Der Europäische espíritu, mais est-ce il really exist?

A week ago I received the call of a good friend who is now in the same situation as me -just landed in a new country, in both cases continents- and we shared some of our first initial impressions, once recovered from the mayhem of the initial days.

He is a quite a social person so he had managed to meet some other Europeans and make friends with some locals and some people from other countries as well working in the same company as him. As you can see, if you ever need somebody to break the ice in a meeting, he is the one.

It was sadly funny to listen to him how the people who really helped him these first days were the locals and the non-European ones.

Looking back (and not in anger like John Osborne), recalling the serious and several problems Europe is facing and the lack of a single and rational voice to lead Europa outside this chaos, I guess there is too much history behind the European nations and we, Europeans, aren’t good at all forgetting the past and looking to the future with optimism in a coordinated manner.

Just take the United States of America, upon its birth as a country it didn’t have these two handicaps, which made things much easier and smoother. If French, Spanish, British, German, Italian, Greek… people did feel deep down Eurpean and part of the same common project, it’d be very likely that, instead of looking the other way when we met another European, we would try to help our fellow countryman. I’m quite sure neither me nor my kids are going to see the consolidation of a real European spirit. A couple more of generations and many more Erasmus/Socrates programs of intraeuropean education are going to be required so that the new generations forget definitely the wars, the differences, the negative stereotypes and attitudes we, Europeans, have had amongst us for too much time.

Have a nice weekend!