Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-10-24-Speech-2-015"
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"en.20061024.4.2-015"2
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".
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, there is a connection between the anniversary that we are commemorating today, namely the anniversary of the Hungarian uprising against their Soviet oppressors, and the anniversary that we will be celebrating next spring, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome.
These two events took place within a short space of time and both of them were motivated by the same spirit. The Treaties of Rome were characterised by the spirit of freedom and the binding together of peoples in freedom. This was precisely the spirit of the uprising in Hungary too. The people of Hungary wanted out of a system that had been forced upon them; they wanted their own sovereignty as a free people. They had to fight that system and struggle against a power that wanted to take that right away from them.
Fifty years later we are commemorating those men and women who sought out the right that we, the European Union, today guarantee to each people, namely the right to be able to live in freedom and self-determination within the democratic international community. Those men and women who had to fight their oppressors for that right are true heroes of European history. They had no weapons, they could not resist an army and they faced the tanks with their bare hands and their chests torn open – we all know the pictures.
The courage shown by these men and women is worthy of our admiration. In my opinion, that courage, and the stance that was, as both the previous speaker and you, Mr President, have pointed out, to be found not only in Hungary but also in Poland and twelve years later in Czechoslovakia, that courage is also part of the heritage of Europe. It shows that on this continent, men and women have always been prepared to dedicate their lives to freedom. The courage of those men and women is up there with the best that Hungary has to offer Europe. It is also up there with the best that we as Europeans have to preserve.
I believe that the fall of the Wall that came later, the fact that it was possible to tear down the Wall, to overcome the Iron Curtain, grew out of the courage of the days that we are remembering today. One thing is completely clear, and that is that however bitter oppression may be in any particular case, however painful a dictatorship, it will not last forever. No oppression can keep down the desire of a people for freedom, the desire of humankind for freedom, in the long run. Every dictatorship yet in the history of humanity has fallen at some point. Just as this communist, Stalinist dictatorship fell, so will the other dictatorships in the world. This means that the courage of those men and women in Hungary fifty years ago is the courage of men and women in other parts of the world who are fighting oppression in their own lives today. This is an ongoing fight; it is not over.
By commemorating these events on the 50th anniversary we are also commemorating the fact that the people of Hungary have succeeded, having achieved their democracy and their freedom in their country, in transforming the act that forced them into the Eastern Bloc into an act of freedom whereby, through free self-determination, they have joined the European Union. What that represents is a completely different concept, namely that of voluntarily joining an international community through free self-determination rather than being forcibly pushed into a community of force. It is precisely this that is the giant step forward that we have made in Europe over the last 50 years.
This uprising took place when I was a little baby, just 10 months old. I was a child in 1956. The fact that I have been able to live my life in freedom is an enormous privilege, an advantage that the Hungarians of my generation did not have. I am grateful for this, but I am even happier that, at this point in my life, we who were born in freedom in Western Europe are today able to live together, as Europeans, with those born under oppression, in the Union in which we share. There could be no finer gift for my generation here and in Hungary."@en1
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