Buses in Malta
Buses were introduced to Malta in 1905. As well as providing public transport across the country, up until 2011, the traditional Malta bus served as a popular tourist attraction due to their unique appearances grounded in the bus ownership and operation model employed in the country; the unique nature of the Malta bus stemmed from the tradition of local ownership of the buses by the drivers, their historic practice of customising them. In addition to a high degree of customisation and decoration, several Malta buses had a unique appearance due to the practice of in-house maintenance, rebuilding or modifying of bus bodies in local workshops; as an iconic feature of the country, the classic Malta bus features on several tourist related items. As the main mode of public transport across the country, the Malta bus was used by many tourists to visit the different parts of the country. While newer Malta buses were progressively introduced that followed modern standard bus designs found elsewhere and detailing had continued for these buses as well.
On 3 July 2011, the network of service bus routes across Malta was taken over by Arriva, with traditional buses reduced to operating on only special heritage services. Arriva introduced a fleet of modern low-floor buses, importing second hand ex-London articulated Mercedes-Benz Citaros and repainting some of the'newest' buses from the old fleet in Arriva colours as well as purchasing a fleet of brand new King Long rigid buses. Arriva's operation in Malta was beset by problems. Arriva operation in Malta continued until 1 January 2014, when the nation's bus network was nationalised as Malta Public Transport. On 8 January 2015, Malta Public Transport was reprivatised as it was sold to Autobuses Urbanos de León, who maintained the MPT name; the company retained the fleet of King Long buses purchased by Arriva in 2011 while getting rid of the old ones kept from the previous system. The company purchased a fleet of 202 low floor Otokar 9.5 and 12 metre buses to supplement the King Long ones. The first buses were imported to Malta in 1905 from the Thornycroft company in England by Edward Agius of Ed T Agius Ltd.
He formed the Malta Motor Omnibus and Transport Syndicate Ltd with his brother-in-law Joseph Muscat to operate the first bus service between Valletta and St Julians. As early as 1920, bus manufacturing was taking place on the island, with local carpenters and mechanics constructing bus body coachwork for local transport companies. In the 1920s, operation of buses on public transport routes was subject to open competition between operators, as such, buses used were not well turned out. With the formation of the Traffic Control Board in 1931, greater regulation and discipline of the system meant that operators began to upgrade the appearance of their buses. Since the tradition of showing pride in the vehicles has been maintained, through decoration and customisation of the buses. Since reform in the 1970s, bus operation was centralised under a collective of the owners, the Public Transport Association, or Assoċjazzjoni Trasport Pubbliku, in 2013; this association became responsible for the centralised day-to-day operational management of bus services, producing a unified timetable roster and basic livery, although this did not change the ownership arrangements for the buses.
The overall transport system is regulated under the Malta Transport Authority. In December 2003, in light of over 100 buses being scrapped, a government subsidised tour bus service using traditional Malta buses, as the "VisitMalta bus", was set up by the tourism and transport ministries, although this was withdrawn in April 2005. While the buses remain popular among tourists and nostalgic Maltese, the original system was infamous and unpopular with some parts of the local population who considered the service as inefficient and polluting, driven by drivers who were sometimes impolite to passengers; this resulted in a significant increase in private car ownership among the population, today only one in ten trips are made via public transportation. One extreme case to note occurred on 29 June 2010, when a driver attempted to forcibly pull a Spanish tourist out of her seat and off the bus following a row over seven cents in change; the operation model dated back to a system introduced in 1977.
The ATP authority determined the schedules, which were operated by the private bus owners, who remained responsible for the condition and upkeep of their buses, either as owner operators, or in groups. As such, several buses were kept at the family homes of the drivers in question, or based in small garage locations. To ensure fair distribution of both good and bad routes, the daily operation of buses was allocated on a rota basis, with buses operating on a'day on, day off' basis, whereby one day half of the buses operate on the public routes, while the other half were used for private hire, or as school buses, or undergo maintenance. Malta buses on public transport duties were seen in high concentrations at the main City Gate Square bus terminus at Valletta surrounding the Triton Fountain, from where the vast majority of scheduled routes departed. Other major centres of traffic included Buġibba, St. Paul's Bay and Mosta. Early buses wore an olive green livery with a black stripe. In the 1930s, buses were painted different colours according to the route.
