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For the first time in over sixty years, no European sees a fellow European as his enemy. It’s been sixty years since gunshots last rang out in Europe as no nation attempted to conquer or lay claim to another. For the first time, the same currency is circulating throughout Europe, from Romania to Portugal; and this is a free choice, not an imposition.

 

For the first time, face to a severe international crisis, 27 Governments have sat down at the same table to work out a solution together. For the first time, we are European. There are doubts, there are differences between us, but we are European. Sometimes we truly feel European.

 

But where is the start of this road that is tortuous, sometimes painful, but at the same time richly rewarding, replete with culture, art and ideas? How did it all begin? It began with a legend that speaks of desire, of love.

 

Europa is supremely beautiful. The name means “with huge eyes” or “with a glowing expression”. Europa was a king’s daughter.

 

 

Zeus saw her for the first time as she was picking flowers in a field, and fell for her immediately. In order to win her over, he turned himself into a white bull, delightfully tame and fragrant with saffron flowers. In this guise he approached the young maiden, inviting her to climb upon his back.

 

 

Europa wasso taken with this alluring bull God that she accepted, and Zeus sped away with her across the Mediterranean and the Aegean and on to Crete, where he possessed her. Zeus’s love for Europa was no passing whim, however; he showered her with gifts and often returned to Crete to be with her.

 

For the first time, instead of simply abandoning her and forgetting she existed, as he had done with so many women before her, he ensured Europa and her sons a worry-free future, granting her in marriage to Asterion, the King of Crete. Today Europa’s face adorns the obverse of the Greek two-euro coin.

 

Europa is both queen and wayfarer, lover and fugitive. Uncommonly beautiful and exotic, she lives far from the land of her birth, but does not fall victim to nostalgia or homesickness, winning over everyone in her new home with her charm. Just like Europeans, that are all over the world. The First, from Chaos to the Universe as we know it.

 

For the first time, artists and craftsmen from all over the continent are coming together to design, invent and create in Europa’s name, taking inspiration from the elements that are fundamental to our existence, and without which love could not exist, would not be possible: Water, Earth, Fire and Air.

 

Each individual has his own viewpoint, his own language, his own culture and customs, his own personal story to tell. There are differences, distance; every individual at work has his own idea of what beauty is and how it can be rendered.

 

This magical combination seems unfeasible, yet it works; it bears fruit. Europa has the gift of bringing Europeans together, of bringing Peace and Beauty. There is no greater gift we can offer the generations to come.