Andechs Europe Day on European Values
The 64th Andechs Europe Day, organised by the Pan-European Union Germany on 18 and 19 October 2025, was held under the motto ‘European Values – an Empty Phrase?’ The conference dealt with the intellectual foundations that can strengthen European unity in the face of internal and external threats.
The President of the Pan-European Union Germany, Bernd Posselt, vigorously opposed efforts to weaken the so-called firewall against the AfD. This ‘thoroughly right-wing extremist party’ is in the service of at least one foreign power and wants to "destroy the most precious thing that Christian statesmen such as Adenauer, Schuman, De Gasperi and Strauß built after the Second World War, namely European unity, the democratic constitutional state and the social market economy." Posselt accused the far-right forces in Europe of misusing Christianity for identity purposes and worshipping materialistic idols such as nationalism. Nationalism, he said, was nothing more than ‘historically embellished egoism’ and thus the opposite of the Christian social teaching's concept of the common good. This meant serving the community, even if one did not benefit from it. That was true patriotism at the regional, national and European levels.
Prof Ingeborg Gabriel from the Institute for Social Ethics at the University of Vienna gave a lecture on ‘Human dignity – a pillar of ethics for Europe?’
Dr Dirk Voß, an expert in European and constitutional law from Augsburg and Vice-President of the International Paneuropean Union, referred to the natural law character of the American Declaration of Independence, according to which all people are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights, and not just one people or one race.
Prof Michael Hochgeschwender from the American Institute at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich addressed the question ‘The EU and the USA – is the Western community of values breaking apart?’
During the panel discussion at the Klostergasthof, the President of the Association of German Armed Forces Reservists, Prof Patrick Sensburg, made a clear plea for the establishment of a European defence community.
- Programme (DE) (PDF)
- Press release (DE) (PDF)