EU-SPRING : EGKS-ECSC (1952) → EEG-EEC (1957) → EEC + UK (1973) → EU (1993) → EUROZONE (1999)
From the earlier ECCS (European Community of Coal and Steel, 1952), the EEC (European Economic Community, 1957) was founded under the Rome Treaty. It is only in 1973 that the United Kingdom (UK) joigned the EEC, after the departure of the anglophobe General De Gaule, during the May ’68 civil strife. On November 1993, the European Union (EU) took over from the EEC, followed by the Eurozone within which the UK position remained below expectation. The French-German axis reinforced and took the fore of the European construction, although without any constitutional legitimation.
8. Arthur Sullivan geb. 1842 – Spring (The Windows songs of the Wren)
by Alfred Tennyson [Marc & Hélène]
« Bird’s love and men’s love » are intertwained as a metaphore. Too many European birds are singing with apparent love for Europe or for their country. Each bird has a preferred melody. A „gentleman“ is to remain true by his word in all „faithfulness“.
Birds’ love and birds’ song.
Flying here and there,-
Birds’ song and birds’ love,
And you with gold for hair!
Birds’ song and birds’ love,
Passing with the weather,
Men’s song and men’s love
To love once and for ever.
Men’s love and birds’ love,
And women’s love and men’s!
And you my wren with crown of gold,
You my Queen of the wrens!
You the Queen of the wrens!
We’ll be birds of a feather;
I’ll be King of the Queen of the wrens,
And all in a nest together!
9. Benjamin Britten – Advance democracy
The conquest of the „Sudentenland“ by the German army as well as the conciliatory position of Lord Chamberlain at the 1938 Munich conference were rejected by most Brittons but not by the pacifists among whom the poet Randal Swingler and the composer Benjamin Britten.
Across the darkened city
The frosty searchlights creep
Alert for the first marauder
To steal upon our sleep.
We see the sudden headlines
Float on the muttering tide
We hear them warn and threaten
And wonder what they hide.
There are whispers across tables,
Talks in a shutter’d room.
The price on which they bargain
Will be a people’s doom.
There’s a roar of war in the factories
And idle hands on the street
And Europe held in nightmare
By the thud of marching feet.
Now sinks the sun of surety,
The shadows growing tall
Of the big bosses plotting
Their biggest coup of all
Is there no strength to save us?
No power we can trust
Before our lives and liberties
Are powder’d into dust.
Time to arise, Democracy!
Time to rise up and cry
That what our fathers fought for
We’ll not allow to die!
Time to resolve divisions,
Time to renew our pride,
Time to decide
Time to burst our house of glass.
Rise as a single being
In one resolve arrayed:
Life shall be for the people
That’s by the people made!