The Schuman Declaration in 1950, which led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), is the symbolic beginning of European integration as a “peace project.” The ECSC was meant to make war between France and Germany “not just unthinkable but materially impossible.” But at the same time as Robert Schuman made the declaration, France was fighting a brutal colonial war in Indochina. Taking the Schuman Declaration as my starting point, I will challenge the idea that Europeans simply rejected war after 1945. Rather, I will suggest that, in so far as the EU stands for peace, it is a ‘white peace’ – that is, it rejected the use of military force within Europe but continued to use military force beyond Europe. In the light of this history, the militarisation of the EU that is currently underway is less of a break with the past than is often imagined.
This talk is part of the CES Spring 2026 Speaker Series. The Speaker Series features scholars from around the world who specialize in topics related to Europe and the languages spoken there. This year’s theme is “Infrastructure and Power.”
This hybrid event is co-sponsored by the Centre for the Study of Democratic Institutions. Those who wish to attend online can register for the Zoom link below.
Bio
Hans Kundnani is a visiting professor in practice at the London School of Economics. He was previously the director of the Europe programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), a senior Transatlantic fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, and research director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He has also been a visiting fellow at the Remarque Institute at New York University, the New School, and Göttingen University. He has taught at Boston University, New York University and the Collège d’Europe.
He is the author of three books: Eurowhiteness. Culture, Empire and Race in the European Project (London: Hurst, 2023); The Paradox of German Power (London/New York: Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2014), which has been translated into German, Italian, Japanese, Korean and Spanish; and Utopia or Auschwitz. Germany’s 1968 Generation and the Holocaust (London/New York: Hurst/Columbia University Press, 2009). Hans is a columnist for the New Statesman and also writes regularly for other publications such as Dissent, the Times Literary Supplement, and Foreign Affairs. He studied German and philosophy at Oxford University and journalism at Columbia University in New York, where he was a Fulbright Scholar.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
