Ferenc Laczó: In your recent book on your political friendship titled Zurück zur Wirklichkeit (‘Back to reality') you strike me as polemicists who are interested in mediation. Is that how you see yourselves and each other?
Claus Leggewie: Dany has the image of being the great revolutionary, someone who could have blown France apart – which, given the circumstances, might even have been possible. And that he is a rabble-rouser. People always asked, ‘Why is he arguing so much? Why is he shouting? Why is he so aggressive?' In truth, he was and is the most conciliatory person I know. He is the one able to settle disputes, saying, ‘Listen, be reasonable. What the other side is saying may be true.' And then he turns to the others and says, ‘Listen, be reasonable yourselves.'
Even as a parliamentary group leader having to deal with a heterogeneous group of people, Dany repeatedly came up with ideas for problems at exactly the right moment, ideas that no one else had thought of. He would say things like ‘Let's do it completely differently. We could approach the issue this way instead.'
So, for me he is the ideal representative of a realpolitik with a strong moral compass. Realpolitik means that we have to make progress. We can't just wait until capitalism has been abolished or antisemitism disappears. That is not going to happen overnight, so the question is: what do we do in the meantime?
Daniel Cohn-Bendit: Claus and I came to think about migration at almost exactly the same time – Claus as a professor who had taken an interest in the subject, I as a city councillor responsible for a department in Frankfurt. We developed an almost identical position without prior coordination – that we should acknowledge that Germany is a country of immigration but without sugarcoating the phenomenon.
From that point onward, he and I had the feeling that we were thinking in the same direction on all sorts of issues. Underlying all that was a shared idea of what modern meliorism could be. That reformism means trying to improve society in a way that understands that you need a majority of people to support your initiatives.
CL: Politically, we could play a ‘no look pass,' a pass into open space, like footballers, and know that the other would already be there or arrive there at the right moment. That's how we communicate with each other and we mostly agree. We argue, too, of course, but we almost always end up with a parallel view. Political friendships like ours matter because you can approach politics by constructing friend-enemy relationships, in the sense of Carl Schmitt, but you can also practice politics differently: we may have different opinions at times, yet we can still treat each other with kindness and respect.
Another point concerns the improbability of our friendship, which stems from the fact that we came from completely different social milieus. It only became clear to us while writing the book that Franco-German reconciliation after 1945 was something like a political miracle – it is something that just shouldn't ever have worked.
Both of us knew people who made Franco-German reconciliation possible, for example the Frankfurt-born author Alfred Grosser, whose Jewish family had to flee Germany. Such people could easily have remained enemies of the Germans for decades, but instead they said, ‘No, we want Europe. We will build something together. We look forward.' People like Grosser showed that even the deepest hostility can be overcome. The idea that people can discover something they share, and that that common ground is Europe, shaped our entire political upbringing. This ‘miracle' forms the foundation of our political friendship.
FL: How would you position yourselves on the left?
CL: We started out as autonomous activists and wanted a different society. Communal living. Alternative lifestyles. But then came the realization: social movements are like the tides – there is a high tide and there is a low tide. From that came another insight: if real change is ultimately decided in parliaments, then we must engage in parliamentary politics. That was the first major shift in our thinking.
But we also said: if we are entering parliament, it is to change things, and so we must be willing to form coalitions. That produced the first major conflict among the Greens, between the ‘realos' and the ‘fundis'.
Our first conclusion was that alliances with the Social Democrats were necessary. But hardly had we accepted that before some of us, including me, began to think: ‘There may come a time when cooperation with the Social Democrats is no longer possible, so we also have to consider cooperation with the Christian Democrats.' At the time, that was treated as lèse-majesté.
We never had any ideological enthusiasm for black-green politics. We simply said that coalition with the CDU might work under certain circumstances, if other options fail. I came from a CDU family; I knew better than most people how conservative and reactionary that world could be.
We both see ourselves on the left, but ‘the left' – and I say this with irony – is where we are, and not where others tell us we belong. What is leftwing about Jean-Luc Mélenchon? Nothing beyond his old-fashioned rhetoric. In other words, we belong to a left that doesn't declare something to be leftwing simply because the Bolsheviks, Marx, Mao, or whoever else once said so. We were never part of those kinds of ideological circles.
