Today we remember and we celebrate. World War II, which took more than 50 million lives, ravaged Europe’s economies and reversed our continent’s development by decades, ended on 9 of May 1945. Five years later, on 9 of May 1950, the French foreign minister Robert Schuman offered a vision for an organised and united Europe, built on the shared peace and prosperity of its peoples.
In the less than a lifetime after these two dates, Europe has taken an enormous leap, made possible by the European Union. Today, we count on it for shard rules and laws. They enrich our lives with historically unprecedented opportunities to work and study in 27 countries, to do business in a market with 500 million consumers, to have more exciting holidays and lower prices, to use better medical services and safer products, to lead richer, more secure, better lives. But Europe is about more than rules – it is the engine of values that we could not imagine our lives without – peace and freedom, law and development, diversity and solidarity.
Wars permeated Europe’s history, from ancient to recent times. Life under dictatorship is living memory for many of the older Europeans (and in Eastern Europe – many of the younger ones too). And yet, from 1945 to the 1980s, democracy and peace were firmly established in most of Western Europe. A decade later, they also reached Europeans on the eastern side of the crumbling Iron curtain. For Spain and Portugal 30 years ago, for Poland, Bulgaria and the others in Central and Eastern Europe a decade ago, for the Western Balkans and Turkey today, the European Union a catalyst of change in societies, economies, legal and political systems. We well know how important these changes are – because we share recent and painful memory of their alternatives.
Moreover, today the EU constitutes a fifth of the global economy and is driving the growing cohesion between its own national economies. For each of our citizens, this means the opportunity to realise a precious dream – the dream to live better than our parents did, and to give the same opportunity to our children. To keep this dream within reach requires a joint effort to recover from the economic crisis and to remain competitive in a world of new and growing economic forces. This makes European cooperation and integration more valid than ever – because together we are much stronger, and count for much more than we would as 27 units.
Peace and common rules, development and prosperity are made possible by the thread that binds Europe’s fabrics – solidarity. As Commissioner for international cooperation, humanitarian aid and crisis response, I am privileged to work on the front-line of this solidarity: when member states help each other in responding to disasters, and when the EU helps together the victims of crises around the world. Solidarity brings us new opportunities to develop and help each other, but also – many occasions to be proud of what we do together to make the world a better place: from helping disaster victims in Haiti, Pakistan and Japan, through helping fight natural and man-made crises in Russia, Israel and the US, to supporting displaced and distraught civilians in Libya and the Ivory Coast. Through our support for people in the most difficult moment of their lives, we prove time after time that we are more successful and more influential when we swim together than if we sink separately.
For most of our continent’s history, most Europeans did not live in freedom and peace, did not enjoy the rule of law and prosperity, and could not count on solidarity and partnership. A large chunk of humankind still does not today. That we have access to these values is both a fantastic opportunity for us Europeans, and a responsibility to those who come after us. For them, for our children and grandchildren, it is essential that we continue to work together, united in our rich diversity, remembering the lessons of the past and considering the challenges of the future. Happy Europe’s Day!
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Tags: Bulgaria, development, enlargement, Europe's day, Haiti, Ivory Coast, Japan, Libya, Pakistan, peace, solidarity
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Dear Commissioner Georgieva :
Thanks for the post , it is a great day and your comments on solidarity are key , specially since the EU has today other problems like Credit Rating Agencies ( and while they are paid by the issuers they rate , an absurd and a crime ) and some Financial Institutions – and their partners in the neocon controlled Media - manipulating the EU debt with rumours and gossip to divide the EU, bring down the Euro and take the International Investors ( now in the EU and the Euro ) to their own financial markets in the Middle East and elsewhere , as well as to bring down the value of key EU assets and buy them very cheap, from aviation to banks to energy to consumer goods to foods , and so the EU must explain its young people the attack that is under,who is doing it and why and for what purpose , and also why solidarity and a common goal is so vital today.
In my opinion, Energy Independence and Security is Job Number One with Solar , Wind-Wave and shallow Geothermal for every community in the EU , and also with fuel-cells for buildings , hybrid-electric plug-in cars and trucks , and bio-fuels from non-edible sources for aviation ,etc., as well as intelligent support for natural organic farming and the family and small farms, involving the Youth in it , and this can create hundreds of thousands of new jobs at the same time, but will the 27 country leaders do it ? will they work together avoiding useless competition ?
Cross-Platform and open-source tools for mobile and fixed Internet is also vital, will the leaders support training , testing and low/free licenses ? Europa must develop a solid Internet community of programmers and engineers , of thinkers and problem solvers .
And will the leaders make sure the kids are free from the privacy abuses from some social sites ( like Facebook and others that still do not know how not to share private data with others ! ) and help them build their own secure sites ?
Dear Commissioner , most families in the EU lost someone in these terrible wars, and even when many have been asking all these years for the Media to investigate and report who really financed and profit from these wars , who promoted these wars from behind closed doors , the media is always silent or give us the usual non-factual ONE -SIDED neocon non-sense, why ? who were the bankers financing all these battles ? weapons ? equipments ? commodities like coal,iron,steel,copper, oil , cotton cement as well as silver and gold ? who controlled these markets then ?
Dear Commissioner : The EU is a great project and a reality that many groups, specially the extreme neocons , hate and would like to destroy , the best to you all keeping all EU working – even part-time – and making sure the EU project grows forever with Peace and Trade with all, thanks.
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