14 March 2014

EP President Schulz: "The European Union is necessary, now more than ever"

Allow me to share a few predictions with you.

• in 2050 Europeans will make up just 5.4 per cent of the world population;
• in 2050 neither Germany, Italy, France, the United Kingdom nor any other EU Member States will any longer be a member of the G7;
• in 2050 the world economy will in all likelihood be dominated by the Big Three, that is to say China, the USA and India.

These figures must give us pause for thought. The world is changing. The 21st century will be the century of world regions...

Left to their own devices, all of the European countries, including my own, rapidly come up against their own limits when it comes to acting effectively. If we Europeans peel off into our component parts, labouring under the fond illusion that, now of all times, the finest hour of the nation state has arrived, we should make no mistake about the consequences. We will be left to drift insignificantly into the backwaters of the world political scene.

However, 507 million citizens, 28 nation states and the largest and wealthiest internal market in the world put us well and truly into the heavyweight category. It is my conviction therefore that united we stand victorious but divided we fall.

(...)

We do not need an EU super state. I have no desire for a United States of Europe along the lines of the United States of America. Nation states are not one of world history's nine-day wonders but the political repository of French, Swedish, Portuguese, Polish, German or Slovenian sentiment. That we wish to remain Slovenes or Germans, for example, is obvious when we consider how much importance we attach to our respective languages and cultures. It also appears unmistakeably on the football field or at the Winter Olympics... Yes, nation states are here to stay and that is a good thing...

I do not want a meddlesome EU obsessed with micromanaging. From my experience as mayor, I know that the closer decision-making is to grassroots level, the more democratic it becomes and the more satisfactory it turns out to be. In other words, whatever can be best achieved at local, regional or national level should be undertaken at local, regional or national level respectively.

We need the EU to step in to provide additional security where necessary, because together we are stronger. We have succeeded in creating a unique social model in Europe. We enjoy the benefits of a free press, an independent judiciary, healthcare, pension provision, free access to education, opportunities for all, parliamentary democracy, participatory politics, equality before the law and securely anchored civil rights, all this accompanied by the highest social and environmental standards in the world, with no place for child labour and no place for the death penalty. We are a society with human values at its core and that is the society in which I want to live, the kind of Europe in which I want my children to be able to live.

Full speech

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