Paul-Henri Spaak

Paul-Henri Spaak
Prime Minister of Belgium
In office
20 March 1947 – 11 August 1949
Monarch Charles (Regent)
Preceded by Camille Huysmans
Succeeded by Gaston Eyskens
In office
13 March 1946 – 31 March 1946
Monarch Charles (Regent)
Preceded by Achille Van Acker
Succeeded by Achille Van Acker
In office
15 May 1938 – 22 February 1939
Monarch Leopold III
Preceded by Paul-Emile Janson
Succeeded by Hubert Pierlot
Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
In office
16 May 1957 – 21 April 1961
Preceded by Hastings Ismay
Succeeded by Dirk Stikker
President of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community
In office
23 July 1952 – 1 January 1954
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Alcide De Gasperi
President of the United Nations General Assembly
In office
31 March 1946 – 20 March 1947
Preceded by Position established
Succeeded by Oswaldo Aranha
Personal details
Born Paul Henri Charles Spaak
25 January 1899
Schaerbeek, Belgium
Died 31 July 1972 (aged 73)
Braine-l'Alleud, Belgium
Political party Belgian Socialist Party
Alma mater Free University of Brussels

Paul Henri Charles Spaak (25 January 1899 – 31 July 1972) was a Belgian socialist politician and statesman, who served as Prime Minister of Belgium (1938–1939, 1946 and 1947–1949), as the first President of the United Nations General Assembly (1946–1947), as the first President of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community (1952–1954), as the first President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, then called the Consultative Assembly (1949–50), and as the second Secretary General of NATO (1957–1961). He received the Charlemagne Prize in 1957 and the 1978–1979 academic year at the College of Europe was named in his honour.

Early life

Paul-Henri Spaak was born on 25 January 1899 in Schaerbeek, Belgium, to a distinguished Belgian family.[1] His grandfather, Paul Janson was an important member of the Liberal Party. His mother, Marie Janson was a socialist, and the first woman to enter the Belgian Senate, and his father, Paul Spaak was a poet and playwright. Another noted members of his family included Paul Henri's daughter, Antoinette Spaak, the first Belgian woman to lead a political party, his uncle, Paul-Emile Janson, who served as Prime Minister of Belgium from 1937 to 1938 and his niece, Catherine Spaak, a movie star.[2][3]

During World War I, Spaak attempted to join the Belgian Army but was captured by the Germans and spent the next two years in a German prison camp. At the end of the war, Spaak was released from captivity and entered the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he studied law. During the same period, Spaak was also a tennis star, and played for the Belgian team in the 1922 Davis Cup.[4]

After receiving his law degree, Spaak practised law in Brussels, where he "excelled in defending Communists charged with conspiring against the security of the realm", including Fernando de Rosa, an Italian student who attempted to kill Crown Prince Umberto of Italy during a state visit by the prince to Brussel.[2]

Belgian politics

He became a member of the Socialist Belgian Labour Party in 1920. He was elected deputy in 1932.

In 1935 he entered the cabinet of Paul Van Zeeland as Minister of Transport. In February 1936 he became Minister of Foreign Affairs, serving first under Zeeland and then under his uncle, Paul-Émile Janson. From May 1938 to February 1939 he was Prime Minister for the first time. In 1938, he allowed Herman Van Breda to smuggle the legacy of Edmund Husserl out of Nazi Germany to Belgium through the Belgian Embassy in Berlin.

When he was minister for Foreign Affairs of Belgium, Spaak adhered to political independence of his country. After the German invasion and the defeat of the Belgians and the French armies, he had to leave France to cross the pro-German Spain in the false bottom of a truck along with the Belgian prime minister, Hubert Pierlot, to get in Portugal and London. During World War II, he was minister of Foreign Affairs of the Belgian Government in exile in London. Thanks to this government at the head of the Belgian military reorganised in Britain and the forces of the Belgian Congo, Belgium was recognised by leading free nations, which allowed him to emerge as a military and economic power with the victories of Abyssinia and participation in the liberation of Europe, as well with the Belgian merchant fleet escaped capture by Germany which will supply, during all the war, strategic agricultural and mineral products of Congo. And by the action of Spaak, Belgium was the first nation to recognise, in 1942–43, General de Gaulle and the French Committee as the only justifiable representative of France.

After the war, he was minister of Foreign Affairs under the subsequent ministers Achille Van Acker and Camille Huysmans. He was twice appointed Prime Minister as well, first from 13 to 31 March 1946, the shortest government in Belgian history, and again from March 1947 to August 1949. During his last government, two important pieces of housing legislation were enacted. The De Taeye Act of 1948 organised fiscal rebates, credit facilities, and premiums for social dwellings built either on private or public initiative, while the Brunfaut Act of 1949 established a central budgeting organisation for governmental social housing policy, shifted the financial burden of infrastructural works to the state, and organised the financing of the two National Housing Societies.[5] In addition, voting rights for women were introduced in 1948.[6]

He was again foreign minister from April 1954 to June 1958 in the cabinet of Achille Van Acker and from April 1961 to March 1966 in the cabinets of Théo Lefèvre and Pierre Harmel.

UN

Spaak gained international prominence in 1945, when he was elected chairman of the first session of the General Assembly of the United Nations. During the third session of the UN General Assembly in Paris, Spaak apostrophised the delegation of the Soviet Union with the famous words: "peur de vous" (afraid of you).

