Né en 1961, Karl de Habsbourg a étudié le droit, les sciences politiques et la philosophie aux Universités de Salzburg et du Michigan.

Dès son plus jeune âge, il a collaboré aux Jeunesses paneuropéennes ainsi qu'aux campagnes électorales européennes et donné des conférences traitant de l'Europe, notamment au cours des voyages d'études qu'il a effectué à travers le monde (Grenade, Rhodésie, Afghanistan, Sahara, ex-Yougoslavie, Arctique, Tchétchénie).

Fervent soutien des mouvements d'opposition et de libération en Europe centrale et orientale, il a été élu en octobre 1996 Député de l'Autriche au Parlement Européen où il a siégé jusqu'en juillet 1999.

Karl de Habsbourg préside depuis 1987 la section autrichienne de l'Union Paneuropéenne. Il est également le fondateur et le responsable du "Paneuropakreis Alpe-Adria", une communauté de travail européen sur le plan régional, qui est au centre de son exposé.

We are talking very much about the European unification. By doing this, most people mean the unification of States. We actually forget - not amongst the Paneuropeans, but in general - that we have to talk about unifying people. I do not mean necessarily only individuals, but also people of different religions, backgrounds, people that form minorities within different countries of the European Union and those countries that want to join the European Union.

We talk about States because most of our political institutions are formed by representatives of States. It just happens too often that they or we forget that the State is there to serve its people and that the public is not only a nuisance to the public administration.

In the institutions, the real fight that we find on a daily basis is not necessarily the fight between Eurocrats on one side and human beings on the other side, but the real conflict is the fight between centralists and federalists. It is very interesting to see the development of majorities in these questions within the framework of the institutions of the European Union.

First of all, the difference between centralists and federalists is not at all something that can be identified by States. These borders, these conflicts go directly through the States. Let me take for example a country like France, which is very often considered a country that prefers a centralised system. When we look today at an institution like the European Parliament, we will find immediately that many French representatives belong to the groups that prefer the federalist structure of Europe, that support individual small groups within France and within the framework of the European Union.

So it is a conflict that happens between individuals, forming two main interest groups, one group that wants to support and help European culture, the European languages, the different religions that are existing in the framework of Europe, and those, on the other side, that say it is much easier to govern and rule a future Europe if it is a centralised, completely well organised State with preferably only one language, with one economic system, with one legal system.

But I can absolutely insure you that this is something that the Paneuropeans are strongly opposed to and they made a very early statement - particularly their founders made a very early statement - to position the Paneuropean Movement in this long lasting conflict between centralists and federalists in a very clear way.

The first statement that I think is the most evident symbol is the Paneuropean symbol. It just symbolises the different cultural backgrounds. And of course it also means when our founder Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi mentioned that Europe has a choice for the future : one possibility could be to be a great Switzerland, that meant to support the different languages, that meant the diversity that Europe actually has to live up to, to be what it is, to be able to identify itself against other great entities like USA.

On the basis of this Paneuropean spirit it was a logical consequence that, in the late seventies, some Paneuropean friends under the guidance of Vittorio Pons created an informal work group to deal with this problem and to show that the borders in Europe today are nothing more than a sometimes definitely important administrative line on a map but exactly nothing more than that.

The Paneuropean organisation is depending on the different national organisations. But it was important to show that for an organisation that talks about and supports the principle of subsidiarity, which you mentioned before, that they also see that there are levels in administration, which are not dealt with enough on European level. We wanted to give flesh to this bone of subsidiarity, to fill it with life. Here in Switzerland it is something, which is quite normal. In the European Union, I think it is not at all normal to live up to the principle of subsidiarity.

The Paneuropean Movement intended to show through the founding of this informal work group that there is another level that exists between the national level and the European level : the regional one.

In the beginning, we choose the name of a work group called "Alpe-Adria", because there we had a rather deeply defined regional area, where there was also an existing institution from the regional governments in which we could show that interests go beyond the borders, although they might not be as big as Europe. But it was the idea behind it, that we were trying to spread, and so it was quite logical that after the foundation in the late seventies – it happened in the Voralberg, in a little country directly on the border between Switzerland, Germany, Austria – not only members were invited from the Alpine and Adriatic area, but also lots of Paneuropeans from other countries and they joined the different meetings that we were having every single year. Within this work group, we went also far abroad and far beyond this area.

We had the possibility to be very flexible in these work groups, and to create our meetings in a way to show that we are in support of regions that are building up and of areas that are building up. I remember that we always tried to decide holding meetings of the next year in areas where everybody said : "It is completely impossible, you are not going to join there, you are not going to gather there".

Today I am very proud that so far every meeting we decided happened where we decided it would happen. Just to give you one example of what I am meaning with that : at the time when the war in Croatia was more or less at its zenith and the town of Zadar was completely inaccessible, we decided that four months later the next meeting of "Alpe-Adria" would happen in Zadar. And even our Croatian friends said it is completely impossible to enter the town. I have to say, I was almost of their opinion until only a couple of days before the conference was happening. It was supposed to start on a Friday and the street to Zadar was opened at Friday noon. We started the conference at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, after the cars with the participants waited in front of the roadblock to be able to enter the town.

