I think that, at the very beginning, after eastern enlargement in 2004, indeed, we observe strong interest in Central Europe towards European integration, adaption our legislation and political systems to EU standards. And I think one of the problems that we’ve seen over the course of the last seven decades is the degree to which this elite-driven and often technocratic movement towards integration has led to an increasing democratic deficit and questions of—not only simply a democratic deficit with respect to institutions of the European Union, but also an emotional deficit. Russia? Thank you, Walter. So that’s why I think that there is some kind of excuse that, OK, EU is not so much effective in terms of its external foreign and defense policy, but EU as member states, almost all these countries are in NATO. I think it would be certainly very, very risky, and potentially disastrous, both for the European Union and Great Britain to go their separate ways. So you must have a Commission you can trust that looks for, let’s say, what is our common interest, and not only the interest of a few. And despite the fact that France, Germany, or Italy, they want to be in the EU, they still want to protect their national interest. And that is the problem we face now. Both these books1 are the results of conferences at which the European idea was discussed. Please remember to completely turn off your cellphones, BlackBerrys, and other devices. Being organised more efficiently, they could now bring pressure to bear on national governments. And this is extremely risky for EU as a whole. European citizenship through the Treaty of the European Union, which aimed at creating a closer Union among the peoples of Europe. When we heard the Hungarian prime minister, and unfortunately quite recently the Polish government, sometimes we heard some—(inaudible)—some kind of re-nationalization or some kind of this rhetoric. This course is a seminar for the bachelor program “Cultural studies” of the Europe-University Viadrina. They are unfinished business, and now they are struck by this kind of dysfunctionality. The debate … The European Council gets the second read on all laws and can accept the Parliament’s position, thus adopting the law. MEAD: Well, Stewart, that’s a good point. MEAD: OK, thank you. Donald Trump? The city has—the transport system is closed. So you have solidarity competing with sovereignty, with many of the countries saying no, we’re not going to do this. But she did that, and she expected solidarity. MEAD: You seem to be using the past tense there often, perhaps ominously. And I know that, coming from Germany, that unilateral actions taken, for example, by Germany are not very well appreciated. The problem is that, in European Union, you have so many, you know, languages, cultures, heritages, and we really would like to create a common space where people may freely change their location. But in the meantime, the United States has not come up very often in this discussion of Europe’s future. And there are many examples when this country plays for EU interests rather than for German interests—sanctions against Russia, and involvement in the negotiations with Russia over eastern Ukraine. Because I think what Barbara’s telling us is that progress is going to be difficult and slow, and this is—this is no break with European history. I think the question going forward really is whether or not, in the wake of these crises—there are two ways you could go; at least two ways you could go. Let me just ask the three of you, before we open this to the panel, to tell us briefly what you think the top priority of the European Union, or of Europe, needs to be at this moment among this multitudinous array of problems. Q: Ennen (ph), King’s College London and Chatham House. For almost 25 years, the European Union has been a model of democracy, free trade, and fraternity between nations. State and Local Conference Calls and Webinars, C. Peter McColough Series on International Economics. (Laughter.). PATRICK: It’s a bizarre success for a Council on Foreign Relations event. So it’s very important to distinguish the rhetoric. Many international congresses were also organised in order to bring this idea to fruition. I think we made far more success when playing with different roles. In this context, voices were heard calling for Western countries to adopt a neutral stance in the face of American materialism and Soviet totalitarianism. So I think it’s a—it’s a—it could be very difficult for U.K., for European Union to adapt to this new situation. And there are many other examples when, in terms of rhetoric, Central European countries seem to be anti-European. And, of course, it’s a little bit irritating for Germany or in other countries that we want, you know, to take some profits and not just, you know, contribute to the European Union. Backgrounder Q: All right. And I think that it also have two side effects. And that was, of course, the introduction of the euro. So these countries try to adopt its own national foreign and defense policies to NATO standards, and then it’s relatively easy also to follow this path and integrate with the