“An extraordinary gathering for an extraordinary person,” are the opening words of Wim Hupperetz, director of the Centre Céramique. Or more accurately, a memorial, one with an emotional edge. Because as several of the speakers note, they would much rather not be here remembering their friend and colleague, who died much too soon. “It was a terrible time for all of us,” says one of them, summarising the last year. There is silence as Segers’s widow Marèl reads a letter to her late husband: “I’m writing to you, Mathieu, in the hope of getting a reply.” His portrait is present on stage.
At this point, she has already played an excerpt from Café Europa, the podcast on European issues co-hosted by Segers. Already weakening but still noticeably passionate about his favourite topic: the history of European integration, which was given a massive boost in 1992 with the Treaty of Maastricht.
The Europe expert the Netherlands didn't deserve
It is no coincidence that the memorial is being held here, on the fourth floor of the Centre Céramique. Aside from its stunning panorama of the skyline of Maastricht, it now also houses the Europa Archive named after Mathieu Segers, which was opened today. According to Studio Europa Maastricht's Bart Stol, it was Segers’s wish that it would be housed here, “near the house where he was born, a stone’s throw away from the Government building [where the treaty was signed, ed.]” and near the hotels where the European leaders stayed at the time. The anecdote of a fifteen-year-old Segers trying hard to catch a glimpse of them is well known.
Nor is it a coincidence that Segers’s podcast contributions are played. This afternoon is not only about celebrating his academic achievements, it is also about the way he involved himself in the public debate about Europe. “Mathieu was the Europe expert the Netherlands didn’t actually deserve,” says Amsterdam law philosopher Tamar de Waal. Rianne Letschert, President of Maastricht University, remembers how it pained him “that in the press and in The Hague, there was so little attention paid to what was going on in Brussels”.
Death snapping at his heels
Attention is also given to his newest and final book, Europa en het idee uit de toekomst [Europe and the idea from the future]. It should have been a Dutch version of an earlier English book about the roots of European integration, says publisher Mai Spijkers. “But somewhere along the way, Mathieu decided to add a ‘chapter zero’”, about how the idea of European cooperation arose out of the ashes of World War One. “He worked on it with Death snapping at his heels,” says Spijkers. “It was tense; Mathieu knew the end was nigh, he wanted to tell this story, but wondered whether he would get it done in time.” He managed to broadly map out what he wanted to write; his brother and an editor finished the work.
Marèl Segers remembers the day the manuscript was sent. “On [daughter] Sofia’s birthday, exactly eighteen years after the proofs for your doctoral thesis landed on the mat. You are now a part of the history of the ideas; something that is a fact, albeit far too soon.”
Mathieu Seegers, Europa en het idee uit de toekomst. Oorsprong en ontstaansgeschiedenis van ons Europa, 1913-1951. | Uitgeverij Prometheus | € 34.99