In the spring of 2002, the President of the European Commission, Romano Prodi, asked the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Institute for Human Sciences) in Vienna to set up a group of Europeans to reflect on those values that are particularly relevant to the continuing process of European unification and to advise him in this field. The people concerned should be independent individuals, not representatives of political parties, churches or other organisations, people with intellectual credentials, political experience and a stature transcending that of the political parties in their countries.
Over the next few weeks the group was set up and soon started work. Its members are: Kurt Biedenkopf, Silvio Ferrari, Bronislaw Geremek, Arpad Göncz, John Gray, Will Hutton, Jutta Limbach, Krzysztof Michalski, Ioannis Petrou, Alberto Quadrio Curzio, Michel Rocard and Simone Veil.