Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor Emeritus in Politics at the University of Iceland, gave a keynote lecture at the Cultural Weekend of ECR Party, European Conservatives and Reformists Party, in Nicosia, Cyprus, on 31 March 2024. He described the relevance today of two remarkable thinkers, the Danish poet and philosopher Nikolaj F. S. Grundtvig and the Italian economist Luigi Einaudi. Grundtvig had emphasised national consciousness and active participation in civil society. He sought to turn his fellow Danes into decent citizens of a liberal democracy, and he is still a strong influence in Denmark. Einaudi was a committed free trader who believed that a firmer alliance of states than the League of Nations had been was necessary if freedom and democracy in Europe were to be preserved. He therefore supported the European Union, originally called the EEC, the European Economic Community.
In his lecture, Gissurarson expressed his opinion that the European Union ought to be a federation of nation states, with only the minimum surrender of sovereignty necessary. The Europeans could learn a lot from Grundtvig’s nationalism which had been peaceful and conciliatory, not militant or aggressive. Danish culture, moulded by Grundtvig, should be an inspiration for others. The European Union had for the first fifty years been on the right track, increasing economic freedom and encouraging competition in European markets. Economic integration was desirable. But then the European Union had gone astray. Political integration was undesirable. The unelected and unaccountable Brussels bureaucrats were gradually but methodically trying to construct a powerful, European federal state where their own voices would be heard as a roar, but the voices of the nations as a whisper.
