History and culture April 25, 2022 Updated: September 22, 2026 20 min read Ulrik Adda

The Kalergi Plan: Coudenhove-Kalergi, Paneuropa and the Modern Narrative of Europe’s Demographic Transformation

Who was Coudenhove-Kalergi, what did he actually write about Paneuropa and the future human being, and what do current data really show about migration, asylum and demography in the EU and Slovenia?

Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi is one of those figures around whom documented history, later political symbolism and internet mythology have often merged into a single narrative. He was an early advocate of European federation, founder of the Paneuropean movement and a public campaigner for much closer political and economic integration decades before today’s European Union existed.

At the same time, his 1925 book Praktischer Idealismus used the racial vocabulary of its era and predicted that the human being of the distant future would be of mixed ancestry and that contemporary racial and caste distinctions would lose significance. That passage is real. But it is not, by itself, an immigration programme: it contains no quotas, implementing institution, timetable or instruction to European governments to create such an outcome through mass immigration.

The useful way to examine the subject is therefore to separate three layers: what Kalergi actually was and wrote; what genuinely carried from Paneuropa into the history of European integration; and what current evidence shows about migration, asylum and demography. Only after that separation does comparison with the present become analytically meaningful.

Europe’s current migration system does involve major political disputes, costs and consequences. Irregular crossings occur, many people are found to have no right to remain, return systems are imperfect and member states disagree on desired migration levels. At the same time, asylum law is not limited to people fleeing countries formally at war: international protection also covers individual persecution and other forms of serious harm. Migration policy can therefore be criticised rigorously, but the categories and numbers have to remain accurate.

Who Coudenhove-Kalergi was — and where he stood nationally

Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi was born in Tokyo in 1894 to Heinrich Coudenhove-Kalergi, an Austro-Hungarian diplomat, and Mitsuko Aoyama, his Japanese mother. He spent much of his childhood on the family estate in western Bohemia, studied in Vienna and Munich and earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1917. After the Habsburg monarchy collapsed he became a Czechoslovak citizen, and later a French citizen. His biography was transnational from the beginning.

His political identity was consequently not a conventional nationalism. In memoirs and correspondence he stressed that his background inclined him to see Europe as a continental whole rather than a collection of mutually exclusive nations. That did not mean that his Paneuropa simply abolished nations. His early federal project assumed national states would retain considerable identity while transferring selected sovereign functions to a common European level.

His career also resists a single contemporary label. He was an aristocrat, conservative European federalist, strong anti-communist, opponent of Nazism and advocate of supranational integration. His language on race, empire, democracy and European power also changed across different periods.

Paneuropa: what he actually proposed in 1923

In Pan-Europa, written after the First World War, Coudenhove-Kalergi argued that a politically fragmented Europe would lose security and economic weight in a world of continental powers. His answer was a political and economic federation of European states — often described as the “United States of Europe” — built around Franco-German reconciliation, security arrangements and a shared economic space.

The Paneuropean movement he organised in the 1920s was not secret. It held congresses, published a journal and actively recruited politicians, intellectuals and business figures. The European Parliament now describes him as a pioneer of European integration. After the Second World War he also organised the European Parliamentary Union; in 1950 he received the first Charlemagne Prize and later promoted Beethoven’s Ode to Joy as a European anthem.

The influence is therefore real, but there is no simple line from “Kalergi wrote it” to “today’s EU implemented it”. The post-war European Communities emerged through the Schuman Plan, Monnet’s functionalist strategy, interstate treaties and decades of later compromises. Coudenhove-Kalergi was an important intellectual precursor, not the sole architect or author of today’s EU treaties.

Portrait of Richard Nikolaus Coudenhove-Kalergi around 1926. — **Richard Nikolaus von Coudenhove-Kalergi around 1926.** The portrait documents the historical person during the early Paneuropean period; it does not establish any later interpretation of his programme. Image: Unknown author / Rozpravy Aventina, via Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

Praktischer Idealismus: what he actually wrote about the future human being

The most controversial passage appears in Praktischer Idealismus (1925). Coudenhove-Kalergi predicts that the human being of the distant future will be of mixed ancestry as space, time and prejudice become weaker barriers between populations. He uses a racial term that is offensive and scientifically obsolete today and compares this imagined mixed population with the appearance of ancient Egyptians. The passage is authentic and should not be hidden.

The grammatical and programmatic context matters equally. The passage is framed as a prediction within a discussion of mixing, heredity, urban humanity and individuality. It does not propose open borders, labour-import quotas, asylum rules, population replacement or an institution charged with carrying such a programme out. It is fair to say he expected — and in part welcomed — long-term human mixing; it is not enough by itself to establish a modern operational replacement plan.

His later writings also resist a single progressive narrative. Historical scholarship notes that in the late 1920s and 1930s he also used formulations about European or “white” solidarity in relation to the colonial world. This is a reminder to read him as an interwar political thinker with contradictions rather than as the author of contemporary categories.

