Talk:Founding fathers of the European Union

Alcide de Gasperi
Why is he mentioned twice? First among "Founding Father" and later under "Others" - I propose to delete the second entry and keep him in the "Founding Fathers" list

Kylle (talk) 12:55, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Council of Europe and its role in the EU
Can JLogan explain what Council of Europe and United States of Europe have to do with the formation of the EU. From my knowledge and the article on European Union, the EU started with the European Coal and Steel Community and later the Treaty of Rome. I agree that CoE influenced and created ideas about integration. The EU even uses the Council's flag. But the two organizations are not the same!

Arguing that because the EU is built on some of the CoE ideas, and labelling the CoE fathers as the fathers of the EU is analogues to calling Montesquieu a founding father of the US, just because he also envisioned Separation of powers. I strongly believe that people in general have difficulties distinguishing between EU and CoE; most don't even know that the EU flag is indeed just borrowed from the CoE. But having the CoE mentioned here will only throw more mud in the already muddy picture. It should be clear, that the EU was founded as a coal and steel union, grew to become an economical union and then moved to areas outside the economical cooperation. The founding fathers of the EU did not envision US of Europe, and therefore I believe CoE and USofE should be kept out of this article, or the article be renamed to "Founding fathers of the European Cooperation".

Todort (talk) 17:10, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh come on, it is a question of European unity, the idea of european integration. Churchill mentioned not only the CoE but the USE and the idea of the USE, between France and Germany, is something pursued by the creators of the EEC/EU. Churchill is regularly cited as a founding father of the EU as the EU is the principle embodiment of the European unity called for by Churchill. Indeed, do read his speech in detail and you will find many details which have come about through the EEC/EU while the CoE is more of a sideline organ. It was deemed as a first step to the USE/EU and has now been sidelined. At that stage in history terms such as USE were used as European Economic Community hardly ran of the idealist poet's tongue. To only see the EEC's history as people who used the EEC name would remove all the movements towards the creation of the EU right before the Treaty of Rome which I'm sure you'll understand would be like talking about how the UK was created without any discussion pre1707.- J.Logan`t : 17:23, 22 June 2010 (UTC)


 * OK, would you then clarify the part about "Others", something in the way:
 * - "In broader perspective" ... further men who have been considered ...
 * - Also explain to the reader (people with limited historical knowledge), why CoE should be taken into consideration here, i.e. shortly CoE’s role in influencing the creation of the EU.
 * - Alternatively, explain that people who consider the CoE to be the first step to EU also see the founding fathers of the CoE as the founding fathers of the EU.
 * Todort (talk) 06:46, 23 June 2010 (UTC)
 * No, because that is not the point of this article. Go read the relevant articles yourself.- J.Logan`t : 09:59, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Spinelli
I never find Churchill in the list of the "seven politicians" in non-english lists. Instead of Churchill is ever mentioned Altiero Spinelli. (Les fondateurs de l'Europe Unie by Bossaut, L'Europa difficile. Storia politica dell'integrazione europea by Olivi, http://europa.eu/about-eu/eu-history/founding-fathers/pdf/altiero_spinelli_en.pdf, http://www.blogueandoparatodos.com/2011/07/ue-la-union-europea-sus-fundadores.html, and so on...) LAUD (talk) 16:38, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

Women
Are their any "founding mothers of Europe"? Just a thought, I don't remember reading about the contributions of any female politicians to European Unity other than Margaret Thatcher but of course that was much later on in the picture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MontyCantsin neoism (talk • contribs) 13:18, 5 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Although there are no women among the 11 "official" founding fathers, both Simone Veil and Nicole Fontaine made important contributions. I wouldn't necessarily include Thatcher. Lamberhurst (talk) 17:30, 5 February 2014 (UTC)

Margaret Thatcher did have an important influence on the development of the EEC but that was of course much later. I was just asking the question as something to think about. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MontyCantsin neoism (talk • contribs) 05:19, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Inclusion criteria for other nominations
Do we have any explicit criteria for inclusion in the section Founding fathers of the European Union? Giuseppe Mazzini may have been called a founding father of Italy and Victor Hugo may have made a speech where he talked of a united Europe, but don't we need more before including them here? Surely, a founding father should be present at the conception, if not the birth – in which case, I think, candidates should have lived to see the end of World War II. It is not sufficient to say "wouldn't a United Europe be nice?" a century before the birth. Don't we need, at least, a quote from someone calling them a founding father of the European Union (or at least of the European Economic Community)? There are other articles where inclusion might be more appropriate, e.g. United States of Europe. --Boson (talk) 10:44, 27 April 2014 (UTC)

Translations
Note: This should be translated into further languages, like German (de:Gründungsväter der Europäischen Union). Cheers, Horst-schlaemma (talk) 12:59, 10 November 2015 (UTC)

What is the substance of this article?
The article starts with "The founding fathers of the European Union are 11 men officially recognised as major contributors to European unity" without any reference to who gave said recognition,let alone in an official capacity. The entire article reads like very bad WP:OR and WP:SYNTH. The EU has no defined list of Founding Fathers like the USA. The list in the article even contains Winston Churchill who died long before the UK joined the EU, which shows the entire list to be obviously nonsensical. I suggest this article be deleted. &#9798; CUSH &#9798; 06:53, 29 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It may not be worth deleting this page in its entirety, however I do think as a community we need to come to a consensus on terminology. Alssa1 (talk) 22:05, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I think this is just plain wrong. The EU does recognise the concept of founding fathers and this fact has been discussed in academic literature. It has also been criticised. There is no issue with WP:GNG here. —Brigade Piron (talk) 10:43, 19 November 2020 (UTC)