Abstract
On May 9th, 1950, Robert Schuman, a French statesman and visionary European, gave a speech soon to be known as "the Schuman Declaration". This event determined Europe's future and is considered as the birth of actual functional European integration; a "Europe Day" is even celebrated on each May 9. However, Schuman's contribution to Europe isn't limited to the sole Schuman Declaration. How exactly did Robert Schuman contribute to European integration? And why did Schuman choose to take up the European cause? Schuman's parents were born a few miles apart, although separated by the French-Luxembourgian border. Schuman's father, Jean-Pierre Schuman, was born in Moselle, from a family of cultivators that owned a farm spread across the border. Schuman's father describes himself as being a "Lothringer," a Lorraine inhabitant. Robert Schuman's mother, Eugenie Duren, spent her early youth in Kruth, a small village in Alsace. This is where she married Jean-Pierre Schuman; the couple later settled in Clausen, a neighbourhood close to the capital of Luxemburg.