EU. But this time maybe it could be different. One of them would be towards more Brussels and more centralization in a way, and the other would be to move more in an intergovernmental direction. So that, in a way, it’s always a bit too late. LIPPERT: I agree with Stewart as far as the priorities are concerned when you look at policy fields. And I feel like we don’t see that now. With that somewhat grim background, Stewart might kick us off with just a few remarks about the history of the European idea and the European Union. During the interwar period, the press kept discussing common European interests in the colonies (Greiner 2014: 300-323). This chapter explores the basic concept of Western European Unity. There was never one single European idea, but obviously, in the aftermath of the Second World War and the tremendous carnage created there, there was an effort to try to—and largely, it had discredited nationalism and the nation-state—with the important exception, I might add, of the United Kingdom. I think, however, what’s become apparent is that this irresolution, in a way, or contradiction between a supranational Europe, with authority going to Brussels institutions, versus intergovernmental vision of Europe, the tensions and contradictions are increasingly apparent. MEAD: All right. Translation for: 'promotion of the European idea' in English->Croatian dictionary. It has always been reluctant to take on this role. CWIEK-KARPOWICZ: Before I talk about internal migrants—I mean, the Europeans who change their places in EU—I think that we should have in our mind once again Central Europe. After decades of sustained land operations, the U.S. Marine Corps is looking back out to sea, embracing its roots as a naval expeditionary force. We are just a few weeks after regional elections where Alternative für Deutschland—that’s the anti-European party—gain quite great results. It’s a pleasure to be here. You couldn’t have all the compromises in the Maastricht Treaty with all of the member states—and it were only 12 at that time, not 28. And just as an example, Baltic States, countries which I mentioned before, which are very much favorable towards for the economic integration. The important element here is the stated intention that this European citizenship should be seen as a complement to the citizenship at … Beijing has tightened its grip on Hong Kong in recent years, dimming hopes that the financial center will ever become a full democracy. And quite recently European Union published the result of surveys, and more than 60 percent of Europeans believe in the future of European Union, and almost the same percentage believe in EU more than in the national parliaments and national governments. And this sort of overlapped now with the refugee and migration crisis. This is part of our Campus Spotlight on Europa-Universität Viadrina. And still I think that EU is very much concerned how to encourage mobility of Europeans. And, obviously, also we have terrorism and migration issues. Thank you, Council on Foreign Relations, for invitation. My love for Europe was further stimulated during my time as a Member of the European Parliament. Because you mentioned a lot of contingent factors. There needs to be a way to make sure that there’s some sort of bargain amongst the different members of the EU to actually apportion the burden of those that are eligible for refugee status throughout the European Union, which is something that—it really—it’s quite ridiculous. New "ancient-DNA" research sheds light on the networks that existed across the whole of Europe and northern Africa 5000 years ago. And yet, they retain their independent fiscal policies, which obviously is—and often very wildly inconsistent fiscal policies. This first session is going to be titled “The European Idea.” Our discussion will focus on the creation and the evolution of the European Union, and what lessons learned can be applied to Europe’s current challenges. This is an example of 2005 and referendum in the Netherlands and in France, and Dutch and French people voted against European Constitution. You don’t hear David Cameron saying he wants Britain at the heart of Europe. ISBN 0-521-79171-5 – ISBN 0-521-79552-4 (pbk.) And I very much refer to this triangular sort of leadership formation, for which Germany needs also the U.K., given the tensions between Paris and Berlin on many—in many policy areas. So the question is, do all member states really have the chance to participate in policymaking and have their share? And after the establishment/foundation of the Community for Coal and Steel, it immediately slid into the next crisis with the failed treaty on the Defense Community and the Political Community in ’54. My name is Christopher Smart. And Barbara Lippert would like to talk a little bit about some of the crises that Europe faces today. So both scenarios—U.K. And that is one of the severe problems. And that’s why I think that we’re going to see more re-nationalization and more of a multi-speed Europe where there’s more opting-in and opting-out regardless, as I said, of what happens with the British decision. So we again, I think, face a lot of