![]() ![]() None of them had ever been nation states. None of the European powers that founded the European project were nation states at the time. He makes the decisive turn to Europe in 1962. It was Charles de Gaulle who understood that not only the Republic but the entire French state was endangered by the empire. France having been defeated both in Indochina and Algeria makes a decisive turn to Europe in the early 1960s. ![]() The Netherlands lost a colonial war that they fought from 1945 to 1949. ![]() Italy likewise had just lost a colonial war in Africa and in the Balkans. The war that we remember as the Second World War. Germany, West Germany had just been defeated in the most decisive and most catastrophic war of colonialism perhaps ever, certainly in Europe. So, think with me just for a moment about the countries that founded the European Union, or founded the European project. History is about clearing the way and in the next few minutes, I’d like to try to clear the way, or clear away some of the myths so that time can flow sensibly from the past to the present and into the future that we need. But if the discussion about the future of Europe is held on the basis of myths about things that never took place, the discussion cannot be a fruitful one. One could disagree and should disagree about the future of Europe. ![]()
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