The "Common European Home" was a concept created and espoused by former
Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev.
The concept has some antecedents in
Leonid Brezhnev
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev; uk, links= no, Леонід Ілліч Брежнєв, . (19 December 1906– 10 November 1982) was a Soviet politician who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1964 and ...
's
foreign policy, who used the phrase during a visit to Bonn,
West Germany
West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...
, in 1981. However, at this time it was likely used in an attempt to sow discord between the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
and the European allies in the hopes of moderating American policy. Though Gorbachev used a similar phrase in a 1985 statement, calling the
Old World "our common house," perhaps the most famous use of the term arose when Gorbachev presented his concept of "our common European home" or the "all-European house" during a visit to
Czechoslovakia
, rue, Чеськословеньско, , yi, טשעכאסלאוואקיי,
, common_name = Czechoslovakia
, life_span = 1918–19391945–1992
, p1 = Austria-Hungary
, image_p1 ...
in April 1987. In his main address in
Prague
Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and List of cities in the Czech Republic, largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 milli ...
he declared:
:We assign an overriding significance to the European course of our foreign policy.... We are resolutely against the division of the continent into military blocs facing each other, against the accumulation of military arsenals in Europe, against everything that is the source of the threat of war. In the spirit of the new thinking we introduced the idea of the "all-European house"...
hich
Ij ( fa, ايج, also Romanized as Īj; also known as Hich and Īch) is a village in Golabar Rural District, in the Central District of Ijrud County, Zanjan Province, Iran
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also ...
signifies, above all, the acknowledgment of a certain integral whole, although the states in question belong to different social systems and are members of opposing military-political blocs standing against each other. This term includes both current problems and real possibilities for their solution.
[Milan Svec. "The Prague Spring: 20 Years Later." '' Foreign Affairs.'' Summer 1988.]
At the time, Eastern European analysts viewed this rhetoric as a way for Gorbachev to prevent an outright revolt of Eastern European countries from the
Eastern Bloc.
Jim Hoagland
Jimmie Lee Hoagland (born January 22, 1940) is a Pulitzer prize-winning American journalist. He is a contributing editor to ''The Washington Post,'' since 2010, previously serving as an associate editor, senior foreign correspondent, and columnis ...
wrote that Gorbachev's "Common European Home" and
George H.W. Bush
George Herbert Walker BushSince around 2000, he has been usually called George H. W. Bush, Bush Senior, Bush 41 or Bush the Elder to distinguish him from his eldest son, George W. Bush, who served as the 43rd president from 2001 to 2009; p ...
's "Europe Whole and Free" were competing concepts describing the same situation: an economic and ideological collapse of Soviet power concurrent with the
European Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...
gaining new dynamism and economic clout.
[Jim Hoagland. "Europe's Destiny." ''Foreign Affairs.'' 1989/1990.]
On June 12, 1989, General Secretary Gorbachev arrived in Bonn and held private talks with
Chancellor Helmut Kohl
Helmut Josef Michael Kohl (; 3 April 1930 – 16 June 2017) was a German politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 1982 to 1998 and Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from 1973 to 1998. Kohl's 16-year tenure is the longes ...
and
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
Richard von Weizsäcker. The following day, Kohl and Gorbachev signed a joint declaration supporting national
self-determination, mutual reduction in nuclear and conventional forces, and a "Common European Home" in which
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
and the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
have a role. He also stated that by appropriating
Charles de Gaulle's "Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals" geographical definition, Gorbachev was attempting to keep the Soviet Union presence prescribed.
["Chronology 1989; East-West Relations." ''Foreign Affairs.'' Fall 1989-1990. pp. 230]
In his July 6, 1989, speech before the
Council of Europe in
Strasbourg, Gorbachev declared:
:The philosophy of the "Common European Home" concept rules out the probability of an armed clash and the very possibility of the use of force or threat of force – alliance against alliance, inside the alliances, wherever. This philosophy suggests that a doctrine of restraint should take the place of the doctrine of deterrence. This is not just a play on words but the logic of European development prompted by life itself.
On November 29, 1989, General Secretary Gorbachev, en route to the upcoming
Malta summit with
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
* President (education), a leader of a college or university
* President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...
George H. W. Bush, arrived in
Rome
, established_title = Founded
, established_date = 753 BC
, founder = King Romulus (legendary)
, image_map = Map of comune of Rome (metropolitan city of Capital Rome, region Lazio, Italy).svg
, map_caption ...
,
Italy
Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
. He gave a speech the next day at the
Rome City Council in which he sketched out the notion of the "Common European Home" as a
commonwealth of
sovereign and economically
interdependent
Systems theory is the interdisciplinary study of systems, i.e. cohesive groups of interrelated, interdependent components that can be natural or human-made. Every system has causal boundaries, is influenced by its context, defined by its structu ...
nations. He then also proposed a 1990 meeting of the
Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe
The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE), also known as the U.S. Helsinki Commission, is an independent U.S. government agency created by Congress in 1975 to monitor and encourage compliance with the Helsinki Final Act and o ...
, and met with
Pope John Paul II
Pope John Paul II ( la, Ioannes Paulus II; it, Giovanni Paolo II; pl, Jan Paweł II; born Karol Józef Wojtyła ; 18 May 19202 April 2005) was the head of the Catholic Church and sovereign of the Vatican City State from 1978 until his ...
at the
Vatican City
Vatican City (), officially the Vatican City State ( it, Stato della Città del Vaticano; la, Status Civitatis Vaticanae),—'
* german: Vatikanstadt, cf. '—' (in Austria: ')
* pl, Miasto Watykańskie, cf. '—'
* pt, Cidade do Vati ...
the following day.
At the time, analysts such as
Robert D. Hormats saw the nascent
European Community
The European Economic Community (EEC) was a regional organization created by the Treaty of Rome of 1957,Today the largely rewritten treaty continues in force as the ''Treaty on the functioning of the European Union'', as renamed by the Lisb ...
as primely positioned to take on the role of a Common European Home due to its "moral, political and social – as well as economic – strength."
[Robert D. Hormats. "Redefining Europe and the Atlantic Link." ''Foreign Affairs.'' Fall 1989.] Ronald D. Asmus noted that "Gorbachev's vision of a Common European Home was predicated on the belief that reform in Eastern Europe could be controlled and that reformist communist parties would continue to play an important role in their countries' politics, including in the
G.D.R."
[Ronald D. Asmus. "A United Germany." ''Foreign Affairs.'' Spring 1990.] Finally,
Coit D. Blacker wrote that Soviet leadership "appeared to have believed that whatever loss of authority the Soviet Union might suffer in Eastern Europe would be more than offset by a net increase in its influence in western Europe."
[Coit D. Blacker. "The Collapse of Soviet Power in Europe." ''Foreign Affairs.'' 1990.]
See also
* "
New world order (politics)
The term "new world order" refers to a new period of history evidencing dramatic change in world political thought and the balance of power in international relations. Despite varied interpretations of this term, it is primarily associated with th ...
": a slogan used by Gorbachev and Bush to describe the nature of the post-Cold War international system.
References
{{Eurasian Integration
Political catchphrases
Soviet phraseology
Foreign relations of the Soviet Union
Mikhail Gorbachev