PRAGUE — One of the fundamental pillars of Europe's political architecture is a strong and enduring belief in the universal validity of equal, universal, and inalienable human rights.

At the core of this is a belief in the rights of human beings to a life of freedom and the protection of their dignity.

In the years after World War II, this humanist ideal became the basis of Europe's spiritual and political identity and hence it is contained in the founding documents of the European Union. This doesn't mean the EU could or would want to conquer the rest of the world in the name of imposing its values, rules and culture on the rest of humanity. Far from it.