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Translated from the German
There are similarities between our world in the year 2014 and the world of 1914 - similarities that shock us. Was the world, were the people in 1914 really so different from us today?
In 1914, people also lived in a rapidly changing world. The pre-war period was the time of modernity and avant-garde, a cultural heyday. Never had Germany fared so well, with science of world fame, companies such as AEG, Bayer, Opel, Mercedes making "Made in Germany" a seal of quality. The economy was booming. More and more people received medical care and the death rate dropped drastically. The infrastructure was improved. More and more people could afford a little luxury. People not only considered a war unlikely but completely impossible, precisely because of the economic ties. John M Keynes concluded that before the First World War, the internationalisation of economic life was virtually complete. It wasn't until the 1980s that the same level of globalisation was restored as before the First World War.
The thesis that economic ties are the best protection against war is still popular to this day. It is argued that even without the EU, a war would be completely impossible. Close links and reciprocal dependencies may make war less likely - but they make no country entirely immune against war.
Today, we ask ourselves why the war happened as it did: All actors sought only to maximise their national interests. Countries assumed that the other countries were operating with maximum aggression and warmongering, and so it was only legitimate to defend oneself in a conflict imposed by the enemy, a war without clear objectives and no clear enemy. Aims and objectives were ill-defined and dominated by prestige and the vague fear of losing world power status and thus descending in the ranking of Great Powers. A preventative war seemed the better option in a war deemed inevitable. After a "cleansing storm", many thought, the world would be better again.
How easy would it be to console ourselves that these are stories from another time, from another world. But with much discomfort we see parallels to today, pointed out by the Australian historian Christopher Clarke: "Since the end of the Cold War, a far more complex and unpredictable structure of forces has replaced the system of global, bipolar stability, including several empires in decline and rising powers - a situation that positively invites comparison with the situation in Europe anno 1914". The rise of new powers and the descent of old powers and crises in North Africa, the Middle East, in the South China Sea are all geopolitical reality in 2014. The lessons of the First World War warn us against the interweavement of great powers with regional conflicts; warn us not to underestimate the potential for escalation and the unpredictability of military conflicts, the frictions that result from shifts in powers system.
Some even see parallels with the euro crisis as a highly complex situation, one which the players know can have a potentially disastrous outcome. And still they prioritise self-interest and disregard the common good, and seek to benefit from the possibility of disaster. I observe with great concern how the sentiment of renationalisation is starting to spread again in Europe. The crisis threatens to disunte the Europeans, rather than bring us closer together. Prejudices long thought overcome are resurfacing.
But - and this must not be overlooked - there are also differences, large differences between the Europe in 2014 and Europe in 1914: Violence is no longer accepted as as a continuation of politics by other means. We no longer live in a militarised society. The oath of the "never again war" has become the core of our European identity. After the Second World War we Europeans have understood that peace in Europe is only to be maintained by an agreement of the peoples and the creation of transnational institutions.
And that's probably the main difference between the Europe of 1914 and the Europe of the year 2014: We have created new structures by European integration. It was the generation scarred by the First World War - Charles de Gaulle, Robert Schumann, Paul-Henri Spaak, Alcide de Gaspari, Joseph Bech, Johan Willem Beyen - who gave Europe an immune system against war. And that does not just exist in power balances, alliances, economic interdependence or by way of humiliating and weakening the enemy. The immune system is that we have given ourselves common institutions in which we proceed according to the Community method.
The Community method is the soul of the European Union. Community method means resolving conflicts through dialogue and consensus. It means replacing the the right of the stronger by solidarity and democracy, searching for a balance of interests between all. Institutionalised consultation is the best mechanism to reduce mistrust and misunderstandings.
Full speech (in German)