In 1975 buses were painted green, from 1995 vehicles carried
Malta Freeport
Malta Freeport is an international port on the island of Malta with a trade volume of 3.06 million TEUs in 2015. It is one of busiest ports in Europe, it lies in Birżebbuġa in the southeastern part of Malta, on the site of the former seaplane base RAF Kalafrana. Having been established in 1988, Malta Freeport was the first transhipment hub in the Mediterranean region; the company has experienced remarkable growth over the years and ranks twelfth among the top European ports and is the third largest transhipment and logistics centre in the Mediterranean region. Over 95% of the Freeport's container traffic is transhipment business with demand growth triggering successive rounds of funding and ownership changes; as the Mediterranean's third largest transhipment port, Malta Freeport represents a strategic platform for the shipping lines that have chosen it as their Mediterranean hub port being located at the crossroads of some of the world's greatest shipping routes and in the heart of the Europe and Asian's Middle East triangle.
Malta Freeport terminals will be increasing its quay length on both terminals from the present operational length of 2.2 kilometres to over 3 kilometres and the total area to 790,000 square metres. Grand Harbour Marsamxett Harbour Site of Malta Freeport
Malta Railway
The Malta Railway was the only railway line on the island of Malta, it consisted of a single railway line from Valletta to Mdina. It was a single-track line in metre gauge, operating from 1883 to 1931; the railway was known locally in Maltese as il-vapur tal-art. The first proposal to build a railway in Malta was made in 1870 by J. S. Tucker; the main reason was to connect the capital Valletta with the former capital Mdina so the journey time between the two cities would be reduced from 3 hours to less than half an hour. A narrow-gauge railway system designed by John Barraclough Fell was proposed. In 1879, this was dropped in favour of a design by the engineering firm of Wells-Owen & Elwes, London. In 1880, the newspaper The Malta Standard reported that "in a short space of time, the inhabitants of these Islands may be able to boast of possessing a railway", that the line was to be open by the end of 1881. There were some problems with the acquisition of land to build the railway, so construction took longer than expected.
The line was opened on 28 February 1883 at 3pm, when the first train left Valletta and arrived at Mdina after about 25 minutes. Finances of the railway always proved critical. On 1 April 1890 the first proprietor, the Malta Railway Company Ltd. went bankrupt and the railway stopped running. As a result of this the government took over the railway, invested in its infrastructure and reopened traffic on 25 January 1892. From 1895 on an extension of the line was under work aiming for the barracks at Mtarfa behind the historic city of Mdina; this extension was opened for traffic in 1900. In 1903 a company was founded which ran tramways on Malta from 1905 on parallel to the railway line, this competition had a negative effect on the railway's finances; the first buses became popular in the 1920s. This contributed to the decline of both the railway as well as the tramway; the tram company closed in 1929, while the railway line stopped operating on 31 March 1931. During the siege of Malta in World War II, the railway tunnel running under the fortifications of Valletta was used as an air-raid-shelter.
In 1940, Mussolini proclaimed that an Italian air raid destroyed the Maltese railway system though the railway had been closed for nine years. Over the years, long stretches of the former railway line were surfaced with tarmac and converted into roads; some of the railway buildings are still in existence. The line connected a number of settlements in between; the first two stations and Floriana, were underground. The Line extended over 11.1 km / climbing 150 meters / 500 feet at a maximum of 25 Per mil. The line crossed roads by 18 level crossings; the roads were chained off. The line was constructed with rails of 42 pounds per foot and replaced when the government took over the railway in 1890 by those of 60 pound per foot to allow heavier locomotives to run on the line. During its lifetime the railway had only 10 locomotives; these were built by Manning Co. Ltd.. Leeds, Hawthorn & Co Ltd. Gateshead, Beyer, Peacock & Co. Ltd. Manchester. Most of them were 2-6-4 engines, they were painted in olive on black frames.
