DOES EUROPE HAVE A FUTURE?

"Wer von Europa spricht, hat unrecht," Bismarck said: "Whoever speaks of Europe is wrong." After reading a great deal of what has been written about Europe, one is tempted to agree with the old statesman. It has become increasingly difficult to get one's bearings. Are pro-Europeans for or against the Americans? For or against the Russians? For or against other Europeans? Can one find clear answers to these questions?

In the decade of neo-realism, it seemed wise to abandon dreams of the past, to rely on the balance of power and the prudence of sovereign governments. However, it must also be noted that even if the European idea has not mobilized as many partisans as, for example, the revolution in mores or women's liberation, it has not been extinguished. And with the entrance of the United Kingdom into the European Community, it will soon take a new form.

To understand this phenomenon of Europe, to imagine its future development, one must turn to its origins and look for what has changed in 20 years. One can thereby infer what possibilities are open to the Eureuropeans, situated between their Euramerican cousins, and the Eur-asiatics.

II

Those who spoke of "Europe" before the war was over or immediately after it, had no intention of creating a "superpower." The idea did not even exist. The guiding spirit of resistance movements, or The Hague Peace Conference of 1907, was a politico-moral one-that of reconciliation. For the German resistants of the White Rose, as well as for the resistance movements of Italy, France, Poland and the Low Countries, the two World Wars had originated in the absolute authority of the state. If one wished to prevent the same thing from happening yet another time, Germany should not be punished, as after 1919, but reintegrated into the human family, beginning with Europe. The means toward this end were implicit in the federal idea, which existed in various formulae, elaborated to a greater or less degree, and which was the basis of all the European resistance movements.[i] The war was thought of as not against Germany specifically, but rather as against the madness of hypernationalism; the remedy for the calamities of war lay in a collective effort to organize Europe in a fundamentally different way.