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Concept
Founding fathers of the European Union
Summary
The founding fathers of the European Union are men who are considered to be major contributors to European unity and the development of what is now the European Union. The number and list of the founding fathers of the EU varies depending on the source. In a publication from 2013 the European Union listed 11 men. All but one (Winston Churchill from the United Kingdom) were from the Inner Six of the European Union.
Some sources list only a subset of the 11 men as founding fathers. The Council of Europe lists 6 founding fathers as builders of Europe, including the Briton Ernest Bevin. The media outlet Deutsche Welle presented a different constellation, it listed Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, Winston Churchill, Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet and Paul-Henri Spaak as the 5 founding fathers of the EU. Other sources have emphasized Konrad Adenauer of Germany, Alcide De Gasperi of Italy and Robert Schuman of France as the founding fathers from the three pioneers countries of the European unification.
The European Union listed 11 people as its founding fathers in a publication from 2013. These are:
Other sources discuss fewer names.
Commentators have pointed out that the founding fathers were all men. A clause of equality between men and women has been introduced in the Treaty of Rome for economic reasons because of concerns of dumping by countries that used low paid women labour.
In a new publication from 2021, the European Union listed 21 people labelled EU pioneers, in which 8 women names have been added to the list of the 11 founding fathers.
The women that were added to the list of EU pioneers are: Anna Lindh, Louise Weiss, Marga Klompé, Melina Mercouri, Nicole Fontaine, Nilde Iotti, Simone Veil and Ursula Hirschmann.
Count Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi (1894–1972) published the Paneuropa manifesto in 1923 which set up the movement of that name. At the start of the 1950s Robert Schuman (1886–1963), based on a plan by Jean Monnet (1888–1979), called for a European Coal and Steel Community in his "Schuman declaration".
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