July 1956: The Creation of AEDE

On 30th August 1954 the French National Assembly adopted the preliminary motion "Aumeran", which involved the refection of the EDC (European Defence Community) project.

Shortly afterwards a number of teachers from Germany, Belgium, France and Italy met in Paris for a short course organized by the International Centre for European Training (CIFE) at the instigation of its President Alexandre Marc.

While on this course they conceived the idea of creating an association whose aim would be to develop among teachers and pupils a better understanding of the problems that faced Europe.

This project became a reality on 8th July 1956 at a Congress, which was also held in Paris, and attended by teachers who came not only from the member countries of ECSC (European Coal and Steel community) but also from countries which had not signed ECSC Treaty.

These teachers realized that the road leading to European Union would be long and that it was therefore important to set in train a movement requiring a clear, patient but determined commitment over several generations.

A European association...

The founders wanted AEDE to be a "European Association" and not a federation of national associations. Hence, the European President and the members of the Executive Bureau are elected by the European Congress.

Article 1 of the Statutes stipulates that the aim of AEDE is to bring together all those teachers anxious to cooperate in the creation of a European Federation.

... in the vanguard

AEDE has always been well ahead.

Let us recall a few dates : It was in 1969, thirteen years after the creation of AEDE, that the Heads of State and Heads of Government met in The Hague and requested that young people should be involved in "creative activity fostering the growth of Europe", and it was in 1971 that the European Community set up (at the suggestion of Spinelli, a European Commissioner at the time) a "Teaching and Education Group", and the Ministers of Education met for the first time in Brussels on 16th November.

Althought the original intentions were ratified at last, some long time was destined to elapse before they were implemented. Thus it was not until 1976 that the Ministers of Education of the nine member states adopted their first programme of action. By this time AEDE had already gathered twenty years of activities under its belt. And for many years it had been striving, through its members' actions, to give a "European dimension" to education. In 1978 the European Commission took up both the idea and the expression (incidentally acknowledging the work done by AEDE) in a report that it submitted to the Education Committee. But, sadly, with little success.

As a matter of fact, we had to wait until 1985 for the Ministers of Education to adopt their "conclusions" about "a better implementation of the European dimension in education".

In 1996, in addition to its Founding Congress in Paris, AEDE had already held twelve statutory Congress:

Turin (1958), Luxemburg (1961). Darmstadt (1964), Brussels (1968), Paris (1971), San Remo (1974), Luxemburg (1978), Bad Tatzmannsdorf (1981), Montecatini (1985), Nimègue (189),Athènes (1992), Paestum (1995).

But the Congresses are only the visible part of the iceberg. For the activities are legion at the local, regional, national and European level. These include individual initiatives by teachers, heads of schools, or inspectors, members of the association, in their day-to-day work with classes and schools, local, regional or national meetings, or even European projects which have yielded an impressive number of documents deriving from the labours of European teams, and numerous publications at all levels, among them a series of papers which have circulated across Europe.

In the course of time AEDE has become a huge grouping of teachers stretching way beyond the current boundaries of the European Union, and which generates its own activities, day after day and year after year, whilst its affiliated sections often play a key role in the projects carried out by their universities and schools under the auspices of their authorities.

Undeterred, AEDE is pursuing the aim of its founders, which is that it should be a network of European contacts, ideas and activities, working towards giving the younger generations an education that will equip them to grow into a European society capable of tackling with clear heads and stout hearts the formidable and complex problems that it will have to resolve.

Honorary Past President
Pierre Vanbergen