Talk:Jean Monnet

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[edit] NPOV Noncompliance

The section "The Monnet Plan, an European superstate" reads like Eurosceptic propagandism. "Right from the beginning the EU was not intended to be about sharing or cooperation..." is a grand assessment of the EU that is out of the scope of this article, as well as a wholly negative assessment to which no counter-points are made. The sentence ""a whole series of concessions in regard to their sovereign rights until, having been finally stripped, they committed hara-kiri by accepting the merger."" is not attributed to any source. "there is only a new, supranational form of government beyond all democratic control. Governments and parliaments are left in place, but are subordinated to the EU. " Whether this is accurate or not, this is not a sentiment shared by all those who study the EU and follow its developments. It does not reflect the public position of any European government. "Beyond all democratic control" is a sweeping statement with rhetorical, motivational overtones, not an assessment of whatever democratic deficits may or may not be present in the EU. The contrast drawn in the sentence between "where there are vetoes, there is still inter-governmentalism, still independent, sovereign nations;" and "where there are none... beyond all democratic control" is also apparently a rhetorical statement, not a structure used to convey facts or third-party opinions. The sin of this section is that it takes the views of one side of the debate over European integration and presents them as certainty and the only views, in an encyclopedia which is supposed to present all sides of a debate. Hasta luego --TParis23 05:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I agree entirely with Tparis23. The text in this section is uneven and unsourced and while I'm not surprised that the edit is anonymous, I am somewhat surprised that it emanated from Holland. Unless anybody has any objections over the next few days, I'll remove these biassed and unpleasant anon edits -- they are worthless. Robindch 03:01, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, it was no secret that many supporters of the early EEC envisioned a move to a federal state, and the academic literature was filled with discussions of neo-functionalism. When intergovernmentalism emerged dominate in the 70s, that created a lot of protest from those wanting a federal Europe. Bottom line: during the whole process those wanting a confederal "Europe des patries" knew that there were many who wanted a European state. It makes it sound like a group of "insiders" had a "scheme" that was secret to others. That's clearly not true.Scott Erb 16:27, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree with TParis and Robindch. Monnet was a federalist but in relation to the issues which had served to cause both world wars. His idea of linking the economies of the Member States was as far as he was thinking and in any case the Superstate issue only came to the fore during the negotiations for the Maastricht Treaty and by that time Monnet had sadly died. Federalism certainly means closer union but on the German lines. Eurosceptics seem to live in a world in which fact and fiction merge. (PDF)