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Presidential Statement on the EU's 50th anniversaryeldr, Wednesday 25 April 2007 13:15 ::Europe’s Liberal Democrats are proud to celebrate 50 years of EU integration. Faced with an unprecedented wave of euro-pessimism and scepticism, we believe this is the right time to remind ourselves that never before in human history and nowhere else on the planet have people from twenty seven different nations, speaking twenty three different languages, peacefully, voluntarily and successfully established a political union. This Union is based on values which only recently have become prevalent in our part of the world, and which have become beacons of hope for all mankind: freedom, democracy, the rule of law, respect for human rights, market economy and solidarity. On the occasion of the EU’s 50th anniversary celebrations, Annemie Neyts, ELDR Party President called on Europe’s Leaders and citizens to reflect on what a fantastic engine Europe is to establish freedom and prosperity and create a fair and peaceful world. “Europe is the most beautiful political enterprise in the whole history of humanity. This is no time for wavering in our commitments; this is no time for allowing narrow and archaic self interest to weaken our great European undertaking. It is time for celebration and renewed commitment for the European project! ” The EU’s 50th anniversary celebrations provide a great opportunity to draw pride from the past achievements and to set priorities for the future. On the occasion of the EU’s 50th anniversary, Europe’s Liberal Democrat Prime Ministers - Andrus Ansip, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Calin Popescu Tariceanu, Matti Vanhanen and Guy Verhosftadt - ALDE Group Leader Graham Watson, FDP Party Leader Guido Westerwelle and ELDR Party President Annemie Neyts met in Berlin, Germany on 25th March 2007. Europe’s Liberal Democrats have greatly contributed to the development of the European project. Among the main liberal realizations for Europe, one can quote: - Striving for human dignity: Simone Veil, a survivor of the Nazi death camp of Auschwitz-Birkenau, has consistently strived for a fraternal world, a world based on respect of human dignity. She became President of the European Parliament in 1979, after the first election to the European Parliament by direct universal suffrage. As former French health Minister, she pushed through laws making access to contraception easier and legalising abortion.- Reuniting Europe: Hans Dietrich Genscher (FDP, Germany), Foreign Affirs Minister of Germany from 1974 to 1992, was a life-long servent of ending the division between Eastern and Western Europe. He helped shape the Ost Politik, policy of de-escalation with the communist East, and took an active part in the Single European Act Treaty negotiations in the mid 1980s. - Developing an internal market for services: Former European Commissioner Frits Bolkestein (VVD, Netherlands) has initiated the Services Directive which aims at creating a single market for services within the European Union and is widely expected to boost economic growth and to increase quality and choice for consumers. - Paving the way for the United States of Europe: Guy Verhofstadt, Prime Minister of Belgium (VLD, Belgium) has drafted the Laeken Declaration which led to the European Convention and the European Constitution. Following the negative referenda in France and the Netherlands, he released a book called United States of Europe which advocates the creation of a federal Europe between those states that wish to have a federal Europe as a form of enhanced cooperation on five policy areas: a European social-economic policy, technology cooperation, a common justice and security policy, a common diplomacy and a European army. - Giving Europe a soul: Bronislaw Geremek, MEP (Democratic Party, Poland) was closely involved in the peaceful revolution in Poland in the eighties as advisor to the Solidarity movement and served his country as Minister of Foreign Affairs. For many years now, he has played a leading role in the debate on European identity and values. He has called for the establishment of a European University in Strasbourg, thereby creating a European university network and giving substance to the European research area. For Europe’s Liberal Democrats, the European project has been and continues to be a project of peace and solidarity that aims “to create, by establishing an economic community, the basis for a broader and deeper community among peoples long divided by bloody conflicts; and to lay the foundations for institutions which will give direction to a shared destiny” as stated in the Preamble of the 1951 Treaty of Paris. We commit ourselves anew to build a united Europe able to deliver peace, prosperity and freedom to the Europeans and to promote those goals to the wider world. |
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About usELDR is the party for liberal democrat values in Europe. Together with our liberal members parties across the European continent we are transplanting the principle of freedom into politics, economics and all other areas of our societies. The ELDR provides an increasingly vital link between citizens and the EU institutions and is continuously growing in size and significance. |
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