None of them are preserved. The carriages were wooden on iron frames. First and third class was provided; the seats were parallel to the line on both sides of an aisle. Illuminated by candles, this was changed to electricity, powered by batteries, in 1900; when the railway stopped running, 34 carriages were in use. One third-class carriage is preserved, was restored and placed beside the former station building of Birkirkara but, as of 2014, is now rather dilapidated, it will be repositioned near the original location. A train consisted of five carriages, while trains running over the maximal climb before Notabile had only four. After more powerful engines were used, trains up to 12 carriages became possible. During World War I longer trains were run using two locomotives. Travelling time inland was 35 minutes. Quite a busy timetable was in use with 13 pairs of trains running the whole of the line and an additional two or three pairs between Valletta and Attard and Birkirkara and Valletta and Ħamrun.
Various parts of the railway still exist to this day, most notably the stations at Birkirkara and Mdina, along with various bridges and tunnels. Various roads which were built instead of the railway retain names such as Railway Road in Santa Venera and Railway Street in Mtarfa; the station at Valletta was damaged during World War II and was demolished in the 1960s to make way for Freedom Square. Its site is now occupied by the Parliament House; the railway tunnel adjacent to the station was used as a garage, but it was closed in 2011 as part of the City Gate Project. The modern structures within the tunnel have since been demolished, restoring it to its original state. Works are being made on the bridge near the tunnel; the ticket office at Floriana still exists. A former railway tunnel under St Philip's Gardens was reopened in 2011 and has been open for visitors on various occasions since then. Two original luggage trolleys were found within the tunnel, but in a dilapidated state; the bridge which linked the tunnel with the rest of the line still exists.
The Ħamrun station is now used as the headquarters of the 1st Hamrun Scout Group. The former station in Birkirkara is used as a child care centre, but plans are being made to turn it into a museum known as the Birkirkara Historical Malta Railway Museum; the garden near the station, Ġnien l-Istazzjon (Station Ga
Taxicab
A taxicab known as a taxi or a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice; this differs from other modes of public transport where the pick-up and drop-off locations are determined by the service provider, not by the passenger, although demand responsive transport and share taxis provide a hybrid bus/taxi mode. There are four distinct forms of taxicab, which can be identified by differing terms in different countries: Hackney carriages known as public hire, hailed or street taxis, licensed for hailing throughout communities Private hire vehicles known as minicabs or private hire taxis, licensed for pre-booking only Taxibuses come many variations throughout the developing countries as jitneys or jeepney, operating on pre-set routes typified by multiple stops and multiple independent passengers Limousines, specialized vehicle licensed for operation by pre-bookingAlthough types of vehicles and methods of regulation, hiring and negotiating payment differ from country to country, many common characteristics exist.
Disputes over whether smartphone-based ride hailing services should be regulated as taxicabs has resulted in some jurisdictions creating a new classification called transportation network company. Harry Nathaniel Allen of The New York Taxicab Company, who imported the first 600 gas-powered New York City taxicabs from France in 1907, borrowed the word "taxicab" from London, where the word was in use by early 1907. "Taxicab" is a compound word formed from contractions of "taximeter" and "cabriolet". "Taximeter" is an adaptation of the German word taxameter, itself a variant of the earlier German word "Taxanom". "Taxe" is a German word meaning "tax", "charge", or "scale of charges". The Medieval Latin word "taxa" means tax or charge. "Taxi" may be attributed to τάξις from τάσσω meaning "to place in a certain order" in Ancient Greek, as in commanding an orderly battle line, or in ordaining the payment of taxes, to the extent that ταξίδι now meaning "journey" in Greek denoted an orderly military march or campaign.
