EUROPA – INTEGRATION AS SEEN BY YOUNG PEOPLE

Motif: The eye’s reflection of the symbols of the Republic of Croatia and EU Integration is a concept that has powerfully entered everyday life, particularly after World War II. In the course of uniting countries in western Europe, as well as following the desire to build up a new quality of relations that will create political unity through economic connections, the process that is currently taking place includes more and more European countries. Along with the concrete economic forms of integrating –that have clearly set targets and values – integration is effectively present in all other areas of life. Political development, social and cultural-scientific relations, all of them are in great measure permeated with the integrative interventions that should lead to a common goal of creating a more closely united European Union. In this immense process that is still going on, one may sometimes forget, on account of being obsessed with numbers and all the more recent forms of integrating, that along with the concrete successes recorded by the chief instrument of integration – the European Union – what is of particular importance is the fact that the possibility of waging war and settling conflicts by means of force has been permanently removed from the European region. This very element of integration can be considered the most important and fundamental cornerstone that can serve for the development of all other segments of new links. Along with the enormous process of integration at the state level, other integrations are running continuously in wider contexts: the integration of peoples, races, groups and individuals who, in a great concatenation of new relations and possibilities, create the foundation of the world we live in. The means of communication have speeded up the process of integration of people and ideas, created conditions for easier and faster getting to know each other and accepting things that not long ago seemed far away, remote and unknown. With the coming closer and getting to know people rest the possibilities of a strong integration of people, and consequently the breaking down of prejudices and the creation of foundations for building a new democratic world. Guided by this idea, the postal administrations of European countries have marked this year’s common theme EUROPE as the concept of integration seen through the eyes of the young. Those who are currently participating in the powerful process of integration and who are going to live in an even more potently integrated world – should in a miniature work of art show what their understanding of integration is. Crossing the barriers that divide them, the young can see in the integration an image of their present and their future. This means such a way of life that, along with all the internationalization, should create a space for permanent integration with the world, at the same time retaining all that is their own and valuable and good, all that can be presented to other people within the world’s integration process. prof.dr. Radovan Vukadinović