Debate about where Europe has come from and where it should be heading to. As the European Union approaches its '50th birthday' - the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Rome - it seems to many of us that Europe has lost the plot. Europeans badly need a new story that we can tell in our different languages and idioms.
Read the proposal
I have drafted a first proposal for a new way in which we could tell our story around six goals to which most Europeans aspire: Freedom, Peace, Law, Prosperity, Diversity and Solidarity.
You can read the English version in Prospect magazine. Versions published in other European languages will be posted as soon as they appear.
This is only one writer's first draft. The story is no good unless enough Europeans think it is pointing in the right direction. Please join in the debate. Feel free to use any European language you like.
The discussion is completely free, but it will be followed by a group of our European students here at Oxford. We will remove anything that is downright obscene or constitutes incitement to hatred, and may tidy up the formatting, but otherwise we will leave posts exactly as they come.
Posts from TGA are my contributions to the ongoing debate.
If there is sufficient interest, we may start new threads on particular issues. If it turns out that people are not interested, that will be a kind of European story too.
Come and join the debate.
Best wishes
Timothy Garton Ash
Timothy Garton Ash is professor of European studies at Oxford University. For more information visit timothygartonash.com. Read Timothy Garton Ash's book, Free World for further discussion of what Europe might do in the world.