Dears Students,
It is a great pleasure to welcome you to this new edition of European Union Political History. Still a weird edition in the wave of the disturbances caused by this unending Pandemic situation. For so many months now we have been obliged to live in a different way. And even if when the Pandemia will disappear from our lives -all Pandemias do- life might not be the same afterwards. Or they will? I hope we have learned something ou of this mess.
Despite our personal experience of suffering, weariness and boredom, and the fact that in January 2022 there are over 364 million cases, with 288 million recoveries and 5,6 million deaths, if we look back into History considering previous Pandemics we will realize that it is not a big deal considering we live in a 7 billion people World. Look at the following image where you will see graphically that this Covid 19 is a "tiny" Pandemic.
This is the big advantage of History: it help us to understand where we are in the present moment. The problem with Covid 19 is that for a long time we have lived comfortable lifes, and we thought that through science and technology we controlled completelly the World. We do not. Please remember how odd is that we have forgotten that from 1981 to our days AIDS has killed 35 million people and you will understand that our fears on the one hand come from the fact that we do not control the situation and on the other that we are not used to suffer in our materially comfortable world.
I start this course with this reflection to stress how important is to look back into History to understand our Present. And this, of course, is valid as well for understanding the European Union. A quite difficult thing if we just look at what is happening in this strange association of States right now. Without considering its origins and its further developments the EU is completely ununderstandable. So lets look at its History.
The EU starts in 1992 with the Treaty of the European Union, familiarly called the Maastricht Treaty. But the history of European integration, that is: getting back at when we started the Communitarian Method, goes all the way to the Spring of 1950 with the Schumann Declaration. And the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community is impossible to understand without looking at which was the situation in the World after 1945. And so on. This why we will start from the beginning to understand how Europe started after the Fall of the Western Roman empire, with the first European nations, the Barbarian people that created the first Germanic Kingdoms. All the way to the Brexit and the Covid Pandemic. And now the Ucranian Crisis, whcih may be an opportunity for Europe to set and independent foreign policy not following as it has been the case since 1945 the US. Wait and see. Shall we remember that Russia in the past was a European strong ally?
For dealing with such an extensive History you will have to work intensively the Written Materials that are at your disposal. I will suggest every week what part you have to work for presential a classes. The idea is that we will take advantage of the presential classes to interact in an effective way explaining and debating over the corresponding Teaching Guide. By the way I will advise you to print in paper these materials, because it will enable you to include clarifying notes in it.
Concerning the Evaluation, you will have a final exam on the date set by the University. A presential test. With dates, concepts, short questions and longer questions. The mark you will get will represent 60% of your final mark.
The big novelty in this course edition is that the remaining 40% will be on the one hand (30%) the result of the evaluation of the the three compùlsery readings you have to get through, that will take place in the three dates set in your Materials in the "Aula Virtual". But we will explain how it goes in the classroom. The remaining 10% will depend on your effective presential assistance to class and your witty interventions in class.
I am extremely concerned about the efficiency of Education. This is why from page 320 to 345 of your Materials you have an Education Appendix with some interesting texts that try to make you think about what should be the aim of Education. Because I am really concerned with the fact that we should work in the learning process in the most efficient way. And this the reason why I oblige to read and write, and most of the exam will require that you fully understand the materials Memory is a useful tool, but is not enough to learn. The basic aim is that you understand.
A final consideration: please assist to as many presential classes as you can. I will take into account your interventions in the classroom. Bear this in mind. The Socratic Method is for me, by far, the best way to learn. And is fun!!!
We will try to play this great tune of our European History together
Good luck!
