Pro-Europeanism on the Right? Reflections on the Charlemagne Club’s Recent Event
This article was originally published on the Charlamagne Club’s Substack and is re-produced with their permission.
Over 100 European professionals gathered on 29 January 2026 for our event “Pro-Europeanism on the Right.” We are very gratified by the result because, truth be told, we were by no means sure that our message of overcoming naïve cosmopolitanism and sterile petty nationalism would resonate in the Brussels ecosystem of political factions.
The fact that so many people came, for an idea that today remains a long-term vision, is highly suggestive: there is a real hunger among many European affairs professionals for a conservative, constructive, and achievable pan-European patriotism.
The event featured classical historian Professor Dr. David Engels and veteran pan-European activist and writer Robert Steuckers as panelists, and it was graciously hosted by MEP Tomasz Froelich (ESN, Germany).
The event was moderated and co-organized by the founders of the Charlemagne Club - Dawid and Yaro.
MEP Tomasz Froelich argued that in an era of American, Russian, and Chinese power-politics, European patriots must articulate a pan-European project of their own to ensure our continent’s sovereignty and survival. “Our civilization is the foundation of every single European nation and the liberty each citizen experiences within his nation and across the continent,” he said. “It is time that we figure out how to build a European order that honours their legacy and the richness of our civilization.”
Professor Dr. Engels discussed European nations’ shared cultural identity and the need for political organization to defend their shared interests while guaranteeing the rootedness of local identities and communities. He noted that since the publication of his Auf dem Weg ins Imperium—his ground-breaking comparative analysis of the crises of the late Roman Republic and of the contemporary European Union—right-wing pro-Europeanism has become more prevalent.
Robert Steuckers reflected on the history of the French Nouvelle Droite and other right-wing pro-European cultural and political movements since the 1960s. In building a conservative and patriotic European alternative to the left-liberal consensus, he stressed the need to draw from deep intellectual roots in the form of Bertrand de Jouvenel’s “Le blocus continental”, Julien Freund’s “L'essence du politique", Friedrich List’s political economy, and Carl Schmitt’s Grossraum concept.
The event was a great opportunity to exchange ideas, make human connections across political groupings and walks of life, and begin planning the European Union that our peoples actually need: grounded in freedom, identity, and power. We have already made a splash, but the work has only just begun!
