On March 26, 2024, at 2 pm, another open lecture in our project took place. It was titled: "European integration - is it an invention of modern times or an "eternal" dream of the people of Europe?".
Professor Arkadiusz Indraszczyk analyzed selected ideas and projects of integration in Europe in the period from ancient Greece to the mid - 20th century. The professor pointed out that the projects from the Middle Ages to the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries were aimed at excluding wars between Christians in Europe, and from the 15th century, additionally, to defend Europe against the aggression of the Ottoman Empire. The premises of integration ideas changed in the 19th century, when most integration projects aimed to obtain political freedom for European nations that were under the rule of several European empires. The authors of the project, realizing that these nations (e.g. Poles, Czechs, Croats, Hungarians and others) were unable to gain independence on their own, proposed that they obtain this freedom together in a common political federation in which all European nations (or parts of Europe) , if they were regional projects) would have equal political rights and the same development conditions. A common feature of most integration projects of the 19th and 20th centuries was the proposal to create political federations with a clear division of competences between the authorities of the federation and the authorities of the member states, always reserving foreign policy, defense policy and transnational trade for the federal level. The professor paid more attention to the projects from the period 1918-1939, in particular Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi's PanEurope, Milan Hodza's Central European Federation and Aristid Briand's United States of Europe. Professor Indraszczyk also mentioned Polish ideas and projects of European integration, but noted that a separate lecture would be devoted to them.
