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Jean Monnet: The First Statesman of Interdependence

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The book consists of two parts, part one describes how the European Union developed with a supranational dimension and the role of Monnet in its establishment. It becomes very clear that without the supranational dimension the Union would never have been established and World War III would already have taken place. This first part reads like a novel. In the second part, "The Legacy" the ideas and methods are described that Jean Monnet used to achieve a successful European Union. This review concentrates on the second part.
It is only possible to present to few of the ideas and methods. The title of the book is interesting, " The First Statesman of Interdependence". Interdependence refers to the fact that significant change in the actions of government can only be achieved by understanding the interdependency between, the prime minister, the other ministers, the bureaucracies of the ministers, the political parties, businessmen, the financial and business community and sometimes trade unions, not of one country but of several countries. Developing a solution requires the participation of these organisations. Monnet describes many different organisation structures for this purpose. All projects had a direct line to the president or prime minister. Monnet always saw to it that a single ministry never took over responsibility as rhat was the "kiss of death" for his type of project. Yet, he recognised that unless you brought the ministries and their bureaucracies along you would fail too.
Another key factor was the choice of the core team working directly with him. He spent a lot of his time finding the right members of the core team and did not hesitate to reject recommendations of the prime minister and of other ministers.
One of the methods Monnet used repeatedly was the "balance sheet". The balance sheet was a summary of all the resources material and immaterial necessary to solve a problem. These balance sheets were prepared involving all the persons with power and influence on implementing a solution. The "balance sheet" has the advantage that all organisations involved have to share information. The cabinet can only make an informed decision about priorities and an action plan based on a complete and holistic picture.
Another important concept was the need of having a powerful central "actionable" idea that appeared self-evident and obvious when presented to persons in power. Monnet spent weeks in talk-shops with a group of extremely bright and argumentative people saying nothing and only listening in the first phase, inserting a few words in the second phase, and directing the discussion in the third and final phase. The formulation of an idea could easily require 30 drafts before presentation. Monnet went never to a meeting without having a draft of what he was proposing in front of him.
One of the ideas he pursued was that war in Europe could only be avoided by creating a European organisation to which nations operationally delegated a part of their authority. This European organisation has as a consequence a supranational dimension. This led to the establishment of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1952 with Jean Monnet at its head. That organisation was the pioneering organisation that led to the European Economic Community or EEC (called Common Market in the UK) in 1956, leading to the European Union (EU) in 1993. I interviewed Jean Monnet in 1954 as a student, very inspiring!
Monnet believed that the cause of war is that governments pursue policies that they believe are in the national interest without considering the interests of other governments. He considered that people are born with strong egocentric tendencies that lead to nationalistic behaviour of governments. This problem can therefore only be solved by creating an institution that can reconcile conflicts between nations, with sufficient power delegated to it for making decisions that the "sovereign" nations involved accept. Emmanuel Kant was the first one to forcefully formulate this truth in his essay "Perpetual Peace" (1891). This book presents a clear picture how incredibly difficult it is to get nations to delegate some of their authority to an independent supranational organisation.
The view in Buddhism of human nature is less pessimistic. Buddhists believe that people are born with egocentric and altruistic tendencies and that the ego-centred tendencies can be mastered by training the mind. As a matter of interest, interdependence is also a central concept in Buddhism.
This book is of great interest to people working in politics, government and for interested NGOs and management consultants. It is also of interest to businessmen that want to understand how a government functions and/or that are looking for ideas for making radical changes in the character of their companies.