Founding fathers of the European Union

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The founding fathers of the European Union are men who are considered to be major contributors to European unity and the development of what is now the European Union. The number and list of the founding fathers of the EU varies depending on the source. In a publication from 2013 the European Union listed 11 men. All but one (Winston Churchill from the United Kingdom) were from the Inner Six of the European Union.

Some sources list only a subset of the 11 men as founding fathers. The Council of Europe lists 6 founding fathers as builders of Europe, including the Briton Ernest Bevin.^[1] The media outlet Deutsche Welle presented a different constellation, it listed Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, Winston Churchill, Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet and Paul-Henri Spaak as the 5 founding fathers of the EU.^[2] Other sources have emphasized Konrad Adenauer of Germany, Alcide De Gasperi of Italy and Robert Schuman of France as the founding fathers from the three pioneers countries of the European unification.^[3]