Reconstruction of Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi’s proposed European flag. — **Coudenhove-Kalergi’s proposed European flag.** The visual illustrates his public and institutional federalist ambition for Europe. It is a CC0 reconstruction, not evidence of a migration policy. Image: Rabanus Flavus, reconstruction via Wikimedia Commons CC0 1.0

From Kalergi’s sentences to the modern “Kalergi Plan”

The expression “Kalergi Plan” in its current meaning is not the title of a Coudenhove-Kalergi document and does not appear in his programme as an immigration blueprint. Contemporary scholarship traces the narrative through Nazi attacks on Coudenhove-Kalergi and much later dissemination, especially in publications by Gerd Honsik in the early twenty-first century. Authentic lines from different parts of Praktischer Idealismus are often fused into a single quotation he never wrote in that form.

That does not make all present-day comparison meaningless. It is perfectly reasonable to ask whether some processes he anticipated — greater mobility, population mixing, weakening of some traditional borders and supranational political integration — are visible today. But a similar outcome is not proof of the same cause or planner.

This article therefore applies a stricter test. A claim of an implemented plan would require a documented transmission mechanism: decisions, institutions, continuity of policy, minutes or other evidence connecting Kalergi’s prediction to present migration measures. Similarity between an old forecast and later developments does not create that chain by itself.

What is actually happening with migration and asylum in the EU

Data confirm that migration is a major demographic and political factor, but the picture is not one-directional. In 2025 the EU recorded 669,400 first-time asylum applications, 27% fewer than in 2024. The same year roughly 719,000 third-country nationals were found illegally present, 491,950 were ordered to leave and 135,460 were returned to a third country. These figures show both the scale of irregularity and that EU law does not formally treat every irregular presence as permission to remain permanently.

Terminology matters. An irregular external-border crossing, an asylum application and a grant of international protection are not the same event. A person may arrive without ordinary entry documents and then lodge a claim that has to be assessed individually. Refugee status is not limited to people from countries formally at war; persecution on protected grounds can qualify, while subsidiary protection covers other serious harms. Economic preference for a better life by itself is not a ground for asylum.

The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum, applicable from June 2026, includes stronger external-border screening, faster border procedures for some cases, Eurodac, return rules and a solidarity mechanism among member states. It is politically legitimate to argue that the system is too permissive, too restrictive or ineffective; it is not accurate to describe encouragement of illegal crossings as its formal legal objective.

Demography: what the numbers mean for the EU and Slovenia

Across the EU, foreign citizens accounted for about 9.9% of the population on 1 January 2025: 3.1% were citizens of another EU member state and 6.8% were non-EU citizens. This is a substantial share and much higher in some countries, but “foreign citizen” is not the same thing as an ethnic, cultural or religious category. A naturalised immigrant, for example, ceases to appear as a foreign citizen in citizenship statistics.

In Slovenia, foreign citizens represented 10.7% of the population on 1 April 2026 — 227,680 out of 2,136,385 residents. The number of Slovenian citizens was falling while the number of foreign citizens was rising. That is a real demographic change that can reasonably be debated in relation to housing, wages, public services, integration, language, security and long-term population structure.

Those figures do not scientifically establish that Slovenes or today’s European national populations will necessarily become minorities. Eurostat projections are what-if scenarios based on fertility, mortality and net migration, including higher-, lower- and zero-migration variants. They do not project ethnicity. Sustained high net migration can hypothetically alter population composition strongly, but timing, scale and meaning depend on immigration, emigration, fertility, naturalisation and integration.

Why governments accept migration: economics, ageing, humanitarian obligations and politics

No single hidden motive is required to understand why parts of European politics support immigration. European societies are ageing, employers seek workers, some sectors depend heavily on foreign labour, asylum obligations arise from law, and political parties differ in how they value openness, solidarity and national continuity. These reasons are public and often conflict with one another.

That does not make the benefits automatic. Large and rapid inflows can put pressure on housing, schools, health care, asylum systems and local budgets; poor integration can produce segregation, crime problems or cultural conflict. Conversely, well-managed labour migration can increase labour supply, tax revenue and output. Net effects depend on migrants’ age, skills, employment, family structure, length of stay and the capacity of institutions to integrate newcomers.

Fear can be used by different political camps: by depicting inevitable civilisational collapse on one side, or by treating every demand for tighter migration control as moral extremism on the other. A more useful standard is measurable performance: how many people arrive, through which legal channel, how many receive protection, how many are returned, and what employment, fiscal, security and integration outcomes follow.

What matches — and what remains unproven

If Coudenhove-Kalergi’s writings are compared with the present without adding an external theory, some parallels are obvious: Europe is much more institutionally integrated, internal Schengen borders matter less for movement, populations are more mobile and mixed, and supranational institutions play a much larger role than in 1923. In that limited sense he was strikingly prescient about some trends.

Two propositions must nevertheless remain separate. First: Coudenhove-Kalergi genuinely predicted long-term human mixing and genuinely advocated political integration of Europe. Second: present migration is deliberately managed in order to implement his programme and turn existing European nations into minorities. Primary texts support the first proposition; the second requires additional evidence of intent, institutional continuity and an implementation mechanism that demographic parallels alone do not provide.

A legitimate political question remains open: what level and type of migration should a society accept, and how should it balance humanitarian protection, economic demand, border control, integration capacity and cultural continuity? That is a matter of public policy and democratic choice. Knowing Coudenhove-Kalergi enriches the historical discussion; judging current policy requires current data, law and observed consequences.