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Dear Mr President,
The Heads of State and Government of the twenty-seven Member states of the European Union are proud and honoured to welcome you today in the city of Prague.
Prague, by way of its recent history, is the perfect allegory of the process of European political unification and integration:
- In 1939, the Nazis brought terror and tyranny to Prague.
- After their defeat in 1945, Prague did not regain its freedom but like the rest of Central and Eastern Europe, it disappeared behind the Iron Curtain.
- In 1968, after a brief flirtation with "socialism with a human face"?, Soviet tanks crushed the young political liberalization and democratization movement.
- In the summer of 1989, the German Embassy in Prague became the theatre of human drama and a microcosm of events which eventually led to the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of communism.
- Since 1st May 2004, twelve new Member states joined the European Union and the Czech capital Prague returned to the heart of Europe.
- Today, the European Union is counting 27 Member states and it is stretching from the Atlantic to the borders of Russia.
The process of European integration has thus allowed the reconciliation of European history with European geography.
European integration was driven decisively by statesman and policymakers who had internalised in their everyday political thinking the lessons from the two disastrous world wars that had reduced Europe to rubble during the first half of last century.
The integration of Europe was underpinned by economic integration and economic convergence. This process of economic integration has led to the creation of a European internal market for 500 million citizens and its most tangible benefit today is the Euro, a strong and stable currency for 16 countries and 320 million people.
The "Lisbon Treaty"?, whose ratification process we now want to complete rapidly, will be a major institutional stepping stone on the way to a stronger and more cohesive Union, both internally and internationally. It will endow Europe with an enhanced foreign policy capacity, thus presenting the European Union as a strong and reliable partner for the United States on the world stage.
However, as you are completing your first visit to Europe, reasserting the depth of the United States’ commitment to Europe, you are meeting with European Union leaders who are in a state of considerable anxiety. The world’s economies are caught up in turmoil, income inequalities are widening, unemployment is rising, entire industries are threatened by bankruptcy and sovereign states are on the verge of a collapse.
Governments all over the world – but particularly in the United States and Europe – have demonstrated resolve and acted decisively in order to avoid a global meltdown. The chosen strategy to deal with the world economic crisis entails considerable risks, but at the current juncture, there are hardly any credible alternative courses of actions.
Our major endeavour right now is the restoring of confidence. The bold actions decided upon by last Thursday’s G20 Summit are a political act of major significance and should go some way towards reaching this goal.
However, the challenges on the road to a lasting recovery remain manifold and we must address them collectively and cooperatively, avoiding the renationalisation of policymaking and paying due respect to representation, voice and democratic legitimacy of our decision-making processes.
Let me conclude Mr President by saying that I firmly believe that the strengthened confidence between Europe and the United States of America will allow us to overcome the adversity of the crisis and that ultimately our shared ideals and shared values will triumph.
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