In Memory of Professor John Pinder

The Federal Trust has recently lost one of its most respected and long-serving members, Professor John Pinder. John was a central intellectual and political figure in the campaign for British entry into the European Community in the 1960s and 1970s and in the referendum confirming British membership in 1975. In addition to his academic and public work in the United Kingdom, he was one of the “founding fathers” of TEPSA in the 1970s and had remained since then in close contact with many of us now active in the Association. Until his retirement in 2007, John Pinder had been for more than 20 years Chairman of the Federal Trust and a prolific writer on European questions. His specific contribution to the debate was a fascinating mixture of sharp academic analysis and an underlying personal conviction, born of personal experience, that federalism is the only basis on which Europe can in the long term be constructed. All of us who knew him thought of him not simply as a remarkable and forceful colleague, but as a wise, generous and understanding friend who enriched our lives. We shall always miss him both as an intellectual and personal presence. TEPSA is much the poorer for his passing.

Wolfgang Wessels, Jaap de Zwaan, Brendan Donnelly and Iain Begg