Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-04-Speech-2-009"
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"en.20060704.4.2-009"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I am speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats following this statement on the recent history of Spain. I would like to stress that our position is essentially based on full support for the values of reconciliation and of overcoming a past tragedy, which were the values that inspired the transition to democracy and which led to the 1978 Constitution.
On a day like tomorrow, a 5th of July 30 years ago, the President of the Spanish Government, Adolfo Suárez, took on his job of taking our democratic transition forward.
For those of us who had the honour and opportunity to assist in that project and to belong to the Union of the Democratic Centre - that party which, in government, was responsible for the material execution of the transition, aided by other political formations and supported unequivocally by Spanish society and His Majesty the King - our values of freedom and reconciliation enshrined in the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and our call for an end to the two irreconcilable Spains arose from our very deepest convictions. The mistake, the stupidity, the tragedy of the last century of Spanish history, was the ease with which the two opposing Spains have been able to re-emerge – an excessive phenomenon that has always existed in our country – the ease with which those two Spains were able to convince themselves that they could not live together democratically.
We are all aware of the origin and the raison d’être of the European Union, which is founded upon the same moral strength as that Spanish Constitution, the moral strength of people joining together, the moral strength of unity, so that our recent past will not repeat itself, so that no more world wars will emerge on European soil, no more wars, no more dictatorships, no more communist regimes and no more civil wars like the one we suffered in Spain.
The new nations of Europe may make mistakes when dealing with our present and future problems, but there is one mistake that we cannot make, that we do not have the right to make: to repeat historical mistakes, not to learn from the mistakes of our history.
For all of these reasons, we must not become tired of reconciliation and harmony. We must not change our attitude, and many Spaniards believe it to be an historical mistake to try to promote a second transition today, as if the first one had grown old and obsolete; it is an historical mistake to unilaterally destroy the essence of our Constitution of harmony; it is historically foolish to introduce the debate on the right to self-determination in Spain, the creation within Spain of new nations that have never existed; it is an historical mistake because it moves us away from the harmony we have created.
On this thirtieth anniversary of the Spanish democratic transition, therefore, Mr President, which began on 5 July 1976, and on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, please allow me to end with a 'viva' for reconciliation, a ‘viva’. for freedom and a ‘viva’ for the Spanish Constitution of 1978."@en1
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