Andrew Duff is a key figure in the European Movement, in this question he is asked about what started his interest and caused him to join the European Movement. The question posed to Andrew Duff recounts where the European Union was at that time in its early history at the time that Andrew Duff joined the European Movement.
For those unfamiliar with the European Movement, stay tuned in this playlist to learn more from Andrew Duff a key figure in the European Movement. For those of you unfamiliar with the European Movement, it is the most significant movement in World History since World War II that has impacted the geopolitical landscape. The European Movement is responsible for the EU’s inception and evolution. For the full transcript of this interview see below and stay tuned in this playlist for more from this interview.
Erika Grey
You became director of the federal trust in 1993, when you were 43 years old. at At the age of 32 in 1982, you were elected to the City Council in Cambridge, and at age 34 you made your first attempt to get elected to the EU parliament, which at the time was only a forum for debate and a and a consultative body. In that year Alterio Spinelli was still serving as an MEP and the Single European Act had not yet been decided. Gaston Thorn was Commission President and the Single Market White Paper of 1985 had not been launched. The European Community comprised of only 10 members and was still in its infancy. What started your interest in European Federalism and in the European Community in those early years?
Andrew Duff
Well it’s a long time ago, but I think I stated in fact to I’m certain that I started the interested even before then. I think I was anxious to be a Member of the European Parliament even before it had been created. And I think that my experience as a student in 1968, I was 17 in 1968, and was just on the way from school to Cambridge, but I spent a lot of time in Paris at that time as well and so I had first-hand experience of the sense that things were changing fast and that politics of the post war generation were under pressure and that the dynamics were moving. It was a very turbulent time, it was a very exciting time, but and clearly the experience of the students in Germany, France, Italy, Britain, Amsterdam- I remember – was a very post national experience. We were sharing each other’s demonstrations, manifestos, discourse between students was very European, and I found that experience very enriching and, you know, if it could be continued, built on, that was a good thing to try to do. And it wasn’t far from to start the federal experiment or to join in the federal campaign that had always been there. I met Monet and Spinelli and that was also a great inspiration.
Europe-The Future To Come-Federal Union Explained