When Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida published a manifesto on the notion of ‘core Europe’ in 2003, it set off a major debate among key theorists and public intellectuals across the continent and beyond. The original ‘manifesto’ and a number of responses to it are gathered here, in which the debate about the role of Europe and the EU on the global scene, Europe’s relationship to the US, and its shifting status in a post-1989 and post-9/11 world are discussed. With contributions by: Habermas, Derrida, Richard Rorty, Susan Sontag, Timothy Garton Ash, Iris Marion Young, Ulrich Beck, etc.