Monnet's Brandy and Europe's Fate: A Determined Frenchman's Vision of Integration Serves as a Guide to Ending the Eurozone Crisis

In: The Brookings Essay

Abstract

The past five years have been turbulent for the eurozone. Yet leaders such as Angela Merkel and Fran?ois Hollande are determined to keep The European Project intact, and even among one-time critics there is a broad consensus that the eurozone will have to hang together. Strobe Talbott introduces the extraordinary life and vision of Jean Monnet-the man credited as the architect of European unity. Monnet died in 1979, long before the euro went into circulation, and his relevance today is all the more striking in light of his idiosyncratic career. He was born in 1888 to a long line of brandy arti