WE ARE EUROPE - Our European Values

 

R.M. Westerink; August 2026 

Look at Us Europeans

A Finn and an Italian, a Pole and a Dutchman, a Portuguese and a Bulgarian may disagree about religion, family, politics, money, work or the role of government. Europe is not one culture. Yet place European societies beside one another and another pattern appears. We expect political power to be limited by law, attach considerable importance to personal freedom, accept extensive social protection, and increasingly expect people who live differently from us to retain the same fundamental rights.

The differences are real, but so is the family resemblance. We commonly call it European Values. Before defending those values or asking Europe to protect them, it is worth asking a simpler question: if we look at Europeans as we actually are, can we find them?

Looking at Ourselves

Decades of comparative research give us a useful starting point. The World Values Survey and European Values Study examine attitudes toward family, religion, work, authority, democracy, individual choice and tolerance. The Inglehart-Welzel cultural map does not show Europe as one homogeneous block; northern, western, southern, central and eastern Europe retain different histories and profiles. But a broader European landscape is visible, especially around self-expression, secular-rational orientations and democratic expectations.[1]

Other approaches point into the same landscape. Shalom Schwartz's work examines values such as self-direction, universalism, benevolence and security; Geert Hofstede offers a more limited comparative lens on individualism, hierarchy and uncertainty.[2][3] None produces a ready-made list called 'European Values'. What matters is that different windows repeatedly reveal related features.

The individual occupies an important place. Europeans generally want room to choose how to live, believe, speak and associate. Yet this individual freedom developed alongside a strong expectation that society carries responsibilities toward its members. Education, healthcare, pensions, unemployment protection and public services sit beside market economies. Europe has repeatedly tried to combine freedom with collective responsibility rather than choose between them.

The same is true of democracy. Elections matter, but European democracy usually means more than 51 percent deciding anything it wants. Majorities govern inside constitutions and law; courts can restrain government; minorities retain rights; and political power is legitimate without being unlimited.

Nor does common ground require cultural uniformity. A conservative Catholic in Poland need not acquire the personal values of a secular liberal in Amsterdam. One distinctive property of European Values may be precisely that they leave considerable room for different personal and group values - provided the same protected space remains available to others.

What We Have Come to Value

Put into ordinary language rather than political philosophy, the pattern is surprisingly simple. This is the value package we will use throughout WE ARE EUROPE - series:

·        We value human dignity - every person remains a person of worth.

·        We value being free to live our own lives.

·        We value having an equal say in how we are governed.

·        We value being equal before the law.

·        We value being protected against arbitrary power.

·        We value helping each other when help is needed.

·        We value being free to be different.

·        We value honesty and sufficient trust to deal with one another.

·        We value solving our differences through rules, dialogue and compromise.

·        We require our differences and conflicts to be resolved peacefully.

None is uniquely European, and Europeans do not rank them identically. Their importance lies in the configuration. Together they describe a protected space: considerable freedom and disagreement, bounded by equal standing, restraints on power, mutual support, truthful-enough dealings, rules and peace.

We Did Not Start This Way

Europe's history makes any story of naturally European freedom or tolerance impossible. Europe produced religious persecution, absolutism, slavery and colonial conquest, extreme nationalism, fascism, the Holocaust, communist dictatorship and devastating wars. Many of today's expectations were learned through the consequences of their absence.

Religious conflict made freedom to be different painfully concrete. The Reformation brought persecution and war before tolerance gradually became both principle and practical necessity. The Enlightenment strengthened claims of conscience, individual freedom and popular sovereignty, while forcing authority to justify itself.

Industrialization exposed another problem. Markets created wealth but also insecurity, dangerous work and severe inequality. Labor protection, public education, social insurance, trade unions and welfare states gave practical form to dignity and to helping one another without abandoning personal freedom or markets.

Democracy widened unevenly. Property restrictions fell, workers demanded representation, women gained political rights, and equal say and equality before the law moved from radical claims toward ordinary expectations.

The twentieth century supplied Europe's harshest lessons. Fascism, Nazism and the Holocaust showed what happens when hierarchy and state power overwhelm dignity and legal protection. Communist rule supplied another experience of power without open competition or adequate individual freedom. Different histories reinforced a common conclusion: people need protection against arbitrary power, and rights cannot depend only on the goodwill of rulers.

After 1945, western European countries increasingly turned these lessons into institutions. The European Convention on Human Rights allowed individuals eventually to challenge their own states before a supranational court.[4] After 1989, countries emerging from communist rule joined a European order in which democracy, rights and rule of law were closely tied to their return to Europe.

Peace sits slightly differently in our list. European states had treated war as an accepted instrument of politics for centuries. After two world wars, the post-war project increasingly normalized the opposite requirement: however profound our differences, they are to be handled through rules, negotiation and compromise rather than force.

A Protective Pattern Emerges

Seen together, the ten values are not merely preferences. They protect the person and the society around the person. Dignity, freedom, equality and pluralism protect room for individual life. Solidarity protects against some of life's vulnerabilities. Honesty, dialogue and rules make cooperation possible. Restraints on power and peaceful conflict resolution protect the whole arrangement from coercion.

The next question is what happened when such expectations became claims. At some point 'we value freedom' became something stronger: 'I have a right to be free.' That is where the next piece begins.

References

[1] World Values Survey Association and European Values Study; comparative societal-values research, including the Inglehart-Welzel cultural map.

[2] Schwartz, S. H., Theory of Basic Human Values and comparative research into human value structures.

[3] Hofstede, G., cultural-dimensions framework, used here as a supplementary comparative perspective.

[4] Council of Europe, European Convention on Human Rights, signed 4 November 1950; entered into force 3 September 1953.