The opening of the Dahrendorf Symposium, with a small recital given by a Chinese pianist playing Ode to Joy is nothing but a very strong example of how global the world has become. The young musician, educated in Europe and living here, can be perceived as a member of the European demos, without actually being part of any actual European nation. Whether he feels European or not, he is a part of the society. Regardless of the efforts of some to make Europe a ‘fortress Europe’, it is not cut off from the rest of the world and would rather never be.

Truly, it it not possible to speak about Europe without taking into account the bigger, global picture. It is not only an oversimplification but also an unforgivable negligence of the events shaping Europe today. It is also ignorance of the backlash of the European deeds and acts influencing and shaping the world before it lost its dependence to the Old Continent. The interplay between the old and new directions of influence is an interesting switch for Europe, as for centuries it has europeanized the whole globe and today is more and more entangled in the different forces in the world it ones owned.

The role and global impact of Europe today is far from being clear. The former centre of the world, the military, cultural and political superior, today is more like an old lady with fine manners and old values, who spends days on ambitious readings, balls and social gatherings, but do not put herself in the turmoil of the global events. For years already Europe is a reactionary entity. Europe reacts on the events in the world, but do not claim to have power and ambition to actually initiate anything. Too focused on the internal tensions and interests, Europe is not taking the lead in the world. On the other hand, it is hard to imagine a leader with so many heads. Too many cooks spoils the broth.

In order to understand the place of Europe in today’s world we have to understand the role and importance of Europe in the previous centuries as well as the events that brought about the fall of the world order imposed by the European nations and the European thought. The rapid and unexpected downfall of the Old World was not thinkable even at the beginning of the 20th century, yet it managed to deprive the region all its former power just within a few decades.

The collapse of Europe in the 20th century is marked by three events: the First World War, the so-called ‘civil war of Europe’, which brought the military and economic superiority of the Old Continent to an end. Then, the Second World War, staining the European nations with the moral guilt oppression and genocide. The extermination of European Jews not only deprived the continent one of its vital element, for years building the tissue of almost every European society, but also caused a decline of its global meaning.

Within one generation the most important region of the world ended up completely without significance, facing the loss of their colonies that indeed followed, and with its new power centres placed both outside the continent – one in Washington, the other in Moscow. In aftermath the European powers, such as Great Britain, France and Germany have lost their traditional legitimacy to impose their will over the world. The remains of the former power were reflected in the structure of the UN Security Council, but it was a mere a consolation prize. But the picture was straightforward: the power was gone. It was gone so far that the states in the continent were also deprived the possibility to rule their own territory as a sovereign.

On the other hand, the tragedy of European downfall, the forsaken of the Central Europe to the Soviet bloc for the price of peace, the acceptance of the darker spill-offs of the European dominance turned out to have one positive consequence: it enabled the European integration as we know it today. The cooperation between the Western countries was the only possibility for them to be a more or less equal partner to the United States of America, the de facto winner of the war, along the Soviet Union.

It was also the only way for the former important global actors France, Germany and Italy to come back to the game. France was ridiculed by its shameful defeat and exposed weakness. Italy was not treated seriously as the initiator of the fascist movements and governments and later as a military partner of limited skills and abilities. Finally, Germany – compromised by its responsibility of the war and the Holocaust, humiliated by losing much of its territory in the West and divided into two countries locked on the opposite sides of the Iron Curtain. Starting the cooperation within the European Communities was the only chance for them to regain their meaning.

Today we tend to forget that the construction of the European cooperation was not only about security and peace, but also about dignity and self-respect. In a way, the European project was a bit Utopian wish to prove the existence of the positive, valuable and good part of the European heritage. The possibility to be actually proud of Europe, which sounds pretty natural today, must be a great step towards what the grounding fathers were dreaming about.

Back to Dahrendorf Symposium and the moving music played by Xiao Xiao Zhu, symbolically bringing Europe to the conference room and the conference room to Europe, we stand at the beginning of a two-day conference focusing on the strenghts, threats and opportunities, both internal and global, that Europe is facing today.

The many burning questions and problems that European Union is facing today cannot be answered just within these two days. But aksing the questions and pinning-up the problems and then discussing them is a small input the event can bring to the bigger debate on the present and future of Europe.

The present crisis underlys the political weakness of the European Union and demands financial and political solutions for now and here. But the project is not yet complete. Even if we are now busy with plugging the holes in the ship named Europe, we must not forget to decide in which direction the ship should actually go. Without defining our goals and values, without defining where we want to be fifty years from now, we cannot count on the rest of the world to be inspired and our own citizens to be excited.