Chaired by: Mathias Döpfner
Reported by: Martin Kettle

[…] And that there is a need – to put it mildly – for a new definition of the European idea. One contributor called for a new narrative which is a fashionable and I think quite useful concept in this context. And there was a lot of discussion about the possibility and the need for new leadership. If there was one word that dominated our discussion it was the word “crisis”. Crisis is
an overused word if you believed everything or indeed anything that you read in the Italian papers – which I do not recommend you to do. You would believe that crisis took place all the time every day. Italy is always in crisis and yet – in many ways – Italy seems to exist, seems to work. […] Nevertheless we agreed that the European Union is in a crisis indeed. We decided that it was in several crises. […] A crisis of the European Constitution, a crisis of European enlargement, a crisis of overregulation, a crisis of perceptions about Europe and a crisis of the
EU-US-relations. Others added other crises to the growing list. There was a crisis of democratic legitimacy.There was a crisis of institutions. There was a crisis of policies. There was even a crisis of European architecture. But this was not meant I think in the Norman Foster sense. […]
(…) the EU crisis should be seen as a result of 1989. It is a problem faced by a set of institutions which are an answer to a question which no longer applies. The unconditional and unavoidable moral and political need to embrace Eastern Europe changed the question  “What is Europe for?” And the globalisation process which was also set in force and released by 1989 by the victory of market capitalism over state socialism now offers not just millions but billions of people
around the world the chance of a prosperity that socialism not only failed to provide but positively denied them.