To be up front with you, I do have a very positive attitude towards Europe. Even though I do have to admit, that when I think of Europe, I think of the Europe Charles de Gaulle tried to realize as his Europe of the future, the “Europe of mother countries”. How could it be any different with my conservatively shaped view of the world.

The jubilee celebration for the 50th birthday of the European Union took less than 24 hours. This and the well-balanced communiqué revealed quickly, that even politicians which are always ahead of their time and bedevilled with many illusions are a bit uneasy about the Europe on the papers. Not, because a political and economical union of the European countries would not make sense, but because slowly but surely they are coming to the conclusion that especially economically speaking a Europe without preservation and maintenance of cultural and regional peculiarities is not possible. For this, a lot of liberties are necessary. However, the administration in Brussels has neither adopted nor supported these liberties, but rather inhibited or maybe even impeded it through a flood of restrictions and regulations.

I think Europe has got a chance if it is allowed to stay a continent of plurality and if it is balanced with the wonderful uniqueness of the individual which we should view and respect as a gift of creation.

If this is supposed to work out with Europe, the development has to be accompanied by a cutback of daily arising new obstacles.

Origin and history, profile, positioning, awareness and image of the products developed and produced in Europe need to be supported and they need to be protected accordingly. Business dealings have to be made simpler and not more difficult for companies. Politics has to emphatically stem the contra-productive work of the Brussels administration.

The people in Europe are individualists and this is exactly where a big and true value of Europe can be found. To be responsive to this is a chance, if correctly utilized, can lead to excellent competitiveness compared to products from Far East. Especially when it comes to this topic, politics needs to restrain its administration in Brussels. “Made in Scotland”, “Made in Italy”, “Made in Germany”, and so on needs to be supported and protected: Champagne from the Champagne region, pristine beer from Bavaria and handcrafted watches from Switzerland. Europe is a premium market. And as such it is of course open to the rest of the world. It should not be separated.

Europe’s chance to get to unity via diversity and to be strong through this unity is also the chance of any European business. It is this spirit that needs to be used when writing and implementing future market-oriented corporate strategies. When we adopt this attitude we will be successful and at the end of the day Europe is going to be thankful to its politicians.