European Leaders’ Message on EU’s 70th Anniversary
“Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.” Robert Schuman, May 9, 1950
The leaders of the European Union highest institutions have called for unity among Europeans on the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration which has laid the foundation of today’s European Union.
During a conference of EU Presidents, European Parliament’s President David Sassoli said that the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration comes at a moment when Europe is facing its most difficult challenge since the end of the Second World War.
“Over the last 70 years, the world has changed dramatically and the role of the European Union is more crucial than ever. In a new emerging geopolitical order and in the context of an ecological emergency, our responsibility is to accept to become a global force of stability and peace, rule of law, sustainability and multilateralism,” he said.
According to President Sassoli, beyond the joy and gratitude at having been united and at peace for 75 years, Europeans need to remember that solidarity does not end at the borders, highlighting the importance of multilateralism in tackling common challenges and crises together.
“Instead of reverting to national egotism, a strengthened and more integrated European Union that collaborates closely with international partners in a spirit of mutual fairness and understanding should be the way forward,” he said.
In a joint op-ed European Parliament President David Sassoli, Council President Charles Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called for unity as Europe, they said, must emerge stronger from the Coronavirus crisis.
“As leaders of the three main EU institutions, our thoughts today are first with all those who have lost loved ones. Our gratitude is to the essential workers who have continued to work throughout this crisis. Those on the frontline in our hospitals and care homes, fighting to save lives. But also, the delivery drivers, shop assistants, police officers, all those working to ensure that daily life can continue,” the op-ed reads.
In the op-ed, the three leaders assert that Europe has acted boldly amid this crisis, to ensure that the single market functions despite the situation, thus allowing medical supplies to arrive at the hospitals where doctors and nurses needed them, ventilators to arrive where they could save lives, and food and essential goods to get to the shops where Europeans could find them on the shelves.
They further called on the Member States and EU institutions to be closer to citizens, and make the Union more transparent and more democratic.
On May 9, 1950, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, presented the Schuman Declaration on the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, which was the first of a series of European institutions that would ultimately become today’s “European Union”.
In these 70 years, the EU has gone through economic challenges, migration crisis, unemployment, and a growing nationalism that wants out of EU in several of the member states. The most recent challenge is the Coronavirus pandemic, which forced the EU to shut its borders to all foreigners, what has not ever happened in its 70 years of its existence.
