impEct No. 12

This issue 12 of impEct is dedicated to the memory of Roberto Portillo Tijerina. He was a graduate of the International Business, German-Spanish Branch study program. On September 3, 2019, he died in a gas explosion in his hometown of Chihuahua, Mexico. In the first part, some of his friends have compiled memories of Roberto.

The second part of impEct No. 12 comprises seven essays.

Victor Neumann, historian and professor at the University of the West in Timişoara, Romania, discusses the pioneering role of the city's inhabitants in the Romanian revolution that led to the fall of the Ceauşescu regime in 1989. On the other hand, he criticizes the way the subsequent governments dealt with the events of that time.

Victor Neumann is also the author of the second edition of the book "The Temptations of Homo Europaeus. An Intellectual History of Central and Southeastern Europe", whose theses are summarized by Werner Müller-Pelzer.

In the subsequent essay, Werner Müller-Pelzer discusses the question of the extent to which Neumann's detailed account of his experiences in the Habsburg dominions are relevant for Europe's future.

Martín Mercado Vásquez is a lecturer at the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés in La Paz, Bolivia, and is closely associated with the New Phenomenology founded by Hermann Schmitz. His first contribution refers to the Spanish translation of the "Brief Introduction to Phenomenology"; it is introduced by Werner Müller-Pelzer.

In his second contribution, Martín Mercado discusses the relationship between body and narrative in the constitution of personal identity.

The following essay by Martín Mercado supplements the topic by incorporating theses put forward by the psychologist Philipp Lersch.

The second part will be concluded by the presentation of Teo Geldner: He is a graduate of the International Business study program and is currently employed at the FernUni Hagen. The topic of his economics dissertation is the role of so-called sentiment indicators for monetary policy.

The third section of impEct No. 12 focuses on the editor's main area of interest: Europe and the new MONTAIGNE program. The second section below provides information on the status of publications on this subject.

The first section contains seven smaller publications, three of which are also available in English, French and Spanish. The basic translations have been produced with the help of www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version).

The connection between Europe and the MONTAIGNE program is broken down from different perspectives. As the texts refer to the same topic, repetitions could not be avoided.

The second section provides an overview of the impEct editor's publications on Europe and the MONTAIGNE program.

Two historians' assessments of another recent book by Victor Neumann complement the works on Europe listed above.

The third and final section documents a curiosity in the German press landscape: It is a press release which has been published in the BILD newspaper, but again has not been published either.

The Hungarian government's press release: "On the future of the European Union" directly touches on the editor's research topic. The curious circumstances of the publication deserve a brief explanation.

The text of the press release has been critically commented on by the print media and broadcasters of ARD, but not reproduced. Those who do not regularly read the BILD newspaper were unable to find out about the facts of the case, as the text itself - labeled as an advertisement - is not available on the Internet except for the paid e-version of the BILD newspaper - on the grounds that they did not want to spread the propaganda of Victor Orbán's government. As a reminder: All previous federal governments have published advertisements on specific occasions to present their respective policies. As a rule, the texts of the advertisements or the advertisements themselves were freely accessible in various media and were sometimes critically commented on by the respective opposition.

When asked, the German Press Council declared that it had no jurisdiction: every editorial office has the freedom to decide what it wants to report on. The NGO Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for press freedom worldwide, has not yet issued a statement. Among other things, the organization is concerned with the fate of Julian Assange.

It should be noted that the points raised in the press release are the subject of controversial debate in the academic literature.

Werner Müller-Pelzer

Dortmund, February 07, 2022