Europe has commemorated the fall of totalitarian Communism and the Berlin Wall, honoured the fallen on Remembrance Sunday and remembered the end of hostilities on Armistice Day (Remembrance Day).
When will they ever learn, asked Pete Seeger.
Luckily, Europe has learned, through the continuing process of European integration and through the reunification of much of our continent by the means of the European Union.
The Lisbon Treaty, which enters into force on 1 December 2009, is a further step towards our slow and winding journey towards a closer union, although neither effective nor democratic enough to serve us optimally as yet.
Yesterday, Vaclav Havel, one of the great Europeans, one of the great humans, of our times, spoke in the European Parliament.
Read the press release of the European Parliament on Vaclav Havel’s speech. Even better, use the links on the page and take the time to watch the video recording of Havel’s vision on Europe’s future, or listen to the audio document.
We need not accept Havel’s views in their details, but we have every reason to acknowledge his greatness, and we should comprehend the need for shared sovereignty and for strengthening European values and solidarity, for the sake of ourselves and our children.
“Europe is the homeland of our homelands.”
Ralf Grahn
P.S. The Euroblogs aggregated on multilingual Bloggingportal.eu expose the real EUSSR. Read and comment! You can also propose an interesting blog post or a whole new blog (click Contribute).
Thursday, 12 November 2009
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Yes, absolutely. Europe needs great people like Vaclav Havel. But I think that it doesn't need people like Vaclav Klaus. As a big supporter of European Union I couldn't believe what was Mr. Klaus doing with the Lisbon Treaty. I wonder that on the one hand there was president like Vaclav Havel in the Czech Republic and that there is now someone so different like Vaclav Klaus as a president. I think that the reputation of this country has suffered a lot because of him.
ReplyDeleteRegards,
Jay
Jay,
ReplyDeleteI fully share your view.
Perhaps Vaclav Klaus could be allowed to explain:
ReplyDeletehttp://tv.nationalreview.com/uncommonknowledge/post/?q=MmExZTU2NTNiZmU5NTBjZGJiYjBmOGJlZDg0YmU3MTc
If you still have problems understanding, even with the growing shambles over the appointment of the President and High Representative AND delays for the new Commission, then the coming months are likely to be very traumatic for you federalists.
Particularly as anger and outrage against the ever increasingly obvious flaws of the Lisbon Treaty grow across the EU fanned by the now mounting economic difficulties.
Lisbon's method of ratification will destroy all last remaining trust Europeans once had for their nationally elected leaders. Outrage, however, will probably first be felt by MEPs as I predicted before the recent elections.
Mr Cole,
ReplyDeleteSince European federalism is by definition democratic, many years will be traumatic before the EU becomes a parliamentary democracy.
For the supporters of intergovernmental cooperation, the filling of the top jobs is an edifying spectacle of "voluntary cooperation between free and sovereign nation states", as I have written in another post.