Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-03-14-Speech-2-088"
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"en.20060314.15.2-088"2
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"Mr President of the Federal Republic of Germany, ladies and gentlemen, before welcoming our illustrious guest today, I must inform you that, during the meeting we held with President Köhler before coming to the Chamber, we heard the sad news of the death of Mr Lennart Meri, who was President of Estonia from 1992 to 2001. As you know, President Meri was seen as a symbol of Estonia’s fight for freedom and national identity, and his death deprives us of an important European personality, whose memory we shall honour here today.
President Köhler, I am very pleased to give you the floor.
Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour for me and the whole of the European Parliament to welcome you to this formal sitting today.
Mr President, please allow me to stress your personal commitment to the European project, which is particularly useful and necessary at a time when the situation in the European Union is causing many doubts amongst the citizens. I know that this is a cause for concern for you, which you express with passion. I know that you are very aware of the responsibility we all share in relation to the problems of concern to Europeans today, which cannot be resolved without more Europe.
We are aware of the initiatives that you are taking to extend and deepen the European debate. One example of this was your invitation to your counterparts from Finland, Italy, Latvia, Austria, Portugal and Hungary to a meeting that was held in Dresden – about which I am sure you will speak this morning – with students and personalities from those countries, in order to debate European identity and the future of Europe.
This important initiative is not an isolated one. You take every possible opportunity to exchange opinions with the citizens and in particular with young people. Strangely enough, it is they who express the greatest scepticism about this project which is so important to their future.
You also combine words with actions: you do not just talk about ‘Europe’ at official events, but you also work every day on specific issues on the European agenda.
Your personal experience makes you almost the model European. You were young, a child refugee, during the final stages of the Second World War. During my visit to Germany, you told me, very directly and personally, of your experiences: how you suffered the war and the exodus from the refugee camp, how you made a success of your life in a ruined country that was also gradually building its future upon the wreckage of history.
Your personal experience took you away from Europe. You have lived outside Europe and you have watched us from that standpoint and, for that very reason, because you have had dramatic experiences inside Europe and have watched it being built from the outside, you know that Europe has no option other than its European Union project.
You also know, however, that those values and projects must be actively defended every day and that they do not come free or automatically, and I would therefore like to thank you for being here with us today to communicate your ideas to us, which will undoubtedly make a great contribution to our broad debate on Europe."@en1
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