{"id":5666,"date":"2020-05-11T12:38:10","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T12:38:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan.thatscommunication.de\/freedom-and-the-threefold-europe-day\/"},"modified":"2026-10-19T20:42:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-19T20:42:09","slug":"freedom-and-the-threefold-europe-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan.thatscommunication.de\/en\/freedom-and-the-threefold-europe-day\/","title":{"rendered":"Freedom and the Threefold Europe Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some contemporaries shake their heads at the existence of three Europe Days. Yet it would be an excellent occasion to reflect on the profound, fundamental questions of our society. A commentary by Paneuropa Youth Chairman Philipp Jauernik. <\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It is a day whose date occasionally causes confusion: depending on whom you ask, the 5th, 8th, or 9th of May is ‘Europe Day’. In truth, all three are correct: the first as the anniversary of the founding of the Council of Europe, the second as the day of liberation from National Socialism, and the third as the anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, which via the European Coal and Steel Community ultimately led to today’s European Union. <\/p>\n

All three days, however, share a certain continuity of content. The pooling of steel production must be seen against the backdrop of peace between the former arch-enemies Germany and France. The Council of Europe, like the OECD, was also founded because, after the war in Western Europe, there was a clear realisation that Europe must unite instead of continuing to wear itself down through internal conflict. This insight and its realisation can be seen as the starting point for reconstruction and the emergence of a society of prosperity unique in the world. <\/p>\n

It is an insight that today no longer seems as clearly present as it once was. The immediate impressions of the war have vanished. The fall of the Berlin Wall was also a long time ago. Liberal democracy did not represent the ‘end of history’ postulated by Fukuyama. The turning point brought people freedom, but not the paradise many had hoped for. The dreariness of everyday politics caught up with them. <\/p>\n

As a result, authoritarian tendencies are visible today in almost all parts of the continent, partly because the world was ‘easier’ to understand in the past. A broad-based democracy is mentally and temporally more demanding than the black-and-white nature of a dictatorship, which one either supports or rejects. And in times of a pandemic, governments that can act quickly and without contradiction seem all the more attractive, because the ability to make decisions can also provide security. Here, some see authoritarian systems as having an advantage. <\/p>\n

This is seemingly correct, but only seemingly, as two central points are overlooked here. Firstly, almost all autocracies have had, and continue to have, significantly worse long-term performance than free, competitive systems. This applies to all socialist states worldwide, and it also applies to fascist dictatorships. The competitive system of the free market economy and democracy creates a corrective that simply does not exist elsewhere. <\/p>\n

The second point, however, is a very fundamental one. Liberal democracy stands on the foundation of the rule of law, without which it would ultimately fail. In Europe, we build here on an intellectual tradition that stretches back to Roman law and Attic democracy. This manifests itself in constitutions, in the inalienable rights of the individual, and in their freedom. This freedom must be defended and preserved always and under all circumstances \u2013 we owe this to those who did not survive the cruel slaughter of that World War, after whose end a united Europe was finally allowed to emerge. Europe Day is the right time to remember this, and for that, three Europe Days are truly not too many. <\/p>\n

This article was originally published for the Wiener Zeitung<\/a>. Further thoughts on this can be heard in “Paneuropa. The Podcast<\/a>“. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some contemporaries shake their heads at the existence of three Europe Days. Yet it would be an excellent occasion to reflect on the profound, fundamental questions of our society. 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