The important point to remember about Jean Monnet is that as one of the early major promoters of a unified Europe, without any shadow of doubt he fully supported the aims and beliefs of the founding fathers of the European Project. These were that Europe should become one nation state along the same lines as the United States of America with one overarching federal government.

That Monnet did subscribe to these sentiments is not an issue; some proof of that with these quotes of Monnet.

“There is no future for the people of Europe other than in union.” — Jean Monnet

“There is no real peace in Europe, if the states are reconstituted on a basis of national sovereignty. (…) They must have larger markets. Their prosperity is impossible, unless the States of Europe form themselves in a European Federation.” — Jean Monnet (1943)

As the peoples of the member states would never have agreed to creating a unified Europe at one stroke, the plan was to create a unified Europe by small steps each progressively adding to the creation of a single political entity of the United States of Europe. This was all clearly set out by Robert Schuman in the Declaration of 9 May 1950 when he made it clear that European Unity would not be achieved by one major step but a series of much smaller seemingly unconnected moves, but all with the eventual destination of a united Europe

“Through the consolidation of basic production and the institution of a new High Authority, whose decisions will bind France, Germany and the other countries that join; this proposal represents the first concrete step towards a European federation, imperative for the preservation of peace.”

“Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity”

The French put paid to the political integration plans of Monnet and Shuman when the European Defence Community (EDC) was rejected by the French National Assembly in August 1954.

It was then that Monnet developed the gradualist approach for constructing European unity which became known as the Monnet Method, here the idea was to build political unity through the vehicle of trade and economic methods.

Thus Monnet`s misquote;

“Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will irreversibly lead to federation.”

Epitomises the aims and the methods to be employed in order to bring about a united Europe, the project born in secrecy was to be pursued by the same devious clandestine methods because that would be the only way it would be possible. Hence misdirection and deceitfulness were to be the watchwords for the creation of this new Unified Europe.

Because the eventual aim of the project was a united Europe all the systems were designed to eventually become a full government structure, all the foundations were put in place initially, with the clear intention of building on them by gradually transferring power from the member states to the central organisation. Thus we have a whole series of European Treaties, each one transferring some power away from the member states governments, each one tightening the grip on unity, each one progressively making it harder for a member state to function in isolation.

The misdirection and deceitfulness continues to this day as the argument now being advanced is that OK the Founding Fathers might well have envisioned a united federal Europe like the USA back in the 1950s but that was then, as it happens things have turned out differently, we now have a Europe very unlike that which was planed.

This argument of a disparate EU relies on the as yet unfinished projects such as the currency, the Schengen agreement, ect. Thus proposing these unfinished projects as proof of a different end point of the Project than that which was originally envisioned. In reality all these show is that the project is not complete at this point in time, rather than a different vision because there simply is not a different vision of the EU on the table. The British Conservative party like to talk a lot about a different settlement but in reality the only way to achieve that would be to leave the EU, and that is something they are not prepared to countenance.

This theme has recently been advanced again by Clive Mathews and this time he uses the hook of the above Monnet`s misquote, which it is claimed allows Euro sceptics to justify the ongoing belief in the veracity of the idea behind the belief and

Anyway, even though the “Jean Monnet said it so it must be true” line of argument of the eurosceptic types convinced that the superstate is the EU’s final destination is utterly thwarted by the fact that a) Monnet didn’t actually say most of the things they attribute to him.

The problem with this argument is that it is your typical straw man, in that we “eurosceptic types” do not base our argument on what Monnet said but on what we can see happening. Take Monnet out of the equation and you can still see an overarching system of European Government in the process of being constructed almost on a daily basis.

We already know the EU was envisioned to become one single state, that was Federal in nature, this point is also raised in the post;

Ah, the F-word… Federalism to a eurosceptic is like the proverbial red rag to a bull (despite the key attribute of a federation being, erm… the self-governing nature of the component states, with the central federal government’s powers often being highly limited – but sssh!)

The self governing nature of component states?

But under the control and at the direction of the central Brussels Government, in fact the only way we could claim to be at all self governing is to leave the EU. Back to Wikipedia which says

A federation (Latin: foedus, ‘covenant’) is a union comprising a number of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central (“federal”) government. In a federation, the self-governing status of the component states is typically constitutionally entrenched and may not be altered by a unilateral decision of the central government.

So the “self-governing nature of the component states” becomes “partially self-governing states or regions united by a central (“federal”) government” but with the self governing bit being decided by the central (“federal”) government.

Of course the other little bit of concern is that which pertains to the constitutionally entrenchment of the limits to the central governments powers, which may not be altered by the central government: a quick peek at the Lisbon treaty shows us that the Treaties and therefore the Constitution can be altered by the central government unilaterally.

Including the Council of ministers as an institution of the central government makes our own ministers part of the new EU´s institutional framework and places them under an obligation to the Union, to promote its values and advance its objectives and serve its interests and ensure the consistency, effectiveness and continuity of its policies and actions, and says “The institutions shall practice mutual sincere cooperation.”

The European Council thus becomes in effect the Cabinet Government of the new Federal EU, and its individual members will be primarily obliged to represent the Union to their Member States rather than their Member States to the Union.

The Treaty places the National Parliaments in a subordinate role in the constitutional structure of the new Union by placing them under an obligation to “contribute actively to the good functioning of the Union”

And also gives the new Union self-empowerment and treaty amendment powers:

The enlarged scope of the Flexibility Clause where if the Treaty does not provide the necessary powers to enable the new Union attain its objectives, the Council may take appropriate measures by unanimity. The Lisbon Treaty extends this provision from the area of operation of the common market to all of the new Union’s policies directed at attaining its much wider objectives.

Also the proposed “Simplified Treaty Revision Procedure” which permits the European Council to shift Union decision-taking from unanimity to qualified majority voting in the “Treaty on the Functioning of the Union”

The “passerelles” which would allow the European Council to switch from unanimity to majority voting in certain specified areas such as judicial cooperation in civil matters, in criminal matters, in relation to the EU Public Prosecutor, and in a number of other areas.

Rather than proving the aspirations of the funding fathers has not been met and had been displaced with an alternative, all we see is a continuation of the European dream or nightmare depending on your point of view.

We are still a very long way from even producing an alternative to the inevitability of a fully federal EU, this point was made by Dan Hannan who said of the Conservatives attempts to form a new said, block in the EU parliament;

“What this is about is creating a bloc of parties who, instead of wanting to give more and more powers to Brussels, want to push powers down to the lowest possible level. Once you do that you break the cartel, a federal Europe ceases to be inevitable and becomes just one among a series of competing ideas.”

So far there are no competing ideas all we see is a regard action that is bound to fail, until and unless one does emerge and begins to gain credence then what Monnet did not say is still the only game in town, no matter what spin EU adherents wish to put on the present situation.

“Europe’s nations should be guided towards the superstate without their people understanding what is happening. This can be accomplished by successive steps, each disguised as having an economic purpose but which will irreversibly lead to federation.”

And the only way we will see a different union is if the present one fails and falls apart we can but keep our fingers crossed.