Our Europe, my values, 20 years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall

After the successful results of the European integration process, first with the adoption of the Euro and afterwards with the gradual enlargement to the now 27 members states, today, following the defeat of the European Constitution project, and while waiting for the final approval of the Treaty of Lisbon, the European Union is undergoing a transitional period. It is searching, in fact, for a new organizational framework to bring an increased effectiveness and coherence to the European actions, scope and to its institutional functions, increasing its transparency, its administrative and communication simplification and its efficiency in managing the European resources.

In a moment such as the present, of profound crisis, not only economic but also cultural and in terms of values, with a significant impact on the social protection system of the European countries, there is the risk that the progress and the achievements made until now are again questioned and mistrusted and that past threats as the nationalistic closures and even worse, the division between rich and pour countries, are revived and again put forward.
The answer that the European Union must give, first of all to its citizens, should include a renewed culture of integration and cooperation and should give a fresh impulse to the European spirit. This European spirit must advance the great political project and ideals that overcame the historic tragedies that Europe went through in its recent past.
Issues such as social cohesion and active citizens’ participation, together with solidarity and cooperation between rich and poor regions, old and new generations, between Europe and developing countries must be the main topics of debate on the agenda of the national Governments and of the European Union.
In such a context, it is absolutely necessary that the European Union rediscovers its true nature and re-launches the unification process reaffirming and upholding its fundamental values on which the entire European project was built: peace, democracy and human rights.
The recent elections for the renewal of the European Parliament have witnessed, on the one hand, for the first time since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, and since the greatest European enlargement process, the simultaneous participation of all 27 member States in electing a Parliamentary Assembly which represents 450 millions European citizens.
On the another hand, the low participation rate and the centrality of outright anti-European, xenophobic, and racist discourses lead to the necessity of reviving the debate surrounding the concept of an united Europe and the importance of intercultural dialog.
2009 marks also the 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall, which was for years the main symbol of the dramatic division of Europe into two spheres of influence. On November 9th 1989, the Berlin wall fell, which for 30 years had stood as a testimony of the Cold War, of the Iron Curtain brutally and unjustly splitting in two the European continent. From this moment on, Europe began a historical phase, experiencing an unstoppable democratic process which also involved the east-European countries, leading to the peaceful reunification of the continent.
In this political context, the European Union has been a guiding beacon for the expanding democratic process in all the European countries, which found in the European project their space for values and democracy, up to the two memorable enlargements of 2004 and 2007.
In view of this fundamental Anniversary, of this historic process and of the present political and economic situation, it is of primary importance that the new generations, witnesses of a new Europe, begin to wonder what the European Union means to them, and what its future and mission will be, what kind of Europe they want based on its fundamental values, and what meaning such values as Dignity, Freedoms, Equality, Solidarity, Citizens’ rights, Justice and participatory democracy have in their daily lives as European citizens and in their local political context.
Thus, they will also be asked in what way they feel represented and how they experience the pact of mutual trust sealed between the European Union and its citizens which was built upon human dignity, individual freedoms, inalienable human rights, solidarity, responsibility, upon state of law and equality before the law, upon cultural diversity and the safeguard of the development of local and regional autonomies.
With the aim of encouraging the debate on these topics and on the future of the European Union among young generations, the Legislative Assembly of the Emilia-Romagna Region, in collaboration with the Regional Government of the Emilia-Romagna Region, the Municipality of Bologna and jointly with the European Commission Representation in Italy, the European Parliament Office in Italy, the Regional Education Department of the Emilia-Romagna and the European College of Parma Foundation, organizes the 5th edition of the European Youth Meeting, in which students and teachers’ delegations from the 27 European countries, plus Turkey and Norway, will participate to discuss, and to create a European Forum of Active Citizenship.