The International Paneuropa Union is glad to announce the 

Paneuropa Rome Colloquium

on 

"European Identity, Culture and Globalisation"
A Challenge for Europe
held on the 12./13. of October 2007
Sala Capitolare del Senato
Piazza della Minerva

Delegations from over 24 countries, covering more than 180 participants, have the pleasure to discuss two days and in five panels about fundamental questions of the European Identity. Experts from the fields of politics, philosophy, christianity and other spectrums, as for example:
- Alain Terrenoire, Président de l'Union Paneuropénne Internationale
- Franco Marini, Président du Sénat – Italie
- Silvio Berlusconi,  Ancien Président du Conseil d'Italie
- Joseph Daul, Président du Groupe PPE/DE au Parlement Européen – France
- Ján Figel', Membre de la Commission Européenne chargé de la Culture, Président de l'UPE Slovaquie
- Archiduc Otto de Habsbourg, Président d'Honneur de l'UPI, Membre honoraire du Parlement Européen
- Antonio Tajani, Président de la Délégation italienne du Groupe PPE/DE au Parlement Européen
- Mario Mauro, Vice-Président du Parlement Européen – Italie
- Gérard Bokanowski, Secrétaire Général de l'Union Paneuropéenne Internationale
- Dr. Riccardo Di Segni, Grand Rabin de Rome – Italie
- Daniel Ducarme, Ministre d'Etat, Président du Mouvement Réformateur International – Belgique
- Mohammed Arkoun, Professeur émérite à l'Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris – France
- Dr. Fatmir Sejdiu, Président du Kosovo
- Genc Pollo, Ministre de l'Education, Président de l'Union Paneuropéenne – Albanie
- Rocco Buttiglione, Sénateur, Ancien Ministre – Italie
- SE le Cardinal Paul Poupard, Président du Conseil Pontifical de la Culture et du Conseil Pontifical pour le dialogue interreligieux-Saint-Siège
will give an insight on which pillars our continent is based on, what common cross-border links are existing and what possible scenarios for the future of Europe may develope. Please read below the introduction note to the International Paneuropa Colloquium

Note introducing the Conference

Having scarcely emerged from a century in which her identity, culture and civilisation almost disappeared, Europe – in these early years of the twenty-first century – now finds herself faced with new challenges. More conscious than ever of the need to continue to reinforce their unity, as they have been doing for the last fifty years, Europeans must rise to the occasion. Fresh and vigorous impetus is urgently required. Once economic and political, these challenges have now moved into the arena of identity and culture. After examining the principal components of the European cultural heritage, the conference which the International Pan-European Union is proposing to hold in Rome in October will analyse the new challenges European culture must confront and, by proposing new approaches, will endeavour to identify the conditions for the new impetus which is so essential.
 

I. The Heritage

Here we recall the essential values of European civilisation, and more particularly the roots of this civilisation. Taken as a whole, these values can be summarised in a single concept: personalist humanism. The sources of such humanism are threefold:

• Greco-Roman
• Judeo-Christian
• Rationalist (the ‘Lumières’).

The religious or philosophical movements which sprang from this lean toward the quest for salvation, beauty, happiness, the flowering of the individual, democracy and freedom. In most cases, these movements are concerned with the requirements of wellbeing for the individual, or more precisely for people, and equilibrium for the societies in which they live. However, this shared vision – at the heart of the European concept of civilisation, from Plato to St Paul, from Erasmus to Montaigne, from Hobbes to Kant, from St Teresa of Ávila to John Paul II to name but a few – must not be allowed conceal the distortions and perversions of religious, philosophical and political thought which have beset Europeans throughout their history and especially in the last century.
 
 

II. The Challenges

Although different in form from the manifestations of totalitarianism that marked the twentieth century, and in particular those of terror or mass extermination, the new challenges of today do have a point in common:  they offer a globalising, standardising vision of society while at the same time advocating individualist values. Thus, a sort of ‘gregarious individualism’ is emerging with profound consequences for society. With this in mind, the principal points to be covered at the conference are as follows:

• the problems posed for Europe by the peculiar form of hegemony which American messianism represents (the concepts of ‘manifest destiny’ and ‘indispensable nation’) and which often takes the form of a cultural messianism powerfully relayed by modern techniques of cultural dissemination or access to knowledge (communication and media industries, e-learning, internet, search engines, video games, mass distribution methods which are nevertheless highly individualised such as podcasting etc);

• the growing threat posed by fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism in particular;

• the radical approach in ecological thinking which not only denies humankind a special and pre-eminent place in nature but also seriously holds back new research (GMOs, stem cells, nuclear issues etc) – an approach which at times bears the hallmarks of a new religion;

• the emergence of substitutes for religion – sectarian movements, ‘new age’, religious relativism;

• profound changes in European society due to the ageing of the population, the lack of a European birth-rate policy, the rejection of a common strategy to control migration (according to a recent World Bank report, 100 million immigrants can be expected to have arrived from non-European countries by 2050 to compensate for the demographic deficit);

• the excessive domination of the image in the dissemination of information and knowledge, favouring the instantaneous and the emotional over reflection;

• Inability of larger and larger sections of the population to reconnect with their own culture as a result of the absence of historical, philosophical or religious points of reference.
 

III. The New Impetus

Europeans are perfectly capable of rising to these challenges if only they will acknowledge the urgency and global nature of the problem. The conditions for the new impetus are as follows:

• faced with the rapid, chaotic and dangerous development of a multi-polar world, Europe must assert herself as an independent, sovereign and united power;

• science and technology, which is such an essential branch of culture, must take its place in European society and in particular among the younger generations;

• relations between religion and society must be rethought in the perspective of open and constructive secularism;

• the attitude of Europeans to the major phenomenon of immigration, all too often seen as a threat by ill-informed opinion, must focus on the cultural and human enrichment that such immigration brings provided it is properly controlled;  together with the preservation of different local, national and European levels of identity, this must be seen as the main point of focus for the years to come;

• the problems posed by climate change, the environment and sustainable development must be seen in a positive light as producing technical and political innovations and leading to collective enrichment;

• a strong sense of identity and belonging must be developed within a Europe which is finally reunited and which is blessed with an incomparable cultural richness and diversity that is, alas, today grossly underestimated by the Europeans themselves.

The major challenge for Europe, today, is cultural, and it can be met only by strong political determination inspired by a clear and confident vision of the future and the re-adoption of a philosophy of history capable of giving direction and sense to European construction as it faces the process of globalisation. Contrary to what is often claimed, this process leads neither to the shock of civilisations, nor to cultural standardisation, but rather to fierce competition between the different visions of their collective destiny and future embraced by the principal actors in a very rapidly developing multipolar world, the emergence of which is proving to be chaotic and unpredictable. In these early years of the century the mission of a powerful, independent, sovereign and united Europe will be to transform this competition into a permanent dialogue between cultures and civilisations.