Dear Readers,<\/p>\n
The face of Europe is changing. How many faces and what kind of faces does Europe have? Or is Europe faceless? For intellectuals, Europe\u2019s face is shaped more by the ideas of its thinkers or by the culture of its nations. For travelers, Europe is portrayed through its landscape and historical monuments. The image of Europe, for people around the world, is influenced by the goods it produces. And for its citizens, Europe is represented by its institutions, primarily those of the European Union. Do European institutions properly reflect Europe\u2019s face? Do they connect with the hearts and minds of Europeans? And what about European political leaders?<\/p>\n
European history clearly demonstrates how the longing for the single face of a leader, endowed with unchallenged authority, has always paved the road to serfdom. Plurality in political leadership, in contrast, prevents the risk of hegemony and preserves liberty. The ongoing struggle for public attention makes it impossible for anyone to become \u201cthe face of Europe.\u201d There is no single Mr. or Mrs. Europe. The days are over when large parts of Europe were in the shadow of giant portraits of Hitler and Stalin. Europe\u2019s freedom is secured by ongoing dialogue concerning values involving multiple faces:\u00a0Angela Merkel, Emmanuel Macron, Jean Claude Juncker, Donald Tusk, Viktor Orba\u0301n and Sebastian Kurz. Today\u2019s face of Europe seems more like a Cubist portrait painted by Emil Filla or Pablo Picasso.<\/p>\n
In this issue of Aspen Review Central Europe, we present a mosaic of views and attitudes toward today\u2019s European challenges. In an interview, former Slovak Prime Minister Mikula\u0301s\u030c Dzurinda addresses both the questions of EU rules and institutions and the lack of political leadership among the members of the club. Thematic articles cover the tension between liberty and control, efficiency and accountability, the EU budget and the eurozone. The reviews of Ivan Krastev\u2019s After Europe<\/em> and Fareed Zakaria\u2019s The Future of Freedom<\/em>, two seminal books dealing with challenges to liberal democracy in Europe, place these challenges into more of a historical and global perspective.<\/p>\n We will continue to examine political leadership style along with the values of the free world and an open and democratic society. Stay tuned for Aspen Institute\u2019s events and publications!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Readers, The face of Europe is changing. How many faces and what kind of faces does Europe have? Or is Europe faceless? For intellectuals, Europe\u2019s face is shaped more by the ideas of its thinkers or by the culture of its nations. For travelers, Europe is portrayed through its landscape and historical monuments. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[91],"class_list":["post-9504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nezarazene","tag-foreword"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11044,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9504\/revisions\/11044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aspeninstitutece.org\/cs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}