Meter is from the Greek μέτρον meaning "measure". A "cabriolet" is a type of horse-drawn carriage, from the French word "cabrioler", from Italian "capriolare", from Latin "capreolus". An alternative, folk-etymology holds that it was named for Franz von Taxis, a 16th-century postmaster for Philip of Burgundy, his nephew Johann Baptiste von Taxis, General Postmaster for the Holy Roman Empire. Both instituted reliable postal services across Europe; the taxicabs of Paris were equipped with the first meters beginning on 9 March 1898. They were called taxamètres renamed taximètres on 17 October 1904. Horse-drawn for-hire hackney carriage services began operating in both Paris and London in the early 17th century; the first documented public hackney coach service for hire was in London in 1605. In 1625 carriages were made available for hire from innkeepers in London and the first taxi rank appeared on the Strand outside the Maypole Inn in 1636. In 1635 the Hackney Carriage Act was passed by Parliament to legalise horse-drawn carriages for hire.
Coaches were hired out by innkeepers to visitors. A further "Ordinance for the Regulation of Hackney-Coachmen in London and the places adjacent" was approved by Parliament in 1654 and the first hackney-carriage licences were issued in 1662. A similar service was started by Nicolas Sauvage in Paris in 1637, his vehicles were known as fiacres, as the main vehicle depot was opposite a shrine to Saint Fiacre.. The hansom cab was designed and patented in 1834 by Joseph Hansom, an architect from York as a substantial improvement on the old hackney carriages; these two-wheel vehicles were fast, light enough to be pulled by a single horse were agile enough to steer around horse-drawn vehicles in the notorious traffic jams of nineteenth-century London and had a low centre of gravity for safe cornering. Hansom's original design was modified by John Chapman and several others to improve its practicability, but retained Hansom's name; these soon replaced the hackney carriage as a vehicle for hire. They spread to other cities in the United Kingdom, as well as continental European cities Paris, St Petersburg.
The cab was introduced to other British Empire cities and to the United States during the late 19th century, being most used in New York City. The first cab service in Toronto, "The City", was established in 1837 by Thornton Blackburn, an ex-slave whose escape when captured in Detroit was the impetus for the Blackburn Riot. Electric battery-powered taxis became available at the end of the 19th century. In London, Walter C. Bersey designed a fleet of such cabs and introduced them to the streets of London on 19 August 1897, they were soon nicknamed ` Hummingbirds' due to the idiosyncratic humming noise. In the same year in New York City, the Samuel's Electric Carriage and Wagon Company began running 12 electric hansom cabs; the company ran until 1898 with up to 62 cabs operating until it was reformed by its financiers to form the Electric Vehicle Company. The modern taximeter was perfected by a trio of German inventors; the Daimler Victoria—the w
Valletta
Valletta is the capital city of Malta. Located in the south east of the island, between Marsamxett Harbour to the west and the Grand Harbour to the east, its population in 2014 was 6,444, while the metropolitan area around it has a population of 393,938. Valletta is the southernmost capital of Europe. Valletta's 16th century buildings were constructed by the Knights Hospitaller; the city is Baroque in character, with elements of Mannerist, Neo-Classical and Modern architecture, though the Second World War left major scars on the city the destruction of the Royal Opera House. The city was recognised as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1980; the city's fortifications, consisting of bastions and cavaliers, along with the beauty of its Baroque palaces and churches, led the ruling houses of Europe to give the city its nickname Superbissima— Italian for Most Proud. The peninsula was called Xagħret Mewwija or Ħal Newwija. Mewwija refers to a sheltered place; the extreme end of the peninsula was known as Xebb ir-Ras, of which name origins from the lighthouse on site.
