By Bruno Waterfield - 26th January 2006
Europe’s great and good face the political music at an Austrian EU and European commission conference, the “sound of Europe”.
Over the next three days, EU politicians, commissioners, MEPs, diplomats and officials will try to hit the right note at a launch of a pan-European debate of Europe’s future.
Top of the agenda is an attempt to find a “new sound” in 2006 after the EU hit bum notes with French and Dutch rejections of the European constitution last year.
The conference takes a musical theme with the Austrian EU presidency hosting the event in Salzburg, city in which Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born exactly 250 years ago.
Over 300 “personalities from the world of politics, science, arts and the media” will be singing from the same song sheet in a bid to change the mood music after an EU annus horribilis.
“The unease and scepticism people express about Europe will also be addressed, and the underlying causes analysed,” states an EU presidency press release.
To address the EU’s political malaise conference participants get down to “fundamental questions as to the future of Europe, European values, identity and culture”.
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