Reflections on Europe
Conference organized by the Dutch Center of the SEC
Friday, May 26, 2017 in Berlin
Entitled “Reflections on Europe”, under this very general topic, this conference comprised six talks. The two first, from an economic standpoint, related to :
- Social cohesion, sine qua non indispensable condition of the success of European integration.
Professeur Horst Brunkhorst underlined in particular the lack of regional and social convergence in the EU.
- The development of a new form of capitalism in Europe which enables him to free from the financial model anglo Saxon.
In this respect according to Mr. Donald Kalff, Brexit should support : the return to a greater economic autonomy of the EU, the development of new forms of companies less submitted to the shareholders and the abandonment of the priority search criterion of short-term profitability.
The two following talks related to the European identity confronted with Islam.
- Treating Islam like chance or problem, Professeure Gudrun Krämer stuck to specifying well the direction of Islam in the diversity of its historical or sociological contexts.
- From a more philosophical point of view, Professeur Michiel Leezenberg in particular pointed many discontinuities which marked the history of Islam. He also underlined the weight of the Marxist model on the Moslem company which was radicalized through the various forms of nationalisms to lead to the Salafism.
Finally at the time of a round table, the public could intend Alexander Soboczynski to evoke, starting from his experiment in GDR, Europe of the culture. It underlined in particular :
- the equitable absence of diffusion of the culture on the whole of the territories of the EU
- the threats which the populisms make weigh on art
- dangers of a culture which would be turned exclusively towards the past
To finish Professeure Ulrike Guérot, taking again the words of Jean Monet for whom European construction not consisted in “uniting States but men” his project of European Republic presented. This institutional post project aims at giving again with the citizens their true electoral rights too often diverted by the States (for example negation of Referenda of 2005 in France and in the Netherlands by the treaty of Lisbon).
Took part in this conference, in addition to Mrs. Antje von Barnitz and Mr. Michael Schaefer of the Dutch Center, Mrs. general Cosima Campagnolo Secrétaire of the SEC and Michèle Favreau Présidente of the French Center.
