Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-07-14-Speech-2-018"
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"Representatives of the Council, President of the Commission, Commissioners, ladies and gentlemen, today is 14 July, France’s National Day, 220 years after the Revolution. Congratulations to our fellow Members.
Thirty years ago our Parliament was elected for the first time in direct elections. Its President was a woman, the Frenchwoman Simone Veil. We must remember to create the conditions for women to be able to express themselves fully in public and professional activity without having to give up having children and a family life. At that time Simone Veil said, ‘The Member States face three great challenges: the challenge of peace, the challenge of freedom and the challenge of prosperity’. It is obvious that we can only face these challenges effectively in a European context. Thirty years later they are still our most important tasks. We must be up to the challenge.
Ladies and gentlemen, I would like to put the details of my programme for the two-and-a-half-year term of my Presidency forward for discussion in a special address during the autumn session in Strasbourg.
I would now like to turn to my predecessor, Hans-Gert Pöttering. Mr Pöttering, this is a special moment. I have known you for 10 years. Today you are handing over the highest office in the European Parliament to me. On behalf of all my fellow Members I would like to thank you for the great respect which you have won for our Chamber, and for your political conduct and professionalism.
As a memento I would like to present you with this statue of St Barbara, the patron saint of miners, sculpted from a lump of coal. It is a gift of solidarity from my region, Silesia. Once again, many congratulations and best wishes for the future. Thank you!
The Revolution was based on three words: liberty, equality, fraternity. Each resonates with force and certainty in today’s European Union. Today is a great day and, above all, a symbolic day. A representative from a Central and Eastern European country has been chosen by you, the MEPs, to assume responsibility for presiding over Parliament.
Let me make a personal observation. Once, many years ago, I longed to be a member of the Polish
when Poland regained its independence. Today I am taking over the Presidency of the European Parliament, which I would never have dared dream of in my country all those years ago. This is how our Europe has changed.
I am treating my election as a sign for our countries: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria. I am also treating it as an expression of respect for the millions of citizens from these countries who did not crumble under the malevolent system. I feel I am a representative of all of these countries.
Twenty years ago, in 1989, Solidarność won the battle for a free, democratic Poland, which gave the impetus for an ‘Autumn of the People’ in Europe and the fall of the Berlin Wall. At one time we fought on one side of the Iron Curtain for freedom and democracy, while you, on the other side, helped us through your political action and small but incredibly important gestures, sending parcels and help – and we were successful. For five years now we have been creating a unified Europe. There is no longer an ‘us and you’. This time we can stand firm and say – we have a united Europe.
I spoke about responsibility. Each of us MEPs has been handed a little bit of power, but with power comes first and foremost responsibility for your citizens. I feel this responsibility. The citizens of the EU have expressed their trust in us. We must defend democracy when it comes to the major issues. The citizens of Europe are expecting us, the politicians, to carry out one of our basic tasks, which is to emerge from the economic crisis. We must make a start on this immediately. They want jobs, and employment is one of our basic challenges. Our voters want to be certain that if they switch their gas on, the gas will be there, and this is why energy security is so important. Our citizens are worried that they will be affected by climate change, as in Asia, Africa or the Pacific. We have to take action against this. Europeans know that peace and stability is not just dependent on us. This is why the Mediterranean region, the Eastern Partnership and Latin America are so important, as is a strategic partnership with the United States and the growing world powers. For all these policies to be successful we must have a Treaty of Lisbon, since we must be well organised and effective within the Union and also in the European Parliament."@en1
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