The group argues that EU enlargement has brought together people with considerable differences in economic development and cultural values. The paper argues that the vast majority of new EU citizens have lived through decades of Communism, whose set of values are unknown to people from the EU-15. At the time when the EU Constitution is being ratified, the intellectuals posed the complex question "what forces can hold the expanded EU together?".
The paper explains the post-World War II origins of the EU and how the threat coming from the Soviet Union galvanised European economic integration. However, further rounds of enlargement have added a growing number of member states with significant economic and social differences.
The paper argues that recent EU history has shown that "economic integration [...] is incapable of substituting for the political forces that originally propelled European integration and cohesion". One example cited is the Lisbon Agenda whose objectives, in the authors' view, "do nothing to bring Europeans any closer together". "The original expectation that the political unity of the EU would be a consequence of the European common market has proven to be illusory."
Concluding that a new form of political action is needed, the authors argue that the old sources which drove European unification are no longer sufficient and that "new sources of energy must be looked for and found in Europe's common culture". The paper argues that a common 'European cultural space' does undoubtedly exist despite difficulties defining it due to the fact that it is not a done deal but rather a process. The authors argue that Europe and its cultural identity is dependent on constant confrontation with "the new, the different, the foreign". The report indicates that this question can be answered partly by the EU's immigration laws and to some extent by its negotiated accession terms of new members.
The authors point out that European unity is not simply a political task but that a political construction must rest on a "European civil society" which is bound together by such "glue" as ideas and expectations, habits, moods, memories, etc. Therefore, the paper challenges politicians to support the emergence of such a civil society and underlines the importance of the decentralisation of public discussion and the processes of decision-making. Strengthening pan-European solidarity is one of the most important long-term tasks which should originate from individual solidarity rather than institutional solidarity, the authors state.
The group of intellectuals appear to have run into disagreements as some of the points examined in the 12-page conclusions are noticeably shorter than others. For instance, the part dealing with the role of European religions and Islam in particular, as well as the section on Europe's role in the world are relatively underdeveloped.
Nevertheless, when discussing Europe's global role, the authors conclude that "there is no essence of Europe, no fixed list of European values". There is no "finality" to the process of European integration." "Europe is a project of the future."
