Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-28-Speech-3-055"
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"en.20070328.12.3-055"2
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"Mr President, Chancellor, ladies and gentlemen, the Berlin summit has certainly taken a step forward for Europe, representing the beginning of a new phase following a period marked by difficulties and a degree of failure.
The celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the Treaties have signalled the revival of a European initiative, coordinated between the Council, Commission and Parliament, to build Europe’s future. If we are to talk of the future, however, we have to aim to achieve, before 2009, a fundamental law regulating the competences and role of a Union that is not only a market but also has the potential to be a player in international politics, intervening with practical responses not least to citizens’ demands.
For this reason, Chancellor, I welcome the initiative to open a major debate on three fundamental subjects: climate change, energy security and the issue of Africa and its tragedies too often ignored by the West. The Europe that we believe in, however, and that our founding fathers believed in is not made up solely of politics and economics. I am concerned to read that hundreds of churches are disappearing in Germany, as I am concerned to note that few children are being born in Italy; I am appalled by the sentences delivered by judges acquitting men who savagely beat their wives in the name of their religion; I am alarmed by the spread of drugs among young people in Europe. This is not the Europe with which we identify and to which we are committed.
It would therefore be a mistake to undervalue or, worse still, to forget the values emphasised in the Berlin Declaration: democracy, peace, freedom, justice and, above all, the importance of the individual and human dignity. How can we fail, therefore, to echo the words of Jacques Delors, who reminds us not to forget our Christian roots. In an interview today he tells us that memory is our future."@en1
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