19th century ideas on European unity and their influence on the European Union

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, many political thinkers were already speaking about the idea of a United Europe based on Principles such as solidarity, peace, equality, individual freedom and so on. After World War II the very first version of today's European Union was formed and this has evolved from a Community formed to share coal and steel to a much more integrated Union in just over fifty years. The aim of this thesis is to see what European thinkers of the nineteenth were talking about a century before the European Union was formed and how their ideas and values actually influenced this Union. It is also interesting to see what their main concerns and priorities were at the time and see whether these have changed completely or whether some of them are still the same. In order to establish this we shall be having a look at the political situation in the nineteenth century in Chapter I and the various developments that were taking place at the time. In this chapter we shall also be looking at and examining in detail the various political ideologies that emerged, mainly Liberalism, Nationalism and Socialism. In the second chapter we shall then move on to see the various individual thinkers of the nineteenth century, what their ideas were and what their common concerns were. This will be done by analysing their most important works concerning European Unity and seeing what they proposed in order to achieve unity between the various European States in order to address common issues. In Chapter III we will then be looking at the principles upon which today's European Union is founded, what its concerns are and then try to find out how the nineteenth century political thinkers influenced this Union. It will also be interesting to see if their principles and concerns at the time are still valid today and if they are, to what extent.