The Story of Europe

Europe has a very good story,
full of drama, pathos, villains, heroes and unexpected turns.

Until very recently we believed
we were living the happy end of this story,
Francis Fukujama even called it the end of history.

But the story is not finished,
although we hope we can remain in the happy part of the story.

This is the story I tell my 8 year old daughter.

Europe is the continent of philosophers, inventors, architects and lovers.

Europeans invented democracy, maps and human rights. Europe has stunning landscapes, wonderful architecture and delicious cuisine.

But Europe was also a continent of soldiers, dictators and populists.

We produced the most atrocious wars and
crimes against humanity.

For centuries Europe was the Middle East of the world
where war and hatred was common behavior.

Millions of people were killed in the most bloody wars and
we invented Concentration Camps.

In the 20th century this came to a disastrous climax.
Over 60 million people were killed in the 2nd World War and many of Europe's great cities got destroyed,
including the city of my father, Dresden.

Then a miracle happened.

After this last great war,
the western part of Europe decided
to make any future war impossible
by giving up national sovereignty over steel, coal and nuclear energy,
the hardware of wars,
and building a European Union.

The narrative of this European Union was
Peace, Stability and Prosperity through
economic and political integration.

This was also a counter model to the Eastern Bloc
which was a Union
held together by suppression and dictatorship.

This new Europe developed extremely well over 5 decades,
managing setbacks and crises on the way.

Europe integrated and transformed former dictatorships
in the South (Greece, Portugal, Spain)
and became one of the most prosperous and civilized regions in the world.

Then the Berlin Wall came down
and the artificial division of Europe
was overcome by the speedy integration of the former Eastern Bloc into the European Union.

This was almost another miracle,
certainly for me
coming from Eastern Germany.

Then 2008 and the Great Financial Crisis,
'brought to us by Lehmann Brothers'.

Here Europe did not manage very well
and found it hard to come up with common solutions.

We saw a lot of muddling through and
a return to nationalistic talk. 

Eurosceptic leaders are now on the rise.

However,
Europe is still together,
the Euro has not broken apart
and the economy is stabilising.

But for millions of people
Europe's promise of ever rising prosperity is broken.

Economically, Europe is divided again,
into a small group of well functioning economies, and
a larger group of countries with declining prosperity and
very high unemployment levels.

Many people are angry
with their difficult economic situation,
with incapable leaders and
with the bleak outlook for the young generation.

Populists of all colours have benefitted from this anger and
will win up to 30% in the European elections this week.

Democracy is under pressure
(We will talk about this in the next session).

But it is holding up.

How would Europe have dealt with such financial crises in the past century? We have seen how in the 1930s.

Then, March 2014 brought a new,
unexpected, crisis for Europe,
the Russian annexation of Crimea  and
the destabilization of Ukraine.

Suddenly peace and stability in Europe are not only
far away memories.

I was just in Sarajevo and talked there with people from Estonia, Poland and Slovakia.
For them the European promise of peace and stability is now extremely relevant and urgent.

We are days before the European election:

Europe is in a difficult phase of its story.
We are coming out of an economic crisis,
We still have a big social crisis to deal with and
we have an external crisis developing on our Eastern border.

But looking at the bigger European narrative
Europe is still in its most successful phase and
it is much better equipped
to deal with internal and external crises
than ever before in its history.

This is the story of Europe.

We do not need to invent a new narrative,
as some tell us,
the one we have
is also the best we have. 
Rather we should tell it,
better and better.

(Speech at the Al Mercato Forum 19 May 2014)