European Identity - Individual, Group and Society - HumanitarianNet

WHAT WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY EUROPE 47As Europeans supposedly confident about the EU’s capacity to fulfiltheir expectations regarding the EU, we insist on the need to strengthenthe values that, as aforementioned, have identified Europe during thecourse of its history. It is necessary to act swiftly: “If, in the next tenyears —Delors stated in the mid-nineties— we have not succeeding ingiving a spirit, a soul to Europe, we will have lost the game.” 29 A littlelater, the former German chancellor, Schmidt, expressed a similarconcern about Europe’s beings: “No society can live at long-term peacewith itself without a minimum of ethics. Nor will the EU be able tolastingly remain united without a minimum of ethical consensus inEuropean nations. In the past, it was not only the Churches who werebearers of ethical standards, but philosophers, universities, the greatscholars and the great educators. In the 20 th century, things changed.[…] Europe needs commonly accepted ethics covering both rights andobligations. In fact these common ethics, carried on from past centuries,largely exist, although more so in people’s unconscious. I believe it isdesirable that spiritual and political leaders make ethics emerge in theEuropean public conscience.” 30However, are these viable approaches in a Europe where it seemseconomic and financial interests predominate, where violence,xenophobia and terrorism proliferate, or where the excluded are agrowing reality? In the questioning words of the young in the debateabout the future of Europe: Quo vadis, Europa?In order to be valid, the answer must be demanding and not fearfulof the transformations that our society of the beginning of the XXI st centuryrequires. The globalization we are involved in drags all the burden ofthe past along with it, for which we are largely responsible. Neverthelessit offers new opportunities for change.If we are convinced that the EU is based on principles “of freedom,democracy, respect for human rights and for fundamental liberties andthe rule of law, let us turn these principles into a standard of behaviourfavouring “the fight against all forms of prejudice and exclusion, be iteconomic, ethnic, cultural or racial.” 31 The reflection about the Europeof the future should bring about a committed attitude about the scopeof the principles that we have placed at the foundation of ourbehaviour and that make up the substance of our identity.29Jacques Delors in a private interview with the Churches, 1994, collected by MarcLuyckx, in op. cit., p. 129.30Op. cit., p. 193.31In the Novamerica magazine, no. 93, cit., p. 143, an interview with Cecilia Mariz.