Paneurope
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International Pan‑European Union

Courage for Europe

Under the motto 'Courage for Europe - finally act!', the 43rd Paneuropa Days of the Paneuropa Union Germany, which took place in Neustadt an der Weinstraße in the Palatinate from 12 to 14 May 2017, focused on the new opportunities for European unification following the French presidential elections.

In the duel between Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen, the German Pan-European President Bernd Posselt believes that the European spirit has prevailed over nationalist disorganisation.

However, the revitalised Franco-German axis must actively seek cooperation with the smaller states, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, on an equal footing and make the supranational democratic institutions the mainstay of European policy again, because mere intergovernmental cooperation does not work in a community of 27.

At the opening ceremony, Prof Pavo Barišić, Minister of Science and Education of Croatia, made it clear that this youngest EU member state sees itself as a driving force and by no means as a brake on the political unification of Europe.

The former Vice-President of the European Parliament Libor Rouček from the Czech Social Democrats attributed the UK's impending exit from the EU, known as ‘Brexit’, to the daily agitation of the Eurosceptic Murdoch press in the UK.

The international president of the Pan-European Union, Alain Terrenoire from Paris, emphasised that being a European had never cancelled out national sentiment in any EU member state. Properly understood, the two are inseparable.

Mayor Ingo Röthlingshöfer was delighted with the guests from 17 nations, who reminded him of the crowds that came to Neustadt for the Hambach Festival in May 1832.

The subsequent panel discussion focussed primarily on France's decision about a week ago.

Science and Education Minister Pavo Barišić conveyed the greetings of the new Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković and his Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Davor Stier, both of whom belong to the inner circle of leaders of the Pan-European Union and are determined to drive the continent's integration process forward. The Croatian Minister thanked the Pan-European Union Germany and its President Bernd Posselt for the key role they had played in Croatia's accession to the EU and for the clarity with which they were now also promoting the stabilisation of those South-East European countries that are not yet EU members.

The President of the newly founded Pan-European Union Ukraine, Professor Ihor Zhaloba from the Diplomatic Academy in Kiev, received much applause for his perceptive analysis of global political developments. He described the destabilising effect that certain Putin supporters in the EU and the USA are having on his country. At the same time, Russia is still at war in eastern Ukraine.

The 50th anniversary of the death of the first German Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, in April provided the occasion for the third major celebratory speech. Paneuropa Presidium member Benedikt Praxenthaler, a historian who worked for six years at the Adenauer Memorial in Rhöndorf, criticised the fact that this most important European statesman of the post-war period has so far been viewed far too nationally and not in European terms by researchers.

Werner Euskirchen, State Chairman of the Pan-European Union Rhineland-Palatinate, took the audience on a journey into the cultural history of the Palatinate, which was characterised by the House of Wittelsbach - represented at the Pan-European Days by Prince Wolfgang of Bavaria - as the ‘Courier of the Duke of Zweibrücken’.

The highlight of a coach trip organised by Werner Euskirchen from Neustadt an der Weinstraße to the Zweibrücken region was the presentation of the ‘Flame of Saint Boniface’, the apostle of the Germans buried in Fulda, to his former companion, Saint Pirminius, in the Catholic church of Hornbach with its medieval monastery built next to his grave. After a reception in Hornbach's town hall, the group followed in the footsteps of Stanisław Leszczyński and the Wittelsbach family to the former residential palace of Zweibrücken, to its pheasantry modelled on Turkish architecture and to the Alexanderkirche in Zweibrücken, where the ancestors of the later Bavarian royal family were buried for centuries.

After a cheerful evening in the Bavarian beer garden, the guests from 17 nations travelled back to Neustadt, where Archbishop Robert Zollitsch from Freiburg celebrated a concluding festive service in St Mary's Church on Sunday morning.

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