacrificing is our own and he believes it is in our interest. Alongside David Cameron, Neville Chamberlain looks something of a tiger. In fact, Mr. Cameron is the sort of person who gives Appeasement a bad name. Surrender may bring absence of war but that is not peace.

With the permission of Edward, his letter is reproduced:

"Sir, It is one of the EU's claimed unique advantages that it has averted European war. The original idea was cooked up in the Twenties by Jean Monnet and Arthur Salter, a British civil servant. As a solution for the problems of the Twenties and Thirties it might have worked, limiting the possibility of conflict between France and Germany.

But the political, economic and military situations in post 1945 Europe were entirely different. There was not the slightest political will or possibility of Germany and France going to war. A large chunk of German territory was under Russian control and the home of an enormous Soviet tank army which, at very short notice, could roll through the Fulda Gap or across the North German plain . Divided Germany was in no position to fight anybody and for many years France was occupied with successive colonial wars in Indo-China and Algeria. America, Britain and Canada guaranteed the peace, organised as NATO, whose function was summarised as “keeping the French in, the Germans down and the Russians out”.

It worked .

The threats facing Europe were the Soviet Army and internal unrest, sometimes getting close to revolution in France and Italy. The Americans fostered European integration as a response. The Common Agricultural Policy, which gave over-generously high prices for farm produce, was a way of averting communist disaffection amongst peasant farmers. The CIA funded the European Movement lavishly which is one reason why the 1975 British referendum on EEC membership was so unequally funded.

The 1950 Schumann plan (which was actually Monnet's) struck chords in Germany where ideas of “European Economic Community” arose from darker sources. I translated an early book of that title which included contributions from politics, business, diplomacy and academia. It shows a similar idea of European integration to that we have today. It was published in 1942 and the lead author was Walther Funk , Hitler's Economics Minister, President of the Reichsbank and Minister for Post War Planning. The euro was called the “Europagulden” and the Europa Bank was to be in Berlin, not Frankfurt .

In 1951 Dr Adenauer's Minister of Commerce, Dr. Seebohm, expressed German ambitions thus - “Will free Europe join Germany? Germany is the heart of Europe and the limbs must adjust to the heart, not the heart to the limbs”. Portugal, Italy, Ireland and Greece are now feeling the harsh effects of that adjustment, as will any other EU state which crosses the all-powerful euro economic government which is being set up with Mr. Cameron's spaniel-like agreement.

Under the Lisbon treaty the German-dominated eurozone countries will have sufficient voting power to overrule all the other ten member countries whenever they want. The German dream of Reichsminister Funk & Dr. Seebohm will be reality. Democratic government in Britain will be extinguished – mere Vichy. Frau Merkel reportedly said there could be war if Germany did not get its way."