The Abbot of Saint-Pierre was one of the first thinkers to propose the creation of an international organization to foster peace in the Old World. The French philosopher laid the foundations for a European Union very much like the one that exists today, nearly 250 years before the birth of the European Economic Commission.
ARMAN BASURTO
Author, “Who will speak European”
“He was a visionary in many ways, because he advocated for a more or less elected assembly at the European level, an assembly to represent all the countries that formed the European Union. It would be a decision-making entity, which was an antecedent of the European Parliament we have today.”
The Abbot of Saint-Pierre tried to combat Louis XIV's absolutism from his place in the French Academy. This distanced him from his colleagues, including illustrious intellectuals like Voltaire, who wrote an entire piece criticizing the project; and Rousseau, who dismissed his idea as impractical, superficial and utopian.
Born in 1658, in Normandy, France, he wrote the “Project for bringing about perpetual peace in Europe,” after witnessing the signing of the Peace of Utrecht, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession.
ARMAN BASURTO
Author, “Who will speak European”
“Relying on a balance of power would lead them to an unstable equilibrium and continuous wars. That's why he proposed something that would lead them to what he called “perpetual peace.” That's where he foreshadows Kant, and that's this project of the European Union.”
An intellectual, misunderstood in his time, but who now, after 70 years of peace in the European Union, begins to be recognized as the “Grandfather of Europe.”
BGA
TR: CT
