1 - Introducing The Newest Europe

New Tandem series analyzes the renewing of the Old World through unity

On April 16, in Athens, the Heads of State and Foreign Ministers of the 15 member states of the European Union decided to admit 10 new members, effective May 1, 2004.
The event had great historical, political and economic significance. The historical relevance was due to the fact that, up until the Eighties, these new members were considered "the enemy": they embodied the Soviet area of a Europe still split by the Iron Curtain. The political and economic significance lies in the fact that the European Union, already strong in productivity and with a solid currency, becomes even stronger: on May 1, 2004, its territory will go from the Iberian Peninsula to the Urals, encompassing 450 million citizens. A continent under way, then, representing an immense marketplace, destined to become a first-rank political entity.
The big North American media have paid little attention to this event that will redesign the global strategic scenarios. And yet, some of the indications coming from Athens should concern America, namely, the efforts of European leaders to mend the rifts, both internal and external, that preceded the U.S.-British assault on Baghdad. The controversy was not fanned; on the contrary, an appeal was made to return Iraq to democracy and wealth through international institutions, first and foremost the U.N., revitalized and adapted to cope with the new world emergencies, in accordance with Washington's desires. This, too, escaped North American media.
So, did the media underestimate the event, or did they simply miss its real significance? Our new report series will try and assist our readers in understanding this reality, stubbornly pursued by the Europeans for the past half century and now proceeding swiftly forward, following decades of foundation-laying. It moves so fast that its currency, the Euro, is stronger than the U.S. dollar.
Our series will be published in Italian on Corriere Canadese and in English on Tandem, and will remain accessible on the websites of both papers,: www.corriere.com and tandemnews.com.
However, our series does not concern only North Americans. It is also addressed to those Europeans, sometimes unaware of being such, living in this great continent. A great many of them could not follow every historical and political step that led to the Union, since France, on May 9, 1950, officially proposed "to create the first concrete bases for a European Federation".
At the time, many Italians, Spaniards, Portuguese, Frenchmen, Greeks, Irish, and Germans were already living here, in Canada and the United States, and many more were boarding the ships in the hopes of building a new life overseas, after World War II had destroyed the old one.
Their children and grandchildren grew up as Canadians or Americans, and to them the land of origin, known through the tales told by parents and grandparents, was Italy or Portugal, Spain or Greece, France or Germany. Not "Europe".
Nowadays, on the other hand, Europe presents itself as the common land of origin of all those who helped build the greatness of Canada and the United States, but also of South America and Australia. Through them, that land of origin, simultaneously ancient and modern, is now present in economy, culture, and politics of their new homelands.
What most Europeans are going through, some of them possibly unaware, is no small revolution: it brings everybody together in the land whence the world's most important models of development came. Let's just mention democracy, born in Greece over 2,000 years ago. Being Europeans today does not mean ceasing to be Italians or Spaniards, Czechs or Hungarians; it means being both citizens of a state and at the same time citizens of the European Union. This is a new awareness, a greater richness, inside each of us. Even if some of us don't know it yet.
This new series is entitled The Newest Europe. By this title we intend to indicate an institution that is an absolute political novelty; it goes beyond the Old Europe that gave life to the New World with centuries of migrations, and also beyond the New Europe, that looked for ways to prevent further massacre after the bloodshed of World War II. Today's Europe, the newest one, is projected towards the future. It draws strength from its millenary history and culture, as well as from the capability it displayed in ensuring 50 years of peace and wealth to the Europeans. How many countries can claim as much? The series will begin in Friuli, Italy's most European region, where the three souls of this continent have met for centuries: the Latin, Germanic and Slavic ones. In Friuli, a region marking the boundary between Central, Northern and Eastern Europe, the Union is not regarded as imposed from above but as consequential to reality, as the merging of those three souls favoured the birth and establishment of a common culture. Along the roads opened by culture, trade rolled.
Culture is what binds Europeans together, despite their infinite diversity that in history fuelled bloody wars. When the guns returned silent, these people were able to pick up the dialogue where it had been cut short. "Try and find another country where history was so marked by culturally unifying factors," said Gianfranco Ellero, a Friulian intellectual. "This happened only in Europe, and it became a collective patrimony. Think of the importance of the Roman Empire, Christianity and therefore the Papacy, but also the Protestant Reformation, and the sciences, arts and letters."
He continued: "The Humanism, Renaissance, Baroque, Enlightenment were not national but European movements. If they can be traced to Italy and France, Spain and Germany, Slovenia, the Netherlands, or Hungary, that means they assumed a universal language, and are patrimony of all of us."
After illustrating what binds Europeans together and gives them strength - culture - our series will explain which institutions make the Union the most exciting political news of the last two centuries. A brief history of Europe will help us understand how ancient divisions and mistrust were overcome. Finally, we shall give some space to an event that closely concerns Italy, i.e. the semester of presidency of the Union with some truly fundamental events included in its schedule, the launch of the Constitution of Europe and of a joint diplomatic and defense policy.
We hope that our work will contribute to let North America, often too closed within the political and cultural citadel of the USA, what lies beyond the fence, which alternatives in democracy, civilization and market can come out of a comparison between equals. This comparison will be between equals because the point is not to choose which model is better, but to advance two considerations. No model is the best, and the reasons of force (political, economic, military force) can never replace the force of reason, mother of all dialogues. Everybody wins in a comparison between equals: this is what the quarrelsome Europeans understood, and they found a way to get along, overcoming countless historical and political barriers. That's how they built the Newest Europe.

This is Part One of the series The Newest Europe

Publication Date: 2004-08-22
Story Location: http://tandemnews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=4318