The EU’s founder should be a saint – but he created a monster

There was a certain degree of cynicism when the Pope decided to place the EU’s founder on the path to canonisation earlier this month. The veneration of an ‘arch euro-federalist’ may seem like an overtly political decision from the See of Rome: a love letter from one unaccountable supranational bureaucracy to another. But in truth the piety and integrity of Robert Schuman — a man born a German citizen who served as both French prime minister and foreign minister — make him a good candidate for sainthood. I am a great admirer of Schuman and I do, in fact, consider him a saint. But after years devoted to the study of his life, I found myself a passionate opponent of Britain’s membership of the European Union and campaigned for us to leave.

Schuman’s 1950 coal and steel declaration is the origin of all the institutions that now make up the EU.