Since 2004, the President of the Union is Alain Terrenoire, former Member of Parliament in France and MEP and Director of the French Paneuropa-Union. Otto Habsburg became the International Honorary President of the International Paneuropean Union in 2004. The current vice president is Walburga Habsburg Douglas, a former member of the Swedish Parliament.[2]
History
The Austrian-Hungarian border crossing where the Pan-European Picnic took place in 1989
The organisation was prohibited by Nazi Germany in 1933, and was founded again after the Second World War.[5]Winston Churchill lauded the movement's work for a unified Europe prior to the war in his famous Zurich speech in 1946.[6][7] The French branch was founded by Georges Pompidou and Louis Terrenoire, subsequently French President and Minister for Information respectively, with the support of Charles de Gaulle. Otto von Habsburg, the head of the Habsburg dynasty and former Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, became involved with the Paneuropean Union in the 1930s, was elected its Vice President in 1957 and became its International President in 1973, after Coudenhove's death.
The organisation was much reviled by the communist regimes of the Eastern Bloc. The organisation became renowned for its role in organising the Pan-European Picnic, an important event during the Revolutions of 1989.
As of 2023, the Paneuropean Union Parliamentary Group in the European Parliament consists of over 120 members from nearly all of the EU Member States and meets regularly during the sessions of the Parliament in Strasbourg.[8]
^Michael Gehler; Wolfram Kaiser, Helmut Wohnout: Christdemokratie in Europa im 20. Jahrhundert: Christian democracy in 20th century Europe. Böhlau Verlag Wien, 2001, ISBN3205993608, Seiten 595.
^Trevor C. Salmon; William Nicoll: Building European Union: a documentary history and analysis. Manchester University Press, 1997, ISBN0719044464, Seite 26.