Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-14-Speech-3-016"
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"en.20070314.3.3-016"2
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"Mr President, a significant birthday is always a good occasion to take stock. Fifty years ago at the signing of the Treaty of Rome, what was in the minds of Europeans? Well, hope, undoubtedly; optimism, perhaps; but the certainty of success – far from it. And yet the European Union is at the base of the security, prosperity and opportunity which our people now enjoy.
We live in a Europe of freedom and security, of prosperity and opportunity and of societies and economies more open than ever before. Our generation has aspired to, and achieved, more than our parents could ever have dreamt of. But the Berlin Declaration must reflect less our pride in the past, more our determination for the future.
President-in-Office, the process is depressingly opaque. Everybody likes a surprise on their birthday, but to debate a declaration without even a draft is bizarre! You hinted at what it might contain, President-in-Office. You assure us that the spin doctors in the Bundeskanzleramt are still hard at work, and yet the chance to debate the text will be limited at best, so do not be surprised if many of us feel we are being bounced.
We want a declaration that looks ahead to the challenges we face, that gives us an opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to the values, the aims, the future of the European Union – one which will bring our citizens back on board the European project at a time when more than ever our nations must act together.
An enlarged and open Europe needs greater solidarity between its nations and its citizens; economic reform, as recognised at the European Council; and a wider mission to project our values in the world. Faced with the global challenges of world population growth and migration, of climate change, of internationally-organised crime and terrorism, the Declaration gives Member States the opportunity to explain to citizens why now, more than ever, the EU is so important, why we have to engage with countries beyond our borders and cultures beyond our ken.
Europeans should not be afraid of this. What has made Europe strong is its openness. A retreat into fortress Europe, the anachronistic idea of nation states and protected economies, or Christian fundamentalism, would only catapult us back in time: a time when Europeans had only one citizenship, only one national identity.
Our advice to the German Presidency is: keep it short and simple – the kind of text one might nail on to the door of a church in Wittenberg. Or if the Chancellor is too busy to go that far, at least on the Wittenbergplatz!
I hear that the draft is currently running to two pages. If that is true, it is already one page too long. My Liberal and Democrat colleagues in the Committee of the Regions have produced a one-page mission statement for the European Union, which I commend to you. Nine points says all that needs to be said: that European integration has been a success and that we must continue."@en1
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