IDEA OF PEACE – THE HISTORY
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The Route Lubeck-Rome, Idea of Peace
After the Second World War, a new need start growing of overcoming the antagonisms between the peoples of Europe that had fought against each other and of fostering solidarity among them, institutionalizing their cooperation. The idea of Europe is born from the desire of peace and the process of European unification finds the initial motivation in the will of eliminating the possibility of future wars between European states. Peace is the priority objective of the founding fathers, beginning with Robert Schuman, considered the father of Europe, along with many others, Jean Monnet, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi, Altiero Spinelli who, with his Manifesto of Ventotene, develops a European project of cooperation and peace. Schuman, immediately after the end of World War II, proposes that France and Germany, who had long fought for coal and steel, share the management of these two resources. His argument is that if coal and steel were the cause of war, with their joint exploitation peace could be built. In 1950, taking on a project of Jean Monnet, exceptional negotiator and man of peace, Schuman takes an initiative that marks the destiny of Europe and of the relations between France and Germany. During a press conference held at the Salon de l'Horloge of the Quai d'Orsay, after pointing out that France had acted primarily for Peace, he says that in order for peace to really have success there must first be a Europe and the first decisive act for its construction is to link to France the Federal Republic of Germany on an equal level within a new entity to be established between the two countries, in charge of the shared management of coal and steel, in order to lay the foundation stone of the European federation. This proposal takes shape the following year in Paris, on April 18, 1951, with the signature of the Treaty that establishes the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), in which preamble it is stated that "world peace can be safeguarded only by creative efforts adequate to the dangers that threaten it ... the contribution which an organized and vital Europe can bring to civilization is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations ... it is necessary to combine with the expansion of basic production, to bring the improvement of living standards and to the progress of works of peace. " The ECSC constitutes the prerequisite for the birth of the European Economic Community (EEC), through the Treaty of Rome of March 25, 1957, signed on Capitol and become effective on the 1st of January 1958. The theme of peace is the fundamental value for Europeans, certainly the most representative of those they are inspired by and it is also one of the objectives of the Council of Europe, based in Strasbourg, a city located along the Route Lübeck-Rome, the first European democratic body with the primary purpose of maintaining peace and reconciliation between peoples. The Council of Europe made its own, since its establishment, the new desire for reconciliation and peace by making the solemn commitment that human rights were never going to be trampled upon again. On August 9, 1949, in the Town Hall of Strasbourg, the representatives of ten countries: France, Britain, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Ireland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden, implementing the Treaty signed three months earlier, on May 5 in London, give rise to a kind of United States of Europe. The 1st Article of the Statute point out the goal of the new organization: "To achieve a greater unity between its members so as to ensure and to promote the ideals and principles which are common heritage and to facilitate their economic and social progress." Strasbourg is chosen as the symbol of a Europe that rises from the rubble and hatred. The Council of Europe has promoted understanding and peace through bilateral meetings, has produced many agreements and conventions, including the one on human rights, it has participated in the compilation of Constitutional Charters and it took care of the great social emergencies. The Association of the European Peace Lübeck-Rome, established in Gubbio on December 27, 2007, proposed the certification of European Cultural Route by the Council of Europe of the route Lübeck-Rome, an historical path towards peace, an itinerary full of history and spirituality, crossed by the pilgrims that from Northern Europe went, through the Rhine Valley, to Rome. It is born by an idea of Maria Vittoria Ambrogi, Giambaldo Belardi and Igino Gagliardoni, developed in the book edited by them: the European Route of Peace Lübeck-Rome. The Route Lübeck-Rome, which crosses countries that in the past have seen wars and conflicts also for religious reasons, represents today the way to fraternal reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants, who live together in the same places; it is the way of peaceful coexistence, of cooperation for the common wellness, of ecumenical dialogue; the road of hope that the wounds occurred over the centuries will not happen again. In Strasbourg, on the 22nd of April 2001, the Charter Oecumenica was signed setting a concrete commitment "for a human and social Europe, with which human rights and the basic values of peace, prudence, freedom, tolerance, participation and solidarity are asserted "
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