Madame President,
Mr. Prime Minister,
Mr President of the European Parliament,
Dear friends in Greece, and all over Europe,
Thank you very much for inviting me to this commemoration today.
It is that of a double rebirth.
Your accession to the European Community represented a homecoming for the Greeks. But other Europeans also saw it as a return to their origins.
Europe was born in Greece.
And I don’t just think of the princess kidnapped by Zeus on the beautiful island of Crete, this princess who gave her name to our common project and our common currency: Europe and the euro.
“The best prophet of the future is the past,” said Byron.
As is often the case with teenagers, one of my teachers meant a lot to me: he taught ancient Greek and Latin. His name was Jean Lamotte.
And if I thank him with emotion today, here in Athens, it is also the gratitude that I express for the unique place occupied by classical Greece: not only in my personal identity.
But also in the formation of the European conscience.
This is what reminds me of a Socrates figurine that I brought back as a young man from my first trip here, and which has never left my library: my Socrates reminds me every day that Greece is the cradle of reason , freedom and democracy.
And this is also what the preamble to the draft Constitution for Europe, prepared under the direction of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who signed your accession treaty, wanted to remind us in 2003.
This preamble began with Thucydides, I quote:
“Our Constitution… is called democracy, because the power is in the hands not of a minority, but of the greatest number”.
This is obviously our lesson number one: freedom and democracy are the foundations of our European project.
It is these intangible values that should guide our action.
And nothing can supplant reason in the choices that we, political leaders, make in the service of our fellow citizens.
We can see it clearly in the world today: freedom, democracy and even reason, 25 centuries after Socrates, must be at the heart of our action.
Ancient Greece, we first associate it with thought and democracy.
But it was also the interminable quarrels between the cities, interrupted only by the Olympic truce, and which will eventually get the better of democracy.
But the Greek inclination to exercise thought has not dried up.
The author of the Acts of the Apostles noted that when (the apostle) Paul went to Athens,
“all the Athenians and foreigners who lived there spent their time doing nothing but debating and listening to the latest ideas.”
The author’s tone was disapproving.
But it is not mine: it takes strength and courage to actively debate and listen to the arguments of others.
It also takes a lot of patience and mutual respect.
This is our lesson number two. And it inspires me daily in my role as President of the European Council: the debate, which usually begins with disagreement, is collective intelligence in action.
Without collective intelligence, no unity is possible. Without unity, there is no common project.
This is undoubtedly the most extraordinary achievement of the European Union: what else are we, if not the union of 27 cities which, after having tragically quarreled for centuries, make and remake their unity.
By strengthening themselves at each debate to master their common destiny.
It’s laborious – you know something about it, my dear Kyriakos. But if it works, it’s because there are leaders like you around the table, who combine reason and convictions, patience and determination, a sense of dialogue and the will to succeed.
And I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Deprived of freedom, Greek civilization went through the following centuries. She, through Rome, conquered Europe. The fragile democratic idea has survived… elsewhere. It was reinforced from the Renaissance, which allowed Europe to be reborn for the first time in Greece.
Which was going through dark and trying times. Until democratic ideals returned – with Byron – to inspire the Greek conquerors of freedom, victorious over their independence.
In Greece, as in Europe, freedom and democracy still went through many horrors and wars, often surviving only in idealistic minds.
We, you like the rest of Europe, have gone through the worst, with the First and the Second World War.
Of which, on a continental scale, only a handful of countries emerge as lastingly democratic.
You yourselves had to go through a new ordeal: an abject dictatorship, synonymous with torture, death or exile.
Some of you have known him personally. In democratic Europe, we have sympathy. But have we lived up to your cry for help?
The dictatorship fell by force from the Greeks alone. And it was the Greeks themselves who won their right to join the community of free and democratic peoples of Europe.
This is our lesson number three. Freedom is a fragile flame. It is sometimes reduced to a barely incandescent brand.
But it is never consumed without having transmitted itself to others. Freedom is an inextinguishable value, because it beats in the heart of each one of us.
Since your formal accession to our common Europe, which had always been yours, you have had the best years of your history. They have definitely put you on the path to peace and prosperity.
Not without difficulties. Not without controversy. Because democracy and freedom also means the power to say “όχι” [non].
Europe is a construction that is built over “no’s”, which must be discussed in order to transcend them into irreversible “yeses”.
As you have remade your unity by transforming a “no” into a massive “yes” to the euro and to Europe.
As Europe has maintained its unity by repeating “yes” to Greece, remaining by its side during the crises of recent years.
This is lesson number four. The European Union is being built and strengthened through stages – sometimes crises – in which we take irreversible acts. The creation of the single market, the area of free movement, the single currency …
Creations that have not been weakened, but strengthened over the course of the debt crises, the migration crisis … And now the COVID-19 crisis.
This has led us to make extremely strong and unprecedented decisions.
They amplify our instruments of solidarity and convergence towards more prosperity, towards more cohesion.
And towards personal and collective well-being, “beyond GDP”. In my opinion, it should be the horizon of the development paradigm shift that we have started, with the climate and digital transitions.
This is, I think, the central subject around which we must, together with our 450 million fellow citizens, renew our European social contract.
This could be the most essential exercise of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
It will be a splendid tribute to the tradition of debate and reason, which we owe to the Hellenics.
Collective intelligence in action.
Europe was formed by Greece, as Greece was transformed by Europe.
We cannot exist without you, just as you do not want to exist without Europe.
It is inspired by this powerful and unwavering bond, and by our common confidence in our ability to move towards a promising future, that I am happy and proud to cry out with you:
“HELLAS,
EUROPE,
DEMOCRACY,
FREEDOM! “*
* Greece, Europe, Democracy, Freedom
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