Count Richard Coudenhove Kalergi Founder of the PanEuropa movement - 1922
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Herman Van Rompuy formerly served as Prime Minister of Belgium and then as the first President of the European Council.
“Count Coudenhove-Kalergi is a familiar figure for me, or should I say a familiar face. I
was first introduced to his thinking when a fellow student in Leuven devoted her thesis to
his works. And today, every morning, I enter the building of the European Council and I
pass along a gallery of portraits, and it opens with a portrait of the very first winner of the
Karlspreis, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi.” Van Rompuy
In 1923, it is an incredibly early acknowledgment that European nations, even the
mightiest among them, were losing their place in global affairs. The names of the
challengers may have changed, but it is as true today as it was back then.
You often read that political Europe was born after the Second World War, thanks to men
like Robert Schuman and Konrad Adenauer who founded the European Communities,
forerunners of our Union. It is true, but not the whole truth. In politics, the intellectual
groundwork is essential; there the Pan-European Movement played an indispensable role
before 1945.
Just as the American abolitionist movement, through decades of writing and
action, prepared the ground for President Abraham Lincoln to be able to finally abolish
slavery, so Pan-Europa, in making the idea of a united Europe conceivable, denkbar, for
many more people than ever before, …so Pan-Europa made it possible for Monnet and
Schuman to seize the moment in 1950.
Today, here we are in Vienna, 90 years later.Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi would have
been surprised to look at the world surrounding us. Of course he did live to see Franco-
German reconciliation – embodied by the Elysée Treaty of 1963, or Friendship Treaty. I
like this word 'friendship' – Traité d'amitié, Freundschaftsvertrag: it gives a human touch
to interstate relations.
Attending the ceremony in the Reims Cathedral, at the personal invitation of President De
Gaulle, must have been one of the most rewarding moments of his life. Of course he did
see our continent rise from the ashes after 1945: the return of prosperity and employment
for most citizens, at least in Western Europe. But he did not live to see the end of the reign
of Communism in the Eastern half of the continent, communism which he fought his
whole life.
(EUROPEAN COUNCIL THE PRESIDENT
Vienna, 16 November 2012
EUCO 221/12
PRESSE 476
PR PCE 186
President of the European Council
Herman Van Rompuy
Acceptance speech at the occasion of the Award of the
European Prize Coudenhove-Kalergi 2012
“Peace and the European idea”)
press.president@consilium.europa.eu http://www.european-council.europa.eu/the-president
EUCO 221/12