“The Foundations of the European Union” – a Lecture at the OLSS (Ordered Liberty Summer School)

Boglárka Koller, the Jean Monnet Cahir of the Ludovika University of Public Service gave a lecture on the history of the European unification process and the challenges facing the European Union today to a group of American, French and Central European students. In the context of the current challenges of the Union, it is worth recalling the beginnings of the integration process and the different periods of the unification.

The Ordered Liberty Summer University is a joint collaboration of the American University of Louisville and the University of Public Service. Every summer, law professors and political scientists from the United States and Hungary gather in Budapest to discuss the legal concept of “ordered liberty”. The Ordered Liberty Summer University in Budapest strives to help students correctly place the concepts of justice, law and freedom in their own country.

The concept of “ordered liberty” dates back to the work of Aristotle and Cicero, but the most complete formulation was given in his writings by 18th-century Irish statesman Edmund Burke. In the face of the radical decadence of the French Revolution, Burke made it clear that a good society is not created by utopian human constructions, but by three timeless virtues: the principles of justice, order, and freedom. We find challenges to this concept in many countries around the world, following the process by which political communities come to terms with new forms of technology and communication.