The Jean Monnet EUPress project, co-funded by the European Commission, launches the first module – The Training on European integration issues – of its Teacher Training foreseen in the second work package.
Blended live and digital platform training, where a 20-hour historical-narrative training (two months) on the birth of the “Ventotene Manifesto” and the idea of Europe will be offered to teachers from participating schools (in the first part of the school year). The training will be conducted by Roma Tre staff and will consist of six three-hour sessions with a final two-hour session.
Teachers will be provided with structured teaching materials and will be able to take advantage of a workshop for analysis, comparison and study of the documents provided.
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From Westphalia to Brussels: The Long Roots of Europe’s Supranational Vision
European integration did not begin in 1951 with the Coal and Steel Community, nor even in the post-war years. Its intellectual origins can be traced back to the very structure of the European state system itself — a system built on balance-of-power logic that dominated the continent from the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 until the Second World War.
The European balance of power — and its breaking point
For nearly three centuries, Europe was governed by a shifting coalition model. Whenever one state — from Napoleonic France to imperial Germany — attempted to dominate, others united to push back. This “anti-hegemonic equilibrium” kept the continent in a perpetual state of war-readiness and instability.
It wasn’t just military conflict that shaped Europe’s fate. By the late 19th century, new economic forces were transforming the political landscape:
- The international division of labour increased interdependence.
- The gold standard created a shared monetary framework.
- Technological innovations — the telegraph, railways, steamships — shrank time and space.
Yet these same forces also undermined the old balance, especially as Russia and the United States emerged as industrial rivals to Europe’s great powers.
From European to global — and back to European again
The First World War shook Europe’s centrality. By the Second, it was clear: Europe could no longer dominate world affairs. If it was to avoid becoming a political object in the US-Soviet rivalry, it needed to reinvent sovereignty itself.
That reinvention took place first in ideas, then in institutions.
Debating the future: Empire, ideology, or federation?
Between the wars, European thinkers and statesmen debated three main visions:
- Imperial federation (especially in the UK), to preserve great-power status through decentralised unity.
- Internationalism from below — the belief that spreading democracy, socialism, or liberalism would naturally lead to peace.
- Federalism from above — inspired by the US Constitution, proposing a shared supranational structure where states ceded limited but critical powers.
It was this third path — notably articulated by intellectuals like Einstein, Einaudi, Robbins, Perrout, and later by Italian federalist Altiero Spinelli — that laid the conceptual foundation for European integration.
Why absolute sovereignty failed
At the core of the federalist argument was a simple truth:
“Sovereigns cannot share loyalty.”
As long as individuals are exclusively tied to a national sovereign, other states will always be “potential enemies” in times of conflict. The solution was not to abolish the state, but to share sovereignty at higher levels — through binding supranational institutions.
A modest beginning with radical implications
When post-war leaders turned to reconstruction in 1945, they didn’t start with a constitution. They began with shared functions: coal, steel, atomic energy. It was a pragmatic application of a federal idea: integrate what matters first, and politics will follow.
Throughout the 20th century, the idea of Europe evolved. But the original lesson endures: peace and cooperation in Europe were never built on markets alone — but on a deliberate decision to transcend the limits of nation-state sovereignty.