A family which owned land became known as Sceberras, now a Maltese surname as Sciberras. At one point the entire peninsula became known as Sceberras; the building of a city on the Sciberras Peninsula had been proposed by the Order of Saint John as early as 1524. Back the only building on the peninsula was a small watchtower dedicated to Erasmus of Formia, built in 1488. In 1552, the watchtower was demolished and the larger Fort Saint Elmo was built in its place. In the Great Siege of 1565, Fort Saint Elmo fell to the Ottomans, but the Order won the siege with the help of Sicilian reinforcements; the victorious Grand Master, Jean de Valette set out to build a new fortified city on the Sciberras Peninsula to fortify the Order's position in Malta and bind the Knights to the island. The city was called La Valletta; the Grand Master asked the European kings and princes for help, he received a lot of assistance, due to the increased fame of the Order after their victory in the Great Siege. Pope Pius V sent his military architect, Francesco Laparelli, to design the new city, while Philip II of Spain sent substantial monetary aid.
The foundation stone of the city was laid by Grand Master de Valette on 28 March 1566. He placed the first stone in what became Our Lady of Victories Church. In his book Dell’Istoria della Sacra Religione et Illustrissima Militia di San Giovanni Gierosolimitano, written between 1594 and 1602, Giacomo Bosio writes that when the cornerstone of Valletta was placed, a group of Maltese elders said: "Iegi zimen en fel wardia col sceber raba iesue uquie". De Valette never saw the completion of his city. Interred in the church of Our Lady of the Victories, his remains now rest in St. John's Co-Cathedral among the tombs of other Grand Masters of the Knights of Malta. Francesco Laparelli was the city's principal designer and his plan departed from medieval Maltese architecture, which exhibited irregular winding streets and alleys, he designed the new city on a rectangular grid plan, without any collacchio. The streets were designed to be wide and straight, beginning centrally from the City Gate and ending at Fort Saint Elmo overlooking the Mediterranean.
His assistant was the Maltese architect Girolamo Cassar, who oversaw the construction of the city himself after Laparelli's death in 1570. The Ufficio delle Case regulated the building of the city as a planning authority; the city of Valletta was complete by the early 1570s, it became the capital on 18 March 1571 when Grand Master Pierre de Monte moved from his seat at Fort St Angelo in Birgu to the Grandmaster's Palace in Valletta. Seven Auberges were built for the Order's Langues, these were complete by the 1580s. An eighth Auberge, Auberge de Bavière, was added in the 18th century. In Antoine de Paule's reign, it was decided to build more fortifications to protect Valletta, these were named the Floriana Lines after the architect who designed them, Pietro Paolo Floriani of Macerata. During António Manoel de Vilhena's reign, a town began to form between the walls of Valletta and the Floriana Lines, this evolved from a suburb of Valletta to Floriana, a town in its own right. In 1634, a gunpowder factory explosion killed 22 people in Valletta.
In 1749, Muslim slaves plotted to kill Grandmaster Pinto and take over Valletta, but the revolt was suppressed before it started due to their plans leaking out to the Order. On in his reign, Pinto embellished the city with Baroque architecture, many important buildings such as Auberge de Castille were remodeled or rebuilt in the new architectural style. In 1775, during the reign of Ximenes, an unsuccessful revolt known as the Rising of the Priests occurred in which Fort Saint Elmo and Saint James Cavalier were captured by rebels, but the revolt was suppressed. In 1798, the Order left the French occupation of Malta began. After the Maltese rebelled, French troops continued to occupy Valletta and the surrounding harbour area, until they capitulated to the British in September 1800. In the early 19th centur
Transport in Malta
The transport system in Malta is small but extensive, the islands' domestic system of public transport is reliant on buses and taxis, although there were both a railway and a tramway in the past. Malta's primary international connections are the airport at Gudja and by sea the Grand Harbour, the Malta Freeport. Traffic in Malta drives on the left, as in the UK. Car ownership in Malta is exceedingly high given the small size of the islands; the country has the fifth-highest number of vehicles per capita in the world as of 2009, with 607 motor vehicles per 1,000 people. The number of registered cars in 1990 amounted to 182,254, giving an automobile density of 582 per km². Malta has 3,096 kilometres of road, 2,704 km of which are paved and 392 km are unpaved as of 2008; the official road user guide for Malta is The Highway Code. Buses are the primary method of public transport for the Maltese Islands and have been in operation there since 1905, offering a cheap and frequent service to many parts of Malta and Gozo.
