Nobel Laureate on "Europe"

From a new German-based magazine.

I may be reaching for harsh words, but I feel no need to apologise. It is my conviction that the moment for gravity, in the most literal sense, has arrived. When there is a need for genuine analysis of the facts in place of populist claptrap, legalistic high-mindedness and manipulated political passions. A lot is said nowadays about "old Europe," about traditions, about European culture, and there can be no doubt that the crisis, indeed division, to which we are witness across Europe is, in large part, cultural in nature. When we consider that during the twentieth century Europe was, after all, victorious over the twin totalitarian ideologies of Nazism and communism that threatened the most basic principles of its existence—indeed, it entered the new millennium under the very flag of that victory—we might feel that, all in all, there was cause to be content. On the other hand, it was on European soil that these totalitarian powers came into being; their roots took nurture from the poisoned soil of European culture; and it is highly questionable if European vitality would have been sufficient to vanquish them without assistance from the United States of America.

Nobel Prizewinner Imre Kertesz on the legacy of the last century and the challenges facing Europe in the next

Now this looks like an interesting addition to the European debate