The decisive point for me is that we are humanists. Many people on the left, especially in our generation, have a rather misanthropic outlook. They keep their distance from ordinary people, who are meant to be idiots, philistines, even assholes. Whereas we say: nothing human is alien to us. Mistakes, foolishness, nonsense: those are all part of being human. If you want to engage in politics, then you have to be fundamentally friendly towards people.
DCB: I would put it slightly differently: I would say we are realistic about human beings. That means we believe every human being is capable of both the very best and the very worst. That is also why we would never simply give up on people. I admit that I struggle today when people tell me, ‘Not everyone who votes for the AfD is a fascist.' I don't know what those people are, but everyone who votes for the AfD accepts that migrants should be expelled… In other words, our humanism has its limits.
CL: On the left, we have almost always been in the minority. Whether the debate was about pacifism, ecology or other issues, we often find ourselves taking positions that differ from the mainstream. Not because we set out to provoke or shock. Rather, based on our shared values, we say ‘Here you're right and there you're wrong.' We get attacked a lot for that. I personally don't enjoy that, but you have to defend your position. Defending a minority position is incredibly good training, as it enables you to think freely.
We were among the few who never became fixated on Russia, unlike much of the German left – whether out of guilt about World War II or because Russia was still somehow regarded as the socialist promise. We always stood with the smaller eastern European countries. My own political formation was shaped by Prague '68 and later by the attack on Sarajevo in the 1990s. That fundamentally distinguishes us.
Most people on the left place equality at the centre. They are concerned with taxes, redistribution. I have nothing against higher taxes on the super-rich – but as we write in the book, our highest principle is freedom.
We also share a common intellectual mentor: André Gorz. His own life between different worlds – as someone who was both Jewish and Catholic, an immigrant from fascist Austria, who imagined what Sartre called a republic of freedom – was significant. We both knew him well. He, too, was almost always in the minority.
FL: You grew up in a Europe that in many respects was conservative if not authoritarian. That changed dramatically in the 1970s and 1980s with the new social movements. Since 1989 we have been living in another kind of democracy – a representative democracy, one that is deeply capitalistic, highly bureaucratized and so on. Have the hopes of emancipation you had in your youth been fulfilled?
DCB: Back then I looked to Hannah Arendt and Max Horkheimer as my key witnesses and argued that anti-authoritarianism was the foundation on which we stood. In retrospect, I think that the cultural revolution that began in the 1960s has been successful. The best example is that even the far right has female leaders; you can even be openly lesbian on the far right. Many Christian Democrats are now in same-sex marriages. That would have been unthinkable only twenty or thirty years ago. That doesn't mean we live in a good society; but we have to recognize how profoundly things have changed.
CL: The anti-authoritarianism that triumphed through the cultural revolution of the 1960s gave rise to a right-libertarian way of thinking that differs profoundly from the left-libertarian outlook we represent. The libertarian right has no respect and no sense of humility before the world, nature or the cosmos. None whatsoever. A misunderstood form of anti-authoritarianism simply says ‘I can do whatever I want. Nobody tells me what to do anymore.'
The same applies to their critique of the state. Think about the disruptive character of Trumpism, of Milei, of their desire to dismantle if not destroy the state. They bear the mark of a misunderstood anti-authoritarian revolt. In the end, what remains of conservatism is naked racism. Naked supremacism. I sensed this in an article I wrote for Die Zeit back in 1983. Already back then I was thinking that if everyone became anti-authoritarian, there would no longer be any shared moral foundation, no reason for anything beyond simply saying: ‘I'm against it.'
That oppositional attitude was something our generation had in abundance – we were against almost everything. That made sense at the time, because many things really were wrong. Today it is the right that says: ‘We simply want what the people want.' In terms of its intensity, the criticism of what is called ‘wokeism' is remarkably similar to how people of our generation criticized reactionary ideologies in the 1960s and 1970s. Only the sides have changed – now we are the establishment. The major difference is that today's right libertarians are far more closely aligned with the majority's wishes, even when those wishes are dreadful.
DCB: It became clear to us that we had to rethink the role of the state and its function, and to rethink ‘the people'. What role should the state play in defending the general interest, even against public opinion, when that opinion becomes illiberal? That's the great challenge for those of us shaped by the anti-authoritarianism of the 1960s.
It means recognizing that illiberalism can, at certain historical moments, be embraced by large parts of the population. For a long time, Viktor Orbán's illiberalism enjoyed genuine majority support in Hungary. He didn't impose it through force. Many people wanted it.
