It is urgent "to define a European identity in cultural and religious terms, in its institutions, and in its geographical and political frontiers" to prevent Europe "sinking into an imperfect melting pot" or "breaking up even more" from a cultural and institutional point of view. This, explain the promoters, is the assumption that gives the cue to the international talk on "European identity and the challenges of intercultural dialogue" due in Luxembourg (Abbey of Neumünster) on 21st and 22nd September, in the run-up to 2008, the "European Year of Intercultural Dialogue", promoted by the International Jacques Maritain Institute of Rome, the Italian Culture Institute and the Pierre Werner Institute of Luxembourg, and chaired by Jacques Santer, formerly president of the European Commission and currently at the helm of the Robert Schuman Foundation. The Talk means to promote, states an explicatory note, the reflection on multiculturalism, "one of the greatest problems that challenge today’s Europe" because of "the reawakening of very deep national and regional identities, or the growing presence of immigrants from Maghreb, the Middle East, Turkey, the Balkans, the Philippines or the Latin American countries". (continued)
