Salvador de Madariaga was a Spanish diplomat, author, and academic who worked to promote European integration. He was born in Spain in 1886 and died in Switzerland in 1978. Madariaga held various roles including professorships at Oxford and Mexico, work with the League of Nations in Geneva, and as an ambassador for the Spanish Republic. Throughout his career, he advocated for transforming the League of Nations into a center to drive European unity and was a co-founder of the College of Europe. Madariaga believed the key to overcoming tensions between European countries was developing a shared European conscience and moral solidarity among its peoples.

1. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe Universidad Senior- Taller Europeo “OC- OC”– Curso 2.009 – 2.010 A Coruña, 21.07.1886 Locarno, 14.12.1978

2. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe Salvador de Madariaga was born in La Coruña (Spain) in 1886 and died in Locarno, Switzerland, in 1978. He studied Engineering. In 1916 he was editor of the “Times” in London. He was professor of Spanish Literature in Oxford and Mexico. He worked in the Society of Nations of Geneva. The Government of the Spanish Republic named him Ambassador in Washington and Paris and Secretary of Public Instruction and Justice. He was elected Member of the Royal Spanish Language Academy in 1916.

3. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe In 1921 he entered the Society of Nations in Geneva, and for six years he carried out the Section of Disarmament and had personal relationship with the most eminent political personalities and diplomats from all over the world. His opinions were welcome with great esteem. Geneva Oxford

4. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe In 1927 he abandoned the international organization because of his literary vocation and also for deception. Madariaga understood that the Society of Nations could not only be cooperative of national limitless sovereignties but rather should transform into a centre for resolved drive of the European unit. The University of Oxford created at the end of 1927 the class of Spanish Language and Literature and offered it to Madariaga. The proclamation of the Republic in 1931 surprised Madariaga in Mexico, in trip of conferences that also took him to Havana. In the Cuban capital he received news that the provisional republican government had designed him, without being consulted, ambassador in Washington.

5. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe Madariaga had no liking for active politics. He was rather an occasional politician brought on by demands of the service that was required. He said “I am more a man of thought than a man of action” and as regards government’s forms he was defined as pragmatic. During the second world war, the BBC requested his collaboration dedicated to the listeners from Hispanoamérica. Once a week during nine years he spoke before the microphones of the British radio. The freedom and the man dignity were for him important values. The Hague

6. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe We must point out his participation in the Congress of the European Movement in The Hague, in 1948. In 1949 he was one of the co-founders of the College of Europe in Belgium. Madariaga believed in the national characters and he attributed to the English prevalence of the action, to French of the thought and to Spanish, of the passion He was a vital man and one of the main exponents of the European liberalism. The war took him to exile, living from then on in France and England.

7. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe Madariaga shows us in his book “Outlines of Europe” his concern for the European problems and he suggests solutions for the conflicts. He writes about the tensions among the countries of the old continent. He says that Europe will live or it will perish as it arrives or not to take conscience of itself. It is necessary the moral solidarity so that an European new conscience of the peoples that compose Europe is born so that a new Europe is born.

8. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe He points out, at the beginning of the book, that Europe is in human danger for two reasons: The historical countless wars and the danger of Moscow. The only solution that suits Europe is to “look for the conscience of being European”, to conquer the traditional differences. That is to say, the question is in realizing the unit that beats in the diversity of the European countries.

9. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe Madariaga, as erudite, diplomat and politician coined the principle of the European integration. He analyzed his ideas in favour of the integration and their performance in some institutions in which then an intense debate existed between global integration or an integration at European level.

10. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe Europe is physically the smallest continent but the biggest for its history. The mixture of people and different bloods is maybe the true cause of the European unit. He speaks to us of four fictitious big characters of the European literature: Hamlet, Don Quijote, Fausto and Don Juan, whom we can consider as symbols of the real or fictitious main characters that we find in the European culture

11. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe The Europeans are of three types, basically: Nordic, Euro-Asian and Mediterranean; and are very blended. This, far from being an impediment is really a virtue, since one cannot talk of the supremacy of a race above another. The author tries to explain this to us with the visual example of a tree. In this supposed tree of the characters of the world, Africa would be located in the roots, to be there from where our ancestors come. The trunk, that is to say, the strong part of the tree, would be Europe, to possess a mind based on the individualism. And Asia would be the foliage, that is to say, the intuitive part in the air.

12. Salvador de Madariaga and Europe