For most people on the left, the state was simply an instrument of repression, a servant of capitalism, an accomplice in selling out society to multinational corporations. I never agreed with that. For me, the state is an instrument for containing precisely the kinds of movements we are witnessing today. If the state fails, National Socialism becomes possible.
CL: Tolerance for ambiguity is, I think, the decisive political struggle today. That doesn't mean all positions are equally good. Quite the opposite. At the university we see an astonishing hardening of attitudes and intolerance. We encounter a pseudo-left whose attitude is profoundly authoritarian. Banning has become its first instinct: if they dislike something, it must disappear. They have no tolerance for ambiguity.
DCB: If we represent anything, it is a rejection of fixed identities. That doesn't mean denying that our own cultural identities shaped us. That would be absurd. For a long time, I didn't understand what my Jewish identity meant and how important it had been. We're not denying the relevance of those things. We have nothing against a sense of self or even a sense of ‘we' – though I'd always place the ‘I' first.
CL: The problem is that both the Democrats in the US and Europe's liberal left have stopped talking about interests. Instead, they talk about identity. The left made a huge mistake when it accepted the culturalization of political conflict. That's why every issue becomes another Israel–Palestine – a question of friend or enemy. Ironically, the right succeeded because the left showed it how. The first identitarians were people who argued that identity itself was the central battlefield of political struggle.
We were never old-style Marxists, nor neo-Marxists either. We never thought the capital–labour conflict explained everything. Yet the cleavage between capital and labour, rich and poor, between those at the top and those at the bottom still exists. Globally, the conflict may be sharper than ever before. Trumpism is the machine designed to push that conflict to its logical conclusion. As someone on the left, I would therefore primarily speak about the growing divide between rich and poor.
FL: Could you say more about your idea of cosmopolitan universalism?
CL: The truly universal principle is human dignity. Human dignity is inviolable. That's the finest sentence in the German Basic Law and the great achievement of post-Nazi Germany. It means that in every conflict, every political struggle, every ideological confrontation, we must never lose sight of that principle – that's what I meant earlier when I spoke about being fundamentally humane.
But fortunately, as well as human dignity, we also have human rights. Some weeks ago, I was at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, a temple of the law. If that institution were to be abandoned, something essential would be lost. One thing I hope still to see is a tribunal for Putin in The Hague; he should stand trial for the crimes he has committed against humanity. Our shared humanity has to be defended. For me, that is the essence of universalism.
Cosmopolitanism means acknowledging that different societies have different histories, levels of development, different traditions and political cultures. It means extending tolerance for ambiguity to the international level. In other words, I have to accept that politics is conducted differently in Latin America than it is in Europe. It also requires a genuine reckoning with colonialism, and not merely rhetorical gestures.
For me, the central ecological question isn't whether nuclear power is good or bad, or whether we should consume more electricity or less. The real issue is something much more fundamental: it is about extending cosmopolitanism beyond humanity itself, to encompass non-human beings within our moral and political horizon. Most people, including people on the left, find that almost incomprehensible. For them, ecology still means that human beings remain at the centre and simply manage nature more intelligently. If it gets too hot, we'll cool things down. But that way of thinking is over; that kind of anthropocentrism cannot be saved.
For the past ten years I have devoted myself to promoting what we call planetary thinking. The argument is that humanity is embedded within a much larger universe – human beings occupy only an unimaginably tiny instant in the history of the cosmos. We ought to finally understand that. Ecological politics should begin by recognizing the interconnectedness of everything with everything else.
DCB: I'm more of a traditional cosmopolitan. For me, The Hague is the concrete institutional achievement of post-1945 civilization. It represents the recognition of how inhuman human beings can be, and the attempt to respond to that through law. It is the logical continuation of the Nuremberg Trials.
After 1945, the world entered a new phase. But in the United States, Black Americans continued to be oppressed for decades. Likewise, today we need a genuine reckoning with colonialism and slavery in all their dimensions. Slavery is not merely a challenge for white societies. There was also an Arab slave trade.
That's one of the weaknesses of much postcolonial thinking, in my view. It assumes there was one enemy: white Europeans. Of course, European colonialism was central. But reducing everything to a simple opposition between colonizer and colonized undermines cosmopolitan thinking.
FL: You argue that the European Union is misunderstood and defend a federalist model that differs from what many people imagine under that label – namely a centralized superstate. In what sense does the EU remain a realistic utopia for you?
