Brussels, 09/05/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, as Heads of State and Governments were coming from around the whole world to take part in the festivities organised by Russia to mark the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, the European Commission in its traditional 9 May message (anniversary of the 1950 Robert Schuman Declaration) also paid homage to the “many millions for whom the Second World War was not the end of dictatorship and for whom true freedom was only to come with the fall of the Berlin Wall…We honour the many innocent victims of past conflicts and those how paid the highest price in defence of freedom and democracy”. It also recalled the first anniversary on 1 May of the “historic enlargement” of the EU towards Eastern and Central Europe, “an enlargement which has reunited the European family and healed the wounds of more than half a century; an enlargement that has consolidated our hard-won democracy and the respect for fundamental values, which so many fought to secure. The Commission explains that since 9 May 1950, “Over the intervening fifty-five years we have grown from a common market to a Union; 450 million people from twenty-five independent nations, in peaceful co-operation, defining together European solutions to common problems. A process of on-going integration which has spread stability across the continent; a process which has enabled us to develop strong ties with our nearest neighbours and which, even today, is instrumental in resolving the very last border disputes left over from the end of the war… From the internal market to our external borders, from promoting cohesion at home to solidarity and justice around the globe, we, following the method of Jean Monet, have set about building Europe through concrete, practical steps that improve the daily lives of Europe's citizens around the world. Approval of the Constitution will consolidate these achievements and lay the basis for even greater progress in the future”.
On Monday afternoon in Strasbourg, the president of the European Parliament, Josep Borrell opened the plenary session, underlining that they were at the same time celebrating three events: the 60th anniversary of the end of the Second World War (which with Japan lasted till August, he noted, recalling the explosion of the first atomic bomb); 55 years of the “European adventure” and a year of “rediscovery” of Europe, its “reunification” (rather than its “enlargement”. Mr Borrell affirmed that Europeans now considered that peace between European nations was “irreversible” and that they hoped that the European Union would become a place of prosperity and security. He then handed over to a young Latvian violinist Baiba Skride and her 1725 Stradivarius with which she played a piece from Bach. President Borrell stated that Europe was “talent, youth and the future”. He then let the music speak, a means chosen by parliament to celebrate this solemn and significant anniversary.