Freemasonry and Europe Day

The world we live in today is full of dangers and threats that we have not felt for a long time.

Among the greatest are, of course, the wars that are ravaging the country, with those in Ukraine and Gaza being the most terrible, due to the number of victims, their prolonged duration and the fact that they could escalate at any moment to undesirable and difficult-to-conceive levels. But also because the humanist spirit that has prevailed in large parts of our planet since at least the end of the Second World War seems to be compromised. Forgetting international law and the conventions, treaties and international organisations that had ensured us a relatively widespread and prolonged environment of peace, the drums of war are once again being heard. Much of what we thought had been consolidated in recent decades seems to be crumbling in the face of men's impotence in the face of the brute force of weapons.

Freemasons do not give up easily. Imbued as we are with strong ideals and convictions, believers in Humanism and in the unsurpassable virtues of the values ​​of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity, we believe in a world that faithfully reflects these values ​​and that is, therefore, progressively better and fairer. For this, there is Universal Freemasonry, of which the Grande Oriente Lusitano – Portuguese Freemasonry (G∴O∴L∴) is a strong and very old link, making its best efforts, seeking to bring together human beings of good will and free spirit in a common ideal of Peace and Fraternity.

That is why the G∴O∴L∴ saw and sees with enthusiasm the process of European integration, initiated with the Schuman Declaration of May 9, 1950, which today marks its 75th anniversary. It was thanks to this that the Treaties of Paris of 1951 followed, which established the ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community), the two Treaties of Rome of 1957 that created the EEC (European Economic Community) and the EAEC (European Atomic Energy Community), later relaunched in 1993 by the Treaty of Maastricht, with which the current European Union was founded. And it is for this reason and because of the emerging changes of the new geopolitics, that May 9th acquires greater importance today. It is Europe Day, and it is for this reason that the Grand Master of the G∴O∴L∴ – Portuguese Freemasonry felt it was necessary to speak out.

In 1950, Europe and, to a certain extent, the world saw a renewed hope for new times of peace and fraternity. Shortly after the end of World War II, a new threat loomed on the horizon: an atomic war between the two superpowers of the time, the USA and the USSR. In times that were no less dark than those we live in today, it was possible to overcome these threats and create new hope for a better world.

This was possible thanks to the combined efforts of a group of men imbued with public spirit, government officials, politicians and businessmen, who were well aware that Europe could not be the scene of a new war, which would certainly be much more destructive, perhaps even lethal for humanity, than all the previous ones. Among all these exceptional men, we must highlight, without forgetting any other, the figures of Jean Monnet, the French businessman and merchant from Cognac, rightly known as the “Father of Europe”, and Robert Schuman, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs.

In fact, it was thanks to Monnet and his combined efforts with Schuman that we were able to advance along the path we have reached today. Monnet assumed that war is the worst of all evils that can befall humanity, and he had an idea, which, he wrote, was that “there will be no peace in Europe if the States rebuild themselves on a basis of national sovereignty”. It was therefore necessary to create transnational bonds that were stronger than the pride of exalted patriotism, which led to useless, unnecessary and often deadly conflict. Consequently, Monnet, supported by the French government and, in particular, by Robert Schuman, drafted the text that was presented by the latter on 9 May 1950. In it, the French government challenged Europe to establish itself as an area of ​​peace and freedom, and to this end it required establishing a strong link between its country and West Germany (FRG), to which Chancellor Konrad Adenauer readily agreed. The text of the declaration read that “Europe will not be built all at once, nor according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements that will create, above all, a de facto solidarity.” To this end, Jean Monnet stated that the aim was not “to unite states, but people.” That was the path taken.

In fact, the path chosen for this process was to establish a supranational organisation whose purpose was to create a “common market”. In this market, people, goods, capital, assets and services would circulate freely, generating de facto solidarity between people as reciprocal links were strengthened. Jean Monnet conceived the European integration process as gradual and bottom-up, that is, coming from the bottom up, from ordinary people to organisations and states, and not from the top down, advancing in “small steps” as people realised the advantages of the process and wanted to deepen it.

This year we celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration and the beginning of European integration. These have been years of progress and setbacks, of successes and failures, of discouragement and renewed hope, as is the case with all human affairs. However, they were and are years of great development, social progress and peace. It is in their spirit that we must therefore seek inspiration to overcome the difficulties of the present, certain that we can only do so in the context of a United Europe that forms a political, cultural, economic and moral bloc with its own identity, in which we can all identify.

Freemasonry and the Grande Oriente Lusitano – Portuguese Freemasonry celebrate Europe Day and undertake to contribute, to the best of their ability, to ensuring that the lofty goals of European construction prevail among us and serve as a firm bridge to the future.