United in diversity

The EU has a motto, did you know that? Well, I didn't, until I read Alain Lamassoure's book called Histoire secrète de la Convention Européenne  (I'll review it in a future post). The EU's motto is "United in diversity".
Lamassoure  recalls the small internal debate among the members of the Convention to come up with a motto that most would like.  At first, some proposed something modeled after the French Liberté, égalité, fraternité, where the 3 main values of the EU would be displayed. The first proposition was "Peace, Freedom, Unity" but is was judged a bit corny.
Then, somebody came up with the idea of keeping the 3-word idea, but using words from several Euro languages. For instance,  the following motto was proposed "Friede, Liberty, Solidarnosc". The idea was to use the German word for Peace to show how much progress the friendship between Euro countries had made since 1945, the word Liberty  to please to both the French and the British as those two people were the first in Europe to endorse political freedom, and the Polish word for solidarity to remind us of the struggle of Eastern Europeans against totalitarianism.  But people objected that the people whose language had not been chosen may not be happy with this motto.
Then, somebody said" What about "All together"? or "Together for tomorrow"?. But people objected that this sounded like a bad political slogan.
Finally, the Convention settled on "United in diversity", a motto to be translated in all the Euro languages.
Yet, as Lamoussoure says, the motto is a bit flat and .... really close to that of the US (E pluribus unum - Out of many, one). In a way, it is very compelling that the union of the 13 colonies be put into parallel with the union of our 25 states. The hard thing is to preserve state rights, while building something above them.
By the way, Wikipedia has some interesting facts about the US motto. Finally, I must add that the US has a second motto, officially adopted in 1956: "In God we trust". Now, I'm not sure that the EU will come with something close to that motto any time soon ;-).

Comments

[Michael M.]

Come to think of it, a Latin motto would have been the best solution. There are so many wonderful ones to choose from, like "Luctor et emergo" (I struggle but I survive) or "Magister mundi sum!" (I am the master of the universe) or "Quod incepimus conficiemus" (What we have begun we shall finish)

[Thibault]

I agree, Latin was a good idea. But some apparently though it was too old-fashioned.

[Tim Worstallt]

Latin works perfectly for me. Ceterum censeo Unionem Europaeam esse delendam sounds pretty good.
As to the US Constitution...well, yes they do seem to have a pretty good one, worked out the subsidiarity problem, seem to run most of a continent fairly successfully, rich, free, vibrant, why don’t we just adopt that one?
Be quite a lot shorter and we might even be able to get the area of the world in which we have freedom of movement of goods, capital and labour extended.

[EU Serf]

Funny the EU is all about harmonisation. I would have thought that the word diversity was not suitable at all for the motto.

[Anoneumouse]

The could have used the original "Europaische Wirtschaft Gemeinschaft" you cant beat authenticity

[Robin]

I would think a good slogan for the MEPs is Take the money and run(home)

[Cardellino]

Concordia Res Parvae Crescunt.

And Worstallt, why do you want to destroy the Union?

[peter]

I think the slogan's not that bad.

You should also take a look at the first line of the preamble to the ECT, which states: (the heads of state,) DETERMINED to lay the foundations of an ever closer union among the peoples of Europe (have decided to create an EC). Though i.m.o. the word 'ever' should be omitted, European cooperaton is and will be all about the different peopleS (plural) of Europe. The EU is not designed to replace the states. It's just an extra, and subordinated, layer of governance. That's why the new constitution is such a big improvement, fi. on subsidiarity-control.
Under the present system, basically the fact that the Council finds it useful to adopt an act, in most cases is good enough for the act to pass the test; the Court of justice, now the one primarily responsible for subsidiarity control, is not allowed to take political decisions, and therefor can only struck down acts clearly not respecting this, like it did with the ban on tobacco advertising.
Under the constitution, the power to take these political decisions will be given to political organs with direct democratic legitimation, the national parliaments, which is a very good thing.
Also, it makes the system less dependent on untransparant negociations at the executive level.

[Eoghan]

It is unfair to state that "Out of many, one" and "United in diversity" are overly similar.

'E pluribus unum' implies a homogenous aspect which is absent from 'U i D'. The US motto conjures up images of lockstep conformity, whereas the EU effort specifies a distinct lack of homogeneity. Far better, if not as poetic sounding as the latin.

[William Humbold Jr]

You can now vote online about the EU.

Vote YES or NO to Free Europe Constitution at www.FreeEurope.info