The point we wanted really to make by saying we would hold this conference there, was to say that an oppression, an unnatural division of a country is just something that on the long term never holds. And that is why we took this decision. In Zadar at that time, we took the decision that the next meeting would take place in Vuckovar. And everybody said this is completely impossible because Vuckovar at that time was under very firm Serbian control. I have to admit that it almost did not happen, but then it materialised. We had the main meeting in Osijek, but we were able, under UN protection and guidance, to go to Vuckovar and spend at least a couple of hours in the area of Vuckovar.

So, there is a spirit, which is a driving force of this Alpe-Adria work group, which goes far beyond just the regional area of actually Alpine and Adriatic area.

The main goal of the work group, of course next to very many appealing meetings with lots of wine and lots of fun – this is part of it, obviously -, is and was to show that regions and people have not sufficient representation. Today we know that individuals are normally very well protected by legal systems. States also have their legal system and representation. People do not have a legal system. There is no international law that protects actually people as groups and there is no institution to which people that are inflicted in their rights can actually turn to.

I think at a time when we say that the goal of the European unification has to be an economic goal, it has to be also a security goal. I might remember those that have been present at the last Rencontre Coudenhove-Kalergi with the topic of security, which was one of the utmost topics that was dealt on an extremely high level. If we talk about security, we have to analyse where the infringements of security, not only in Europe but also outside Europe, are mainly coming from.

What is the source of the conflict ? If we analyse this, we come to the logic conclusion that it usually is the clashes with minorities and ethnic or religious groups in the framework of a State. We just have to look around on what happened in the last fifty years within the European Union or the Community, or outside. We will see that it is completely right. We have had the conflict in the last eight or nine years in former Yugoslavia, a very clear example of the clashes, of the lack of legal possibilities for minorities or ethnic groups to go for their rights. We should look to the long lasting conflicts in Northern Ireland, in the Basks countries, and even if we take a broader look, we heard the last couple of days about the conflict in the Northern Caucasus, in Daghestan, in Chechnya. These are again examples where the rights of peoples are just not respected by the country they are living in. This cannot be acceptable when we are talking and caring about security.

What can or what should be done ? I think first of all what we need is a clear awareness campaign about the fact that a complete legal framework is missing today, the legal framework for minorities and ethnic groups, to voice their rights. When we look at the possibility where definitions are of minorities and ethnic groups, of non represented peoples, we will find on one side the definition that exists in the framework of the United Nations, that has a very bare definition of : it has to be a group of at least 300 persons having their own rules of behaviour and rules of procedure. This is quite ridiculous because if you take today a big family like my family, we are far beyond 300 people, we have our own pattern of behaviour and we are definitely not a minority in a country.

We have a definition, which goes into much more detail, within the Council of Europe. There was a very close collaboration between the Council of Europe and the European Parliament, or the legal affairs Committee of the European Parliament, in order to come to a more precise definition of what are minorities, what are ethnic groups. I am very glad to say that on one side this discussion is proceeding in a positive way, but on the other side, we still do not have the legal framework and the legal basis to deal with this type of problems. But it is proceeding and also the definition of what we are talking about is proceeding.

So, I think it is very important to start and continue a real awareness campaign that we have to create a legal framework for minorities and ethnic groups in order to avoid conflicts in the future, which inevitably are coming to us.

The other thing, is the active work, the active political work for the creation of a European minority and ethnic groups' rights. I think the European Union has the duty to work on that, because they are showing an institution that would be able, within their framework they could show an example for the rest of the world how this problem actually could be dealt with. We are a long way away from reaching that.

I was able to follow this in the European Parliament on the very beginning, in the year 1980. Our Paneuropean friend Alfons Goppel, the former Prime Minister of Bavaria was charged to start working on a legal framework for that. He proceeded with that, he passed it on to a long line of successors in the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament and he told me at the very beginning : "If I pass this to a vote, I am going to loose 20 to 80, and I have no change to pass it through". All of his successors also gave me their estimate on how it would be possible to pass through a legislation like this. The next one was Count Stauffenberg. He gave me an estimate 70 – 30. The next one was Siegbert Alber, also a Paneuropean friend, who gave me a 60 – 40. I was the next one in the Legal Affairs Committee to pick it up, and I would have said 55 – 45. We are getting closer. We can see a clear shift in these institutions from centralism to federalism. We can see a clear shift in the awareness that we need to define, to support, and to give a framework to these peoples and minorities rights. If we wait another couple of years, we will probably gain a majority, at least in the framework of the Parliament to create an example, to do this and fulfil this.

I have to say that it is also an important work of the Paneuropean Movement, and also of the work group Alpe-Adria that has been the driving force on this topic, to continue in the field of politics with this awareness campaign. Therefore I am also very grateful that I had the possibility by the organisers today to present this idea to the audience. I think that it is very important.

At the end, I would put my thanks to the organisers for continuously organising these Rencontres Coudenhove-Kalergi. It is definitely the highest level meeting you can find for these kinds of topics and I am very glad that you are organising this on international level.