Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-29-Speech-3-006"
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"en.20001129.2.3-006"2
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"Many Members of the House wanted us to commemorate the hundredth anniversary of Mr Gaetano Martino’s birth.
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It is my great honour today to pay tribute to the memory of this great European, whose name is inextricably linked to the Messina Conference which, in 1955, paved the way for the European Community.
Mr Gaetano Martino was an illustrious doctor and politician. He was a credit to the European Parliament as a Member for ten years, and was twice elected President of Parliament in the 1960s.
His presidency of Parliament crowned a long political career which led him to hold high office firstly in the Italian National Parliament and then within the Italian Government, where he was, in turn, Minister for National Education and Minister for Foreign Affairs.
As a Minister and as a Member of the European Parliament, he fought a particularly bold campaign in favour of the European University Institute in Florence.
Indeed, he considered Europe’s shared foundations to be both cultural and spiritual.
From the very outset, the construction of Europe proved to be a difficult road, strewn with obstacles, which Mr Gaetano Martino, however, with the support of his deep-seated humanist culture and his unwavering faith in Europe, successfully negotiated. This is illustrated by the fact that, on 1 June 1955, i.e. less than a year after the failure of the ambitious plan for a European Defence Community, he started to weave the fabric of unification anew by proposing the Messina Conference which became, as we all know, the wellspring for the 1957 Treaties of Rome. So the European engine, which had just about stalled, suddenly came to life and the common market became a reality.
We have decided to publish Gaetano Martino’s collected speeches in a single volume. They are truly edifying for young people who did not live through the difficult post-war period. In 1958, speaking from the chair in Strasbourg, he made the following declaration, “For the first time in the history of this continent which has been marked by wars more than by peace we are witnesses to the general unification of the economy. The future is thereby assured, and the prospect is taking shape of a great Community embracing people of different languages, customs and beliefs, with this Parliament as one of the institutional bodies.”
Ladies and gentlemen, a few days away from the European Council in Nice, I can only express the wish that the legacy of Gaetano Martino and the Messina spirit continue to be a source of inspiration for us all, especially all those who are responsible for the future destiny of this continent."@en1
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