A Vision Of Europe

This volume represents the outcome of two years of intensive debate about the future of Europe. It aims to provide the European Union with a vision: one that will unite all of its citizens and help to create the democratic legitimacy that the EU currently lacks. It builds on the first book on social quality, The Social Quality of Europe, which introduced the concept and which has been enthusiastically received by both the scientific and policy communities. The book develops three crucial elements of social quality: the theoretical validity of the concept, its practical application, and its identity or `genetic code'. It establishes an independent identity for social quality, with a unique focus on the quality of the social, which enables it to act as the rationale for economic, social, and cultural policies and, therefore, an escape route from the dominance of narrow economic thinking in policy making.

In the turbulent period following the First World War the young Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi founded the Pan-European Union, offering a vision of peaceful, democratic unity for Europe, with no borders, a common currency, and a single passport. His political congresses in Vienna, Berlin, and Basel attracted thousands from the intelligentsia and the cultural elite, including Albert Einstein, Thomas Mann, and Sigmund Freud, who wanted a United States of Europe brought together by consent. The Count's commitment to this cooperative ideal infuriated Adolf Hitler, who referred to him as a "cosmopolitan bastard" in Mein Kampf. Communists and nationalists, xenophobes and populists alike hated the Count and his political mission. When the Nazis annexed Austria, the Count and his wife, the famous actress Ida Roland, narrowly escaped the Gestapo. He fled to the United States, where he helped shape American policy for postwar Europe. Coudenhove-Kalergi's profile was such that he served as the basis for the fictional resistance hero Victor Laszlo in the film Casablanca. A brilliant networker, the Count guided many European leaders, notably advising Winston Churchill before his 1946 Zürich speech on Europe. A friend to both Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and President Charles de Gaulle, Coudenhove-Kalergi was personally invited to the High Mass in Rheims Cathedral in 1961 to celebrate Franco-German reconciliation. A provocative visionary for Europe, Coudenhove-Kalergi thought and acted in terms of continents, not countries. For the Count, the United States of Europe was the answer to the challenges of communist Russia and capitalist America. Indeed, he launched his Pan-European Union thirty years before Jean Monnet set up the European Coal and Steel Community, the precursor to the European Union. Timely and captivating, Martyn Bond's biography offers an opportunity to explore a remarkable life and revisit the impetus and origins of a unified Europe.

Rifkin delves deeply into the history of Europe--and eventually America--to show how Europeans have succeeded in slowly and steadily developing a more adaptive, sensible way of working and living.

It is commonly held that the inter-war era marked little more than a ceasefire between two world wars, with the improvement in German-Allied relations forged at Locarno in 1925 cut short by the global economic turmoil that followed the 1929 Wall Street Crash. A Vision of Europe challenges this received wisdom, offering a fundamental re-evaluation of inter-war Franco-German relations during the Great Depression and providing a fuller understanding of the historical origins of today's European Union. It demonstrates that rather than lapsing into mutual recrimination and national egotism, France and Germany engaged with the challenges of the post-1929 slump by way of plans for a Franco-German customs union and wider bilateral economic collaboration, whether across the Rhine, in the French Empire, or elsewhere in Europe. These plans were regarded as the initial steps on the road to a European Union that would reconcile Berlin's search for national rehabilitation with France's need for national security, so providing a means of resolving the formidable legacies of the First World War and Versailles Peace Settlement. Their efforts culminated in September 1931 in a formal agreement to establish a Franco-German economic community, which included the institutional means to transform ambition into reality. Unlike comparable post-1949 diplomacy, however, these aspirations ended in failure, but they nonetheless provided an invaluable, if largely unacknowledged template for the process of (West)-European recovery in the aftermath of the Third Reich. This finely-focused study of the exchanges between individual politicians and diplomats, whether domestically or across the Rhine, also examines the relationship between the official sphere, the press, and a range of cultural associations and initiatives. It also explores the role of key economic associations and pressure groups whose energies were harnessed by Paris and Berlin in the cause of rapprochement. These were complex processes where success or failure could rest on particular personal exchanges, a badly-timed election, or unanticipated economic upsets that compromised diplomacy's best-laid plans.

With a Foreword by the President of the European Parliament, Antonio Tajani. This book sheds light on the political dynamics within the EU member states and contributes to the discussions about Europe. Authors from all member states as well as Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Turkey assess how their country could get more involved in the European debate, taking the reader on a journey through various political landscapes and different views. The chapters cover issues ranging from a perceived lack of ambition at the periphery to a careful balancing act between diverse standpoints at the geographical centre. Yet, discussions share common features such as the anxiety regarding national sovereignty, the migration and border discourse, security concerns as well as the obvious need to regain trust and create policies that work. The book contributes vigorously to the debate about Europe in all capitals and every corner of the continent, because this is where its future will be decided.