The vast majority of buses on Malta depart from a terminus in Valletta. Malta's buses carried over 40 million passengers in 2015; the traditional classic Maltese buses, which were in operation until 2011 and still provide tourist-oriented services to this day, have become visitor attractions in their own right due to their uniqueness, are depicted on many Maltese advertisements to promote tourism as well as on gifts and merchandise for tourists. Prior to their reform there were 500 buses in public transit service, most of them owned by the bus drivers themselves, operated to a unified timetable set by the transport authority. On any one day, half the bus fleet worked on the public transport network, while the other half were used for private tours and school transport. In July 2011 a new public transport network was installed by Transport Malta and on 3 July 2011 it started being operated by Arriva Malta, 66% owned by Arriva Group, operating as the sole operator on a 10-year contract and running a new 264-strong fleet of buses in a turquoise and cream livery.
Unlike the system it replaced, the buses were owned and operated by a single company with the drivers working as employees of Arriva Malta. When Arriva ceased operations on 1 January 2014 due to financial difficulties, the company was nationalised as Malta Public Transport by the Maltese government as an interim measure while a new bus operator could be found; as of October 2014 the government has chosen Autobuses Urbanos de León as its preferred bus operator for the country, although the agreement has yet to be determined and signed, it is planned that they will being operation in January 2015. During the closing days of December 2014, the Times of Malta and other newspapers were reporting that the company had now signed contracts and purchased the existing operation for 8 million euros, they duly took over the business on January 8, 2015 with their takeover being effected as a "soft launch". The existing name - Malta Public Transport - is to be retained instead of using Autobuses Urbanos de León and nothing will have changed from a passenger perspective initially.
The buses are to be repainted into a new livery of light green and white and during a press announcement to mark the formal takeover of operations on the day, several repainted buses were lined up for a photo call to show off the new livery, these being two of the leased in 2014 Optare Solos, one of the leased in 2014 Wright Volvos, one each of the new in 2011 King Long XMQ6900J and XMQ6127J buses. By February the sub contracted buses from UBS were replaced - temporarily - with 32 dual-door Mercedes-Benz Citaro buses operated by ALESA until new Otokar Vectio C dual-door single deck buses on order have arrive in 2015; these new buses will number 142 in total and used to augment the existing fleet as the revised route network is incrementally rolled out during the course of 2015 with the full service planned not expected to be realized until 2016, at which time the 23 million euro subsidy for 2015 will rise to 29 million thereafter. In January 2019, the Government has said that young people who are between 16 and 20-years old in 2018 can now travel by bus for free.
People between 17 and 19-years old will travel for free between the 1st of January 2019 and the 31st of December 2019. The government said that those who will turn 16 this year, will start travelling for free on their birthday and will keep benefiting from the scheme until their 17th birthday. 20-year olds will benefit until they reach 21. Between 1883 and 1931 Malta had a railway line that connected the capital city of Valletta to the army barracks at Mtarfa / Mdina and a number of towns and villages. Malta has three large natural harbours on its main island. There are two man-made harbours that connect the islands of Malta and Gozo; the Grand Harbour, located at the eastern side of the capital city of Valletta. The Grand Harbour, used as a harbour since Roman times, has several extensive docks and wharves, as well as a cruise liner terminal. Marsamxett Harbour, located on the western side of Valletta, accommodate a number of yacht marinas. Marsaxlokk Harbour is sited at Marsaxlokk on the southeastern side of Malta, is the location of the Malta Freeport, the islands' main cargo terminal.
