Special days remind us of the value of certain achievements or the significance of certain people - and Europe Day is no different.

There are different views on where Europe should progress - but we can be certain of the importance of European cooperation as we make those choices. That spirit of cooperation has delivered us a peace and prosperity that seemed impossible when I was a child, and that is why I care so much about guarding Europe’s achievements.

The founding fathers of Europe believed that Europe would be made through concrete achievements. I think it is undoubted that competition policy and the single market are amongst the strongest of these achievements - public goods that have improved millions of lives. They are not luxuries that we can simply discard in the difficult times.

We are witnessing and are part of the most fascinating phase of Europe’s history - the ex-communist countries joining our family being just the latest chapter. It is fascinating to be able to contribute to this. So, for me there is no better way to spend Europe Day than taking inspiration from those who have made the work of the European institutions possible so we can build on those achievements. If we work hard we can ensure future generations get to experience that same peace and prosperity we have enjoyed.

Neelie Kroes is European Commissioner for Competition

You can read more about my activities in my personal blog: http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/

Tags: achievements, competition, Europe Day, peace, prosperity

This entry was posted on Friday, May 8th, 2009 at 14:49 and is filed under Political issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.