From Europe to EUrope: a Story of Hope, Trial and Error

Abstract

Twice in little more than half a century — thus in my own living memory — Europe emerged from the grip of dark forces of evil to the light of freedom. Hitler’s barbaric onslaught on liberty and civility led through the hell of the holocaust to a European continent in ruins, in which despite everything the values so savagely attacked had prevailed. That was the challenge of 1945. Then, barely three years later, a large part of Europe was cut off from the new opportunities and enveloped in the brutal denial of rights and life chances by Stalin’s tyranny, which later turned into the grey oppressiveness of ‘really existing socialism’. But this too did not last. In 1980, solidarnosc took up the torch lit and quenched in Berlin in 1953, in Budapest in 1956, and in Prague in 1968. This time, the dictators were in retreat, until finally they had to let go of hitherto communist Europe and leave it in the hands of ‘dissident’ believers in democracy and the rule of law. That was the challenge of 1989.

15th Annual Paul Henri Spaak Lecture, given at the Center for International Affairs, Harvard University, on 2 October 1996