A frequent daily passenger and car ferry service runs between the islands of Malta and Gozo between Ċirkewwa Harbour and Mġarr Harbour. There is a ferry terminal at the Grand Harbour that connects Malta to Pozzallo
European Union
The European Union is a political and economic union of 28 member states that are located in Europe. It has an area of an estimated population of about 513 million; the EU has developed an internal single market through a standardised system of laws that apply in all member states in those matters, only those matters, where members have agreed to act as one. EU policies aim to ensure the free movement of people, goods and capital within the internal market, enact legislation in justice and home affairs and maintain common policies on trade, agriculture and regional development. For travel within the Schengen Area, passport controls have been abolished. A monetary union was established in 1999 and came into full force in 2002 and is composed of 19 EU member states which use the euro currency; the EU and European citizenship were established when the Maastricht Treaty came into force in 1993. The EU traces its origins to the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community, established by the 1951 Treaty of Paris and 1957 Treaty of Rome.
The original members of what came to be known as the European Communities were the Inner Six: Belgium, Italy, the Netherlands, West Germany. The Communities and its successors have grown in size by the accession of new member states and in power by the addition of policy areas to its remit; the latest major amendment to the constitutional basis of the EU, the Treaty of Lisbon, came into force in 2009. While no member state has left the EU or its antecedent organisations, the United Kingdom signified the intention to leave after a membership referendum in June 2016 and is negotiating its withdrawal. Covering 7.3% of the world population, the EU in 2017 generated a nominal gross domestic product of 19.670 trillion US dollars, constituting 24.6% of global nominal GDP. Additionally, all 28 EU countries have a high Human Development Index, according to the United Nations Development Programme. In 2012, the EU was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Through the Common Foreign and Security Policy, the EU has developed a role in external relations and defence.
The union maintains permanent diplomatic missions throughout the world and represents itself at the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the G7 and the G20. Because of its global influence, the European Union has been described as an emerging superpower. During the centuries following the fall of Rome in 476, several European States viewed themselves as translatio imperii of the defunct Roman Empire: the Frankish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire were thereby attempts to resurrect Rome in the West; this political philosophy of a supra-national rule over the continent, similar to the example of the ancient Roman Empire, resulted in the early Middle Ages in the concept of a renovatio imperii, either in the forms of the Reichsidee or the religiously inspired Imperium Christianum. Medieval Christendom and the political power of the Papacy are cited as conducive to European integration and unity. In the oriental parts of the continent, the Russian Tsardom, the Empire, declared Moscow to be Third Rome and inheritor of the Eastern tradition after the fall of Constantinople in 1453.
The gap between Greek East and Latin West had been widened by the political scission of the Roman Empire in the 4th century and the Great Schism of 1054. Pan-European political thought emerged during the 19th century, inspired by the liberal ideas of the French and American Revolutions after the demise of Napoléon's Empire. In the decades following the outcomes of the Congress of Vienna, ideals of European unity flourished across the continent in the writings of Wojciech Jastrzębowski, Giuseppe Mazzini or Theodore de Korwin Szymanowski; the term United States of Europe was used at that time by Victor Hugo during a speech at the International Peace Congress held in Paris in 1849: A day will come when all nations on our continent will form a European brotherhood... A day will come when we shall see... the United States of America and the United States of Europe face to face, reaching out for each other across the seas. During the interwar period, the consciousness that national markets in Europe were interdependent though confrontational, along with the observation of a larger and growing US market on the other side of the ocean, nourished the urge for the economic integration of the continent.
In 1920, advocating the creation of a European economic union, British economist John Maynard Keynes wrote that "a Free Trade Union should be established... to impose no protectionist tariffs whatever against the produce of other members of the Union." During the same decade, Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, one of the first to imagine of a modern political union of Europe, founded the Pan-Europa Movement. His ideas influenced his contemporaries, among which Prime Minister of France Aristide Briand. In 1929, the latter gave a speech in favour of a European Union before the assembly of the League of Nations, precursor of the United Nations. In a radio address in March 1943, with war still raging, Britain's leader Sir Winston Churchill spoke warmly of "restoring the true greatness of Europe" once victory had been achieved, mused on the post-war creation of a "Council of Europe" which would bring the European nations together to build peace. After World War II, European integration was seen as an antidote to the extreme nationalism which had devastated the continent.
In a speech delivered on 19
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