Pan-European Picnic: SZE Students Honoured at Hungarian-German Youth Association Essay Competition

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In addition to three German young people, two students from Széchenyi István University won prizes in the essay competition organised by the Hungarian-German Association for Youth on the 35th anniversary of the Pan-European Picnic. The prestige of the competition is reflected in the fact that the awards were presented by the President of the Association in the presence of the Presidents of the two countries.

The Pan-European Picnic is one of the emblematic events of the regime changes in Central and Eastern Europe. On 19 August 1989, a large number of people gathered near Sopron in the spirit of the idea of a Europe without borders, and then, taking advantage of the programme, hundreds of East German citizens broke through the border gate and fled to the West. This became a symbol of the fall of the Iron Curtain and indirectly contributed to the fall of the Berlin Wall a few months later.

The 35th anniversary of this historic moment was recently commemorated in Sopron, organised by the Hungarian-German Youth Association and the Hungarian office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation. The event gave seventy young people from six countries the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of history. As part of the programme, the results of an essay competition organised by the association were formally announced. There were 21 entries presented, assessing the historical significance and impact of the Pan-European Picnic. The themes of cultural understanding and civic participation dominated, with eight essays on each, while four essays on the Picnic itself and one on EU membership were submitted.

At the ceremony, the prizes were presented by the Presidents of the two countries, Dr Tamás Sulyok and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, together with Dr Erzsébet Knáb, President of the Hungarian-German Youth Association. “We believe that every meeting, every joint activity that we enable between German and Hungarian young people contributes to building a bridge that we Germans and Hungarians will cross together, hand in hand, in the spirit of partnership”, stressed Dr Erzsébet Knáb, who is also the founding president and a member of the Board of Trustees of the Széchenyi István University Foundation. The awards were presented at the Summer Academy, where participants also discussed the impact of historical events such as the Pan-European Picnic on today’s generation.