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“And they shall Beat their Swords into Plowshares” - The Dutch Genesis of a European Icon and the German Fate of the Treaty of Lisbon

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Stephan Leibfried  and
Karin van Elderen

Extract

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For my grandparents Europe meant peace, for my parents prosperity, for my generation it stands for some practical advantages like traveling without border controls and stipends to study abroad.

Type
Special Section: The Federal Constitutional Court's Lisbon Case
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 10 , Issue 8 , 01 August 2009 , pp. 1297 - 1308
Copyright
Copyright © 2009 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 Esther de Lange, 34, Member of European Parliament from The Netherlands, CDA, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 4 June 2009, p. 3Google Scholar

2 Haarlem, Born, The Netherlands, 1924–1999.Google Scholar

3 See image 1.Google Scholar

4 Reported in Het Parool, Nieuws van de Tag, and other Dutch newspapers on 16 May 1950. We are grateful to Loes Dirksen, Reyn Dirksen's wife, for making documents from his estate available, including newspaper clippings and photos from 1950.Google Scholar

5 See images 2 and 3.Google Scholar

6 Book of Micah 4:3.Google Scholar

7 See images 2–4.Google Scholar

8 A few months later, De Ruyter was struck down by a cannonball off the coast of Sicily, during the Franco-Dutch war.Google Scholar

9 See the Postscript for a discussion of this etching.Google Scholar

10 Later, with the establishment of the Batavian Republic (1795-1815) under Napoleon, the Bund was transformed into a more unitary state.Google Scholar

11 Stephan Leibfried, Susan M. Gaines and Lorraine Frisina, 10 German Law Journal 311–333 (2009).Google Scholar

12 See image 3.Google Scholar

13 Book of Micah 4:3.Google Scholar

14 In translation: “This constitution will lose its validity at the moment that another constitution is accepted by the German people by its own free will.” This clause is an artifact of 1949, when the Grundgesetz was created without approval by the German people. It was intended to allow for creation of a new constitution at the time of reunification, but in the act, East Germany was simply accepted into the existing German Federation and the Grundgesetz remained unchanged.Google Scholar

15 Interestingly, Udo DiFabio, the Court's rapporteur for the Lisbon Case, has written extensively on the doctrine of “open statehood.” See Udo DiFabio, Das Recht offener Staaten. Grundlinien einer Staats- und Rechtstheorie (1998).Google Scholar

16 Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine, 30 May 2009 pp. 1, 12 (“More than just a warning shot”.).Google Scholar

17 Could it be that the Court is really just in search of an Extrawurst for Germany, in search of a special treatment as one of the EU's crucial founding members and its long-term financier?Google Scholar

18 The English word “nave,” derived from the Latin word for ship, to describe the main body of a church appears to have come into use during this period, and also the German Kirchenschiff. Google Scholar

19 On the historical context of the revolution and secession from Spain see Michael North, Geschichte der Niederlande (2003, pp. 22 ff.; pp. 37–43 on the political construction). On the religious conflicts in a broader context see, for example, Georg Denzler and Carl Andresen. Wörterbuch der Kirchengeschichte (2004, entries “Dordrechter Synode”, “Arminianismus”, “Sozianer”, “Calvinismus”, “Reformierte Kirchen”). For an in-depth study of this period of religious and political strife see Jonathan I. Israel, The Dutch Republic. Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall (1995, 223–398). He characterizes the Synod as the climax in the process of routing Arminian opposition out of all public functions in the church, city councils, universities, and general political bodies of the Republic. Before this time, the political system was quite decentralized, with the province of Holland, which included the ports of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, being the most powerful. Afterwards, it was centralized under the prince and religiously homogenized. Isreal describes a 1618 coup d'état by Prince Maurits then completed and sealed at the Dort Synod.Google Scholar

20 Carmina 1, 14.Google Scholar

21 See also Het rijk van Neptunus: maritieme prentkunst rond de Gouden Eeuw (Elly Bos and Maartje de Haan, eds., 1966) (explanation of image no. 11) and André Wegener Sleeswyk, De Gouden Eeuw van het Fluitschip 126 (2003).Google Scholar