DCB: The traditional understanding of European federalism emerged after 1945. It is, in fact, the opposite of centralization; its purpose is to organize this new political community in such a way that it can actually function. The Federal Republic of Germany is a federal state. It was conceived as the opposite of the centralized Prussian state. The United States is also a federal state. So the question is: how can Europe become federal? That means preserving the autonomy of its constituent parts while creating an effective federal system of representation.
The difficulty we face today is that Europe has become the bastion of a particular idea of democracy and civilization. We live in a crazy world where people inside the European Union say, ‘It's all just bureaucracy, it's just Brussels. We want out.' And everyone outside says, ‘We want in.'
People suddenly ask: ‘Why not admit Canada?' After all, Canada is essentially saying: ‘We want to stand together with you in defending this civilizational project of liberal democracy.' But that stretches federalism beyond its limits. Europe has to think about how to create a functioning federal structure without becoming an empire. That is an extremely difficult question.
At the moment, I can only describe the paradox. Perhaps Europe could function quite well as a smaller Europe, even with the British back inside. From a purely functional perspective, one could say: throw all the difficult cases out, build a smaller Europe, and everything would work wonderfully.  A Benelux model – a Beneuropa, if you wish. But that is, of course, impossible. It completely contradicts the European idea, it contradicts our traditions as well as current reality, and it would exclude much of eastern Europe.
CL: The point is that we want a community of shared values. However, those values are not exclusively European. They belong to humanity as a whole. In today's world, Europe has become the core of a global community that seeks to defend liberal democracy, which also pushes beyond Europe's own borders.
These are the paradoxes we have to grapple with. Europe cannot remain small, nor can it simply become large as though it represented the whole world, and yet Europe has become the repository of universal values. If we are going to survive, we have to find a political form that allows us to live with this paradox. But most European politicians don't seem to grasp the issues.
DCB: Europe has become an actor within a much larger world, a world shaped by Trump, Xi Jinping and Putin. They pursue their interests across the world and compete globally. Yet Europeans still behave as though it were enough simply to settle matters among ourselves, without paying attention to what is happening outside.
The anti-authoritarian generation quite rightly emphasized individual freedom, the freedom to live one's own life as one chooses. But now we face another question: how do we understand the collective interests of our community, and what does it actually mean to defend ourselves?
That is why we argue in favour of compulsory national service – not just military service, but one mandatory year of service for everyone, women and men alike. Ideally, this should exist across Europe. For one year, every young person would choose whether to work in a hospital, in environmental restoration, or in military service, learning to contribute something to society. This would become a genuinely European project. If you build such a foundation, you also create the basis for a credible capacity for defence – because defence ultimately means defending our shared interests and our shared values. Awareness of this remains very underdeveloped.
FL: You write a great deal about imagination in politics and the need for open reflection and open debate. We associate that with traditions of dissent. Do you see any particularly inspiring initiatives or individuals today that represent a new form of dissent, something that really fits the present moment?
DCB: Something interesting is happening intellectually that is opening people's minds. I call it the rehabilitation of Camus against Sartre. What does Camus represent? He said: Yes, I support Algerian independence, but afterwards the settlers, who have lived there for a hundred years, must build a state together with the Algerians – apart from the obvious fascists among the settlers, who should be excluded. The Left, however, said: ‘No, the colonizers must go. That's the only possible solution.'
The idea that people must build something together is ultimately the precondition for utopian thinking, for imagining how the world could be rebuilt. That's an important lesson. There is, then, at least one historical figure to return to.
CL: If we're talking about intellectual influences today, we have to return to historical figures and to the dilemmas they faced. There is no genuine European federalist movement anymore, so we should re-examine earlier dilemmas and ask what we can learn from them.
Our book begins on the island of Ventotene, where in 1941 a few anti-fascists, liberals and socialists together developed the ability to imagine a future, to imagine an entirely different Europe. We're only beginning to understand what Mitterrand and Kohl accomplished. There are countless ideologues today who say, ‘less Europe' or even ‘leave Europe'. But that simply isn't going to happen. The utopia has become a material reality.
First, then, we must remember the principled federalists and those who grappled honestly with political dilemmas. Second, we need pragmatic politicians who are most likely to bring about a real turning point. They could be conservative, like Péter Magyar. Third, we need to keep in mind the factual force of material reality that history has already produced. In other words, we need to understand the conditions under which an optimistic political vision could re-emerge.
