When we inaugurated A New Alliance in Madrid, we asked a question that seemed, at first sight, to concern strategy: Why do the Americas matter for the future of Europe?

Listening to our speakers over the past two days, however, and reflecting on our conversations, I have become convinced that the question itself points to something much deeper. The relationship between Europe and the Americas is not merely a matter of diplomacy, commerce or security. It is, above all, a matter of civilization.

We have become accustomed to speaking about the Atlantic as though it were a frontier separating two political worlds. Yet history teaches precisely the opposite. The Atlantic was never the edge of our civilization. It was the route through which that civilization expanded, carrying with it not merely explorers, merchants and settlers, but an understanding of political liberty, the rule of law and the dignity of the human person that would eventually shape an entire community of free nations stretching across two continents.

And there is perhaps no better place than Vienna to be reminded of this.

This city was one of the great capitals of European statecraft at a time when another Habsburg court, in Madrid, governed a monarchy whose political horizon stretched from the heart of Europe to the great cities of the New World—from Brussels to Mexico City, from Naples to Lima. Whatever judgment anyone may pass on the empires of the past, those statesmen understood something that we, perhaps, have allowed ourselves to forget: that the destiny of Europe has never been confined to Europe alone. The Atlantic was not a distant periphery of European history. It was one of its principal theatres.

Today we can speak of Europe and the Americas as partners, and rightly so. Yet partnership, valuable though it is, does not fully describe the relationship. Partners cooperate because their interests coincide. We are connected by something more enduring than shared interests. 

We are heirs to the same civilizational inheritance. 

We draw from the same intellectual traditions, the same legal foundations and, to a remarkable extent, from the same moral imagination. The Atlantic community is therefore not simply a geopolitical reality. It is the political expression of a civilization that has developed over centuries and that continues to evolve through the contributions of free nations on both sides of the ocean.

That conviction has become more relevant because we are living through a period in which many citizens, both in Europe and throughout the Americas, are asking fundamental questions about political leadership, democratic legitimacy and the capacity of institutions to respond to the challenges of our time.

It is no coincidence that some of the most encouraging political developments of recent months have come from as Peru and Colombia. Their political circumstances are unique, their histories are distinct and their democratic debates belong to their own citizens. Yet they also remind us of something broader: that across the Atlantic world there is a growing demand for political movements and leaders guided by conviction rather than convenience, by principles rather than permanent improvisation.

This is no longer merely a philosophical argument. It is increasingly becoming a political reality. 

This year alone, our friends and allies have already prevailed in six of the seven elections held across Ibero-America. That is not an accident. It is the consequence of political movements and leaders that know what they believe before they ask what the polls expect them to believe. Conviction over convenience.

And if anyone still doubts that conviction wins elections, I would simply invite them to ask our friends in the European People's Party how many of those seven elections their allies have won.

That same reflection is particularly appropriate here in Austria, where FPÖ celebrates its seventieth anniversary this year. Let me congratulate all of you once again and wish you every success in the years ahead.

Whatever one's political sympathies, anniversaries of this kind invite us, however, to think beyond electoral cycles. 

They remind us that democracy depends not only upon elections, but upon institutions capable of preserving ideas, educating leaders and transmitting political traditions from one generation to the next. In an age in which parties are too often reduced to electoral vehicles assembled for a campaign and discarded shortly thereafter, there is something profoundly important about organizations that understand themselves as custodians of a political tradition rather than simply competitors in a political marketplace.

This is not because history should imprison us. Quite the contrary. Political traditions remain alive only when they are capable of speaking to the present while remaining faithful to enduring principles. But that fidelity matters. Citizens can forgive political defeats. They are far less willing to forgive political movements that appear unsure of what they believe. In the end, confidence in public life is built not merely upon promises, but upon coherence. History rewards those political movements that know who they are long before they know whether they have won the next election.

And this is precisely another reason why gatherings such as this one matter. 

We are here because we recognize that the challenges confronting our societies increasingly transcend national borders, and because we understand that the defense of our common civilizational inheritance requires a conversation that is equally transatlantic.

The purpose of A New Alliance is therefore not to diminish the differences among our nations, but to strengthen the ties that make those differences compatible within a broader community of civilization.

Europe should remain unmistakably European. Yes.

And the Americas should remain confidently American. Yes.

Yet both should remember that the principles upon which they rest did not emerge in isolation. They belong to a shared historical tradition that has been enriched, defended and renewed by successive generations.

When we began this conference series in Madrid, we asked why the Americas matter for the future of Europe. 

Dear friends, I believe we leave Vienna with the answer. They matter because their future and that one of Europe are chapters of the same civilizational story. 

Our responsibility is to ensure that the next chapter is worthy of those that came before it.

Thank you very much for having us.

Prost!

Eduardo Cader's - Member of the Board of Patriots for Europe Foundation