Exactly a century ago, Europe was about to witness the breakout of the First World War and its unprecedented devastation. Fast-forward a hundred tumultuous years, and a politically united Europe now watches anxiously as tensions in the Ukraine and Russia threaten to spill over into armed conflict.
“If 2014 is going to end in Europe in a more peaceful manner than 1914, it is above all going to be because we have the EU,” Wolfgang Ischinger, global head of Public Policy and Economic Research at Allianz SE said during the opening of this year’s Berlin Conference “A Soul for Europe” at the Allianz Forum in Berlin.
“Seen from the outside – maybe not equally seen from the inside by many disgruntled European citizens – the European Union is surely the most innovative political creation of the last hundred years,” said Ischinger.
Hosted by the initiative “A Soul for Europe”, the European Parliament and the Allianz Kulturstiftung in the Allianz Forum in Berlin, the event brought European political leaders together onstage with artists and intellectuals from across the continent. Debates focused on how Europe could better utilize its cultural assets.