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We are approaching the end of the year with great strides and are hardly able to list all the grievances that have been and are still being made so obvious to us in the last few days and weeks. And this time the nationalists seem to have actually managed to hold Europe accountable and, moreover, to convince many of our fellow citizens that our common Europe is not capable of solving even the most pressing problems.
Here are a few facts: it is national parliaments that have financially ruined their countries and peoples; it is national governments that have promised their voters the moon; it is national governments that are failing to meet their obligations to the environment, fellow citizens and the international community; it is national governments that are responsible for the fact that the coasts off Africa are fished dry, the resources and fields of the Third World are exploited and local companies are deprived of any economic basis; it is national governments that are helping to unhinge nature around the world, to maximize the profits of their own clientele; it is national governments that do little or nothing to help our neighboring states stabilize and democratic freedom movements gain a foothold; they are national parliaments that have neither policy nor legislation to shoulder the consequences of their own acts or omissions; and it is the national governments and parliaments that now want to hold the European Union, or at least individual member states, responsible for this.
Have we really learned nothing from the past?
Even the border fortifications of the worst dictatorships do not stop people; Tyranny and criminal organizations cannot be defeated by persuasion alone; and internal and external isolation is not only economically catastrophic.
We Germans should actually know better. Our democracy, our security and our prosperity are primarily due to the cooperation with and the support of our neighboring countries, the influx of millions of new citizens - from the displaced to the guest workers to the migrants from all over the world - and the fact that we have replaced "nationalism" with the European idea of cooperation. Our new openness and willingness to act across borders have not only rehabilitated us Germans in the world, but have also become an unprecedented success model for us and our European neighbors. Europe today is an unprecedented place of security and opportunity for everyone to flourish. And so far this is still a reality!
We must not allow Europe and the European idea to be alienated from us. We must confront the nationalists, populists and spending democrats. We also need to get the facts across to our less informed fellow citizens. Because it is the fear of the uninformed that makes extremists of all stripes strong and seduces entire sections of the population to leapfrog actions!
An informed citizenry that is convinced of the European idea will continue to be able to face and master all challenges. A responsible citizenry will once again be able to master all terrorist atrocities and emerge stronger from what we have experienced together. If we cannot defy the despots, terrorists and extremists here in Europe, then who is going to do it?!
It is also important to remember our transatlantic ties and to strengthen them further, because the future challenges that are already looming on the horizon will soon no longer be manageable for the more than 500 million citizens of the Union alone. In doing so, we must at least mentally deepen and further develop the European idea and do this in the spirit of "Hertenstein 1946", when visionaries already had the world union in mind.
