"Europe risks plunging into an imperfect melting pot or breaking up even more in cultural terms, and thus making its institutions even more distant from society. This arouses the problem, therefore as it has often happened in its life , of defining a European identity in its cultural and religious dimensions, its institutions and its geographical and political frontiers". Today, these words introduced, at the Abbey of Neumünster, Luxembourg, the talks on "European identity and the challenges of intercultural dialogue", promoted by the Italian Institute of Culture, the Werner Institute of Luxembourg, the Schuman Foundation and Maritain International Institute. The talks, which will go on tomorrow, have been prompted by the belief that "the EU, despite its limits, embodies a pluralist model, at the heart of which are the human being and human rights. Despite its internal tensions, the EU is aware of the spiritual and moral legacy which is shared by its peoples and which their shared fate is built on". Actually, stated Jacques Santer, president of the Schuman Foundation and former president of the European Commission, "the EU is not a federation of states, like the USA, and nowadays its uniqueness needs a thinking that, without forgoing memory, will move along the new paths of history".
