Europe: A Beautiful Idea? | Nexus Institute

The conferences on Europe culminated in an Intellectual Summit focused on the questions: is Europe a beautiful idea? If it is: why? And what does this imply? What is the ideal and what is reality? What can we do to continue realising the idea of Europe? One thing is certain: the idea of Europe has no future without the citizens of Europe. As Winston Churchill pointed out in his United Europe speech in 1947: ‘Europe is a spiritual conception. But if men cease to hold that conception in their minds, cease to feel its worth in their hearts, it will die.’

Speaker(s)

Jan Peter Balkenende

former Prime Minister

José Manuel Barroso

former president European Commission

Modris Eksteins

Maxim Febuari

columnist, philosopher, writer

Iván Fischer

conductor Budapest Festival Orchestra

Michael Ignatieff

politician, intellectual and moral philosopher

George Klein

oncologist and humanist

Atzo Nicolaï

liberal politician

Thomas L. Pangle

Plato translator and political philosopher

Jacqueline de Romilly

Yvonne van Rooy

Michael J. Sandel

political philosopher and Socratic educator

Karl Schlögel

Eastern Europe expert

Fritz Stern

described the rise of national socialism in Europe

Hassan bin Talal

Jordanian prince

Bassam Tibi

philosopher and political theorist

Tzvetan Todorov

philosopher and historian of ideas

Mario Vargas Llosa

winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

Adam Zagajewski

poet and essayist

Adam Zamoyski

historian of Poland and Europe