How can Europe confront the consequences of worldwide recession, without compromising its international commitments and, in doing so, betraying its own ideals? Which priority does the ongoing struggle against global warming still have? How can the EU contribute to stabilizing a multipolar world robbed of its balance? What position will Europe assume between Russia and the United States in the future, but also regarding its relations with emerging countries steadily gaining strength? These are some of the issues that were discussed between January and April 2009.

The 'Debate on Europe' series was launched in 2006, in the Residenz Theater in Munich, as a reaction to the Netherlands and France rejecting the planned EU constitution. A missing nearness to citizens and a latent democracy deficit were - and remain - two important points of criticism of the European Union's bureaucratic navigating mode. With this event series the Allianz Cultural Foundation and its cooperation partners wish to contribute to the creation of a European public sphere in which vital topics concerning European unity can be debated, because Europe remains a forward-looking project that only a civil society can first grant the necessary foundation and legitimacy.

For the 'Debate on Europe 2008' series, held at Vienna's Burgtheater, questions concerning what holds the EU's member states together and their mutual perspectives created the main focus. Since Ireland's rejection of the EU reform treaty in July 2008 and the outbreak of the world's financial crisis, the question of more efficient structures for mutual negotiations has a new intensity.

The 'Debate on Europe' series is an initiative of the Allianz Cultural Foundation. We wish to thank our cooperation partners, ARTE, BMW Group Kulturkommunikation, Der Tagesspiegel, Deutsche Welle, the European Council on Foreign Relations, and the State Opera House Unter den Linden for their invaluable support.