sovereignty clashes and challenges. It was the element of a U.K. decision to stay in the European Union. The idea of a specifically European unity finally became, at least for some, a feasible project, not only to avoid another war but to avoid the destruction of the idea of European unity. I think there are—there’s an agreement already to resettle 160,000 refugees from—which was only a small fraction of the ones that actually got into Europe. For comparison, the EU-28 birth rate had stood at 10.6 in 2000, 12.8 in 1985 and 16.3 in 1970. So we should be getting a variety of viewpoints here, and I can’t think of three people who would have anything more interesting to say on the topic. (Laughter.) What, then, of ‘the idea of Europe’? And that is something which, of course, is very much up to the member states to address it. Nationalism – Europe. Ahead of the annual IMF and World Bank Spring Meetings, please join IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva for a discussion of the economic outlook in the post-pandemic world and the actions needed to drive the recovery. LIPPERT: Well, when you look at the history of European Union, you’re right. And so, when Angela Merkel threw open the welcome mat for refugees, what she was essentially doing was saying, look, this is part of being European—this is part of the European idea, is that we welcome people in distress. And I think what you can say for the past, when you look at the eurozone, developing eurozone crisis, and also the refugee crisis, you could blame the EU and don’t talk about the U.S. for its inactivity. March 1, 2021, China’s Belt and Road: Implications for the United States, Task Force Report This is true for both cases, refugee crisis and eurozone crisis. It could accommodate many different solutions. So we begin, obviously, all of us are aware of the terrible news from Brussels this morning. On the other hand, we may observe that these countries are very much interested in further integration or just rather to keep the European Union as it is now. When you look at the economy, when you look at what’s happening in some of the member states, which I would call a fractioning process, fractioning with regard to basic democratic values, but also when you look at democratic governance. But in reality, they want further integration. There’s obviously the question of Brexit. For example, where European Union is thinking about sanctions against Russia, we heard from Central European leaders some voices that maybe we should deal with Russia, we should not impose sanctions. The history of the European idea, obviously, goes back centuries, if not perhaps even millennia, but has been particularly gripping and compelling to Europeans since the … It would be the status quite similar to Russia, OK? And in every crisis, or in many crises—from the origins of the European Union with the European Coal and Steel Community, to the launching of the European Economic Communities in the Treaty of Rome, to the movement toward the Single European Act in the 1980s, and then the Maastricht Treaty—in every case, there was a sense that unless Europe moved forward it would face increased crisis, and that the centrifugal forces would be too great. So that’s why we may say that, under this leadership, Germany are very responsible and very European. And let’s begin here. And we have still areas where you need to have unanimity, or where it’s politically better to have unanimity and fight for a consensus. I think in the past what we’ve seen are that the European Union has tended to confront a number of crises over the course of its history. What’s going on here? It means that if Brits votes against European Union membership, we have European—we have United Kingdom outside the European Union—no associated, nor in some links with European Union. Second is that, in contrast to the days of Monnet, where compromises could be found behind closed doors, we now have, I think, a very strong involvement of the public sphere. 2. And something—at least I think—I believe at the end of February they had only resettled about 500 of them, after several months. China is successfully using the Belt and Road Initiative to promote the adoption of Huawei 5G, while the United States is looking to reverse these gains. This theme created a confusion between nationalism and the idea of the nation, between nationalism and state sovereignty. Only a year after the new coronavirus emerged, the first vaccines to protect against it are being administered. Net Politics. So Brexit, for you, is the number one of all of the crises. And we now see that this might also have reached its limits to use differentiation as a means for more deepening. The Russian threat in Ukraine has so far led to a united response. But I think there are some particular observations we can make. However, non-alignment, which became increasingly difficult to implement as the Cold War intensified, was soon defended only by the pacifist and internationalist movements. And there’s a big question as to whether now, in this current circumstance—the eurozone crisis, which continues to percolate along, and also the humanitarian migration