27/07/2022: 50th anniversary of the death of Paneuropa founder Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi

On 27 July 1972, exactly half a century ago today, the founder of the Paneuropean Union, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, passed away in Schruns, Vorarlberg.

A further 50 years prior, in 1922, he developed the Paneuropa idea. The concept followed a geopolitical approach. At the heart of his reflections was a European foreign policy – to avoid being dominated by others on the stage of world politics – a European security policy – to avoid being dependent on and thus dominated by others in this regard, or being drawn into another internal European war – and thirdly, the removal of all internal European customs barriers. Today, this would be described as a free internal market, effectively Europe as a free trade zone. This was accompanied even then by the idea of a common currency, which in Coudenhove’s concept was based on the gold standard existing at the time, and a European Federal Court, which is what we have today in the form of the European Court of Justice. The freedom of citizens, individual responsibility, and a state that limits itself to establishing the framework conditions in the sense of the rule of law, formed a further basis for his reflections on European unification at that time. From 17 to 20 November 2022, the jubilee congress for the centenary of Paneuropa will take place in Vienna. The photo shows Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi in 1950 at the presentation of the Charlemagne Prize of the City of Aachen.