European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

22.The Construction of European Identity the BusinessFrameworkJuan VallésBusinessmen Forum, SpainGenesis of the European UnionAt the beginning of the new millennium we are going through aturn of epoch, maybe also a turn of paradigms, although, as it alwayshappens in History, a change like this does not occur overnight (in ourcase the turn of the century and the millennium) but rather takes placegradually from facts that History later on reveals as having beenunique. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and all the subsequentevents which took place in the former Soviet Union and in the EasternEuropean countries probably constitute a historical moment, as do theterrible happenings of September 11, 2001.If we look back at the 20 th century, we think that one of itshighlights could have been the initiation of the process of Europeanunification, and consequently, the construction and definition ofEuropean identity.The 20 th century, with its two great atrocious wars and the rise oftotalitarianism, was a major setback in the evolution of what webelieve European culture should be. However, maybe because“desperate situations call for desperate measures”, as the saying goes,it was not until the last Great War and the victory over fascism that thefirst steps towards European unification took place.We could say that it was during the recount of material andspiritual losses of 1945 when the future fathers of Europe —Churchill,Monnet, Schuman, Adenauer or De Gasperi—, feeling imprisonedbetween the sickle and the hammer and the stars and stripes,developed the European ideal and put the integration of the continentin the hands of practical economists and lawyers.