crisis—whether or not that dynamic will actually persist. And then, of course, we have, I would say, not a real crisis—that is Brexit, the threat to have this referendum on membership. In order to avoid the world being divided into two antagonistic blocs and to prevent the inevitably ensuing war, it seemed essential to establish a third European pole. The council is made up of the Union’s 27 heads of state, plus a president. They started as gradual processes. That’s why the domestic situation in Germany are very important. Germany’s the answer to the migration problem, to the Greek problem, to the euro problem. (Laughter.) The area of the Europe is roughly of the size of the United States, less than half the size of North America, and less than a quarter of the size of Asia; the total population of the country is no more than … Am I correct that—from your remarks, all of you, that the United States is largely irrelevant to the kinds of problems that you have discussed and that you are quite pleased that the U.S. is not pushing any American proposals or solutions? These ranged from the Comintern (1919), to the Labour and Socialist International (1921) to the Radical and Democratic Entente of centre-left progressive parties (1924), to the Green Internationalof fa… The Idea of Europe : from antiquity to the European Union / edited by Anthony Pagden. The subject is the idea of Europe. You know, not all are included in both of these integrated policies. And, of course, the whole idea is to always find new compromises. And, indeed, it’s quite problematic for EU as such that it’s not enough, you know, to wait—waiting for developments and to take on some profits. You might say that, of course, external enemies should help Europeans to integrate our external policies and to be much more united. Middle East Program, The Marine Corps’ Shifting Focus: What to Know, by Walker M. Field The “European Idea:” Historical Contexts, Debates, and Mental Maps on Europe as a Concept. LIPPERT: So thank you, Chair. Please limit yourselves to one question. So it’s not as if the United States escapes any blame for helping create the situation that is washing up on your shores. Within national parliaments, particularly those of the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Italy, the number of supporters of federalism was progressively increasing. And I think that this is something which we achieve in our history, that indeed people can freely find jobs and change countries. The European Union (EU) is a unification of 28 member states (including the United Kingdom) united to create a political and economic community throughout Europe. Inspire, Debate, Engage and Accelerate Action | European Commission And it was, of course, established to deal with all those challenges the nation-state cannot. And we’ve still—we’ve still tried to repeat this obligation that Poland, sooner or later, would be a member of eurozone, but now we would like to wait a little bit. Even if Britain were to stay in, it’s interesting that 20 years ago John Major, the prime minister then, spoke of Britain. So I think it is, to some extent, still the problem of output legitimacy. Can we thank our panel, please? These groups were fully behind the Stockholm Appeal, which the World Peace Council launched in March 1950 to demand a total worldwide ban on nuclear weapons. This event is made possible by the generous support of the Hauser Foundation. State your name and your affiliation. The idea that Great Britain could leave the EU motivated photographer Wolfgang Tillmans to realise a poster campaign in 2016. And then we have a problem of other countries who also would like to follow U.K. in this regard, that they also would like to negotiate some special status. MEAD: All right. in or out of the European Union—are quite risky for European Union. I just wanted to pick up on the notion of a halfway house that you had mentioned. When you take the eurozone crisis, there you have a situation where the members of the euro are—have a common central bank, and so they’ve given up monetary policy. And Greece last summer—if there were ever a time for a country to either leave or be expelled, I think you would have predicted that that would have happened, and it didn’t. One is obviously the financial crisis. Is that a success or a failure? Q: My name is Galen Guengerich. But whenever things that impact directly on national electorates is concerned, then consensus becomes harder. PATRICK: Thank you, Walter. The ideal of European unity, which had already been popularised by certain elite circles during the inter-war period, spread rapidly just after the Second World War. Once upon a time the environment was the EU’s next big idea. I think, yes, I think he’s absolutely right in this. (Applause. PATRICK: Yeah, I think Ennen (ph), who I went to graduate school with and basically learned everything I know about the European Union from his coattails. The European idea, a 5000 years old concept according to the Bell Beaker culture. When you look back at all of the crises, there are always charismatic or likeminded leaders in the major European countries that drove things forward.