Europe

Spaak became a staunch supporter of regional co-operation and collective security after 1944. While still in exile in London, he promoted the creation of a customs union uniting Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg (see Benelux). In August 1949, he was elected President of the first session of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe. From 1952 to 1953, he presided the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community, and from 1950 to 1955 he presided the European Movement.

In 1955, the Messina Conference of European leaders appointed him as chairman of a preparatory committee (Spaak Committee) charged with the preparation of a report on the creation of a common European market. The so-called "Spaak Report[7] " formed the cornerstone of the Intergovernmental Conference on the Common Market and Euratom at Val Duchesse in 1956 and led to the signature, on 25 March 1957, of the Treaties of Rome establishing a European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community (Euratom). Paul-Henri Spaak signed the treaty for Belgium, together with Jean Charles Snoy et d'Oppuers. His role in the creation of the EEC earned Spaak a place among the Founding fathers of the European Union.

When, in 1962, France, under de Gaulle, attempted to block both British entry to the European Communities and undermine their supranational foundation with the Fouchet Plan, Spaak working with Joseph Luns of the Netherlands rebuffed the idea. He was a staunch defender of the independence of the European Commission. "Europe of tomorrow must be a supranational Europe," he declared. In honour of his work for Europe, the first building of the European Parliament in Brussels was named after him.

NATO

In 1956, he was chosen by the Council of NATO to succeed Lord Ismay as Secretary General. He held this office from 1957 until 1961, when he was succeeded by Dirk Stikker. Spaak was also instrumental in the choice of Brussels as the new seat of the Alliance's HQ in 1966.

This was also the year of his last European campaign, when he played an important conciliatory role in resolving the "empty chair crisis" by helping to bring France back into the European fold. In 1957, he received the Charlemagne Award, an award by the German city of Aachen to people who contributed to the European idea and European peace.

On 21 February 1961, Spaak was presented with the Medal of Freedom by US President John Kennedy.[8]

Retirement

Paul-Henri Spaak retired from politics in 1966. He was member of the Royal Belgian Academy of French Language and Literature. In 1969, he published his memoirs in two volumes titled Combats inachevés ("The Continuing Battle", literally, "unfinished fights"). Spaak died aged 73, on 31 July 1972 in his home in Braine-l'Alleud near Brussels, and was buried at the Foriest graveyard in Braine-l'Alleud.

Family

He and his wife Marguerite Malevez had two daughters—Antoinette Spaak led the Democratic Front of Francophones—and a son, the diplomat Fernand Spaak. After death of Marguerite in August 1964, he married Simone Dear in April 1965. His brother was the screenwriter Charles Spaak. His niece was the actress Catherine Spaak and one of his grandsons is the artist Anthony Palliser. During the 1940s, during his time in New York with the United Nations, he also had an affair with the American fashion designer Pauline Fairfax Potter (1908–1976).

3 pioneers of the European unification commemorative coin

Legacy

Spaak has left such a legacy behind, that he was the main motive for one of the most recent and famous gold commemorative coin: the Belgian 3 pioneers of the European unification commemorative coin, minted in 2002. The obverse side shows a portrait with the names Robert Schuman, Paul-Henri Spaak and Konrad Adenauer.

In the election for De Grootste Belg (The Greatest Belgian) Spaak ended on the 40th place in the Flemish version and on the 11th place in the Walloon version.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Paul-Henri Spaak." Almanac of Famous People, 9th edition. Thomson Gale, 2007.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Profile: Paul-Henri Spaak". The Observer (UK). 13 January 1946. p. 6.
  3. ↑ "Catherine Spaak Is Wed". The New York Times. 5 August 1972. p. 13.
  4. ↑ McFadden, Robert (1 August 1972). "Paul-Henri Spaak is Dead at 73; An Architect of European Unity". p. 1.
  5. ↑ Growth to Limits. The Western European Welfare States Since World War II by Peter Flora.
  6. ↑ https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=WfD8AwAAQBAJ&pg=PA290&dq=Paul-Henri+Spaak+votes+for+women+1948&hl=en&sa=X&ei=pj8pVdTnKtXWaq_fgcgJ&ved=0CCAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Paul-Henri%20Spaak%20votes%20for%20women%201948&f=false
  7. ↑ "Spaak report". Aei.pitt.edu. Retrieved 2013-12-30.
  8. ↑ "President John F. Kennedy Presents the Medal of Freedom to Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Paul-Henri Spaak, Oval Office, White House, Washington, DC, 02/21/1961". OPA - Online Public Access. National Archives and Records Administration. Retrieved 4 July 2014.

Further reading

Thierry Grosbois, Spaak et les États baltes 1939-1991, BOD, Paris, 2014.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Paul-Henri Spaak.
Political offices
Preceded by
Paul-Emile Janson		 Prime Minister of Belgium
1938–1939 		Succeeded by
Hubert Pierlot
Preceded by
Achille Van Acker		 Prime Minister of Belgium
1946 		Succeeded by
Achille Van Acker
Preceded by
Camille Huysmans		 Prime Minister of Belgium
1947–1949 		Succeeded by
Gaston Eyskens
New office President of the Common Assembly of the European Coal and Steel Community
1952–1954 		Succeeded by
Alcide De Gasperi
Diplomatic posts
New office President of the United Nations General Assembly
1946–1957 		Succeeded by
Oswaldo Aranha
Preceded by
Édouard Herriot
Acting		 President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
1949–1951 		Succeeded by
François de Menthon
Preceded by
Hastings Ismay		 Secretary General of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
1957–1961 		Succeeded by
Dirk Stikker