Speech held by Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker at the Karlspreis (Charlemagne Prize) award ceremony in Aachen

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Your Royal Highnesses,
Esteemed Lord Mayor, dear Jürgen,
Mr President of the Bundestag,
Mr Federal Chancellor, dear Helmut Kohl,
Mr Federal Chancellor, dear Gerhard Schröder […],
Esteemed Mr and Madam Presidents,
Minister Presidents,
Prime Ministers,
Ministers,
Members of the European Parliament,
Mr President of the European Parliament,
Esteemed Karlspreis recipients,
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen […],

Lord Mayor, a great deal can be said about your city, the city of Aachen, and indeed a great deal should be said about this city – about this worthy former imperial city, the political and spiritual reign it has held over occidental Europe, the cathedral of this city, home to such serenity that it appears larger than it actually is, this coronation room, and also the fate of an often sorely afflicted European border town.

But there is not enough time to talk just of Aachen.

In any case, even the greatest eulogy on Aachen would be inadequate to express what we Luxembourgers feel for the city of Aachen. We like it here, in particular our students. In this city, we feel not only welcome, but indeed we feel adopted – which of course explains why I am the only Karlspreis laureate to have received this award on two occasions, since the nation of Luxembourg was already awarded this prize in 1986.

I would first of all like to greet whole-heartedly, the citizens of the European city that is Aachen. My particular greetings are extended to the first citizen of this city, Lord Mayor Linden, whose speech I look forward to reading later, in order to reabsorb the pleasure. I love double pleasures.

Dear Helmut Kohl, I would like to thank you above all.

It is for me not just an honour, but also a pleasure – and honour and pleasure manifestly hold a measure of pride, something I also feel today – that I may share this Karlspreis with you. This honour was bestowed upon you in 1988 – 18 months prior to the collapse of the Wall, two and a half years prior to German unification and a number of years prior to the budding European reunification that has been in motion since the early 90s.

For me, you are the European I have come to admire the most, the European par excellence, who in moments of doubt always gave priority to European interests, even though this very often met with a lack of understanding in your own country. You always took the view that the European solution would ultimately prove to be the right one, also for Germany.

Most Germans are probably not aware of what they owe you. Indeed, if you had not, in the anterooms of Europe, pushed open the door to German reunification, the present European unification would not have become the familiar bed on which German reunification, German unity could lay down its head.

Like all nations, the Germans are quick to forget. And because I consider myself a friend of the Germans and because, after all their turbulent and tumultuous history, the Germans have never before been such good neighbours to us as they are today, I ask myself the following: how is it that the Germans can not be proud of German reunification? There are thousands of reasons for being proud of German reunification, now embedded in European unity, rather than bemoaning it.

Sometimes I think I am the only politician with a command of the German language who still dares to utter such a sentence.

German unity, ladies and gentlemen, is not an accidental spin-off. It is the result of politics. It is the result of European politics. We must never forget this. Adenauer articulated the shrewd sentence that German unity and European unity were two sides of the same coin. And he was proven correct, because ever since the Second World War, the Germans have resolutely followed the European path.

Now we have reached a crossroads in Europe. And there is a hell of a lot of noise going on at this crossroads. And the noise is due to the fact that the Europeans, in particular the Germans – since in the meantime maudlin sentimentality has of course become the new German virtue – do nothing but complain about Europe, instead of taking pleasure and rejoicing in Europe.

Thank God other people are watching us, people who are not European. Africans, Asians, even Americans can but marvel at the European success story. The only ones to moan and groan about European successes are the Europeans themselves. Which actually leaves me quite dumb-founded.

Thank God there are those others that, from a distance, also keep a sharp eye on us at times. They know our weaknesses much better than we do. But they also recognise our strengths considerably better than we do. We are not proud enough of what has been achieved in Europe. Yet a great deal has been achieved in Europe.

Here are some examples, merely three, but three that speak volumes and that until the present day have left a great impression on the rest of the world.

I will start where everything stops and where everything must begin: the subject of war and peace.

The most reputable sources tell me that peace discussions no longer go down well with young people. And it is probably also true that young people have become somewhat hard of hearing when it comes to this topic of discussion. Nevertheless, to me the following remains something never before achieved in the history of our world, something we no longer expect to experience, namely that in 1945, on this tormented continent, on this long-suffering continent, our people, our men and women, upon their return from the front and the concentration camps to their destroyed towns and bombed villages, not only constantly reiterated this unremitting and incessant postwar statement “Never again war�?, but that this avowal for the very first time became a prayer for millions, the embodiment of hope for an entire continent and a political agenda, and that this declaration led to the emergence of astute men and women politicians, true statesmen and stateswomen.

Why is it that we have become so ungrateful for this tremendous collective life achievement of our parents and our grandparents, who once and for all put an end to European war and European death – the generation that was born at the beginning of the 20th century was driven from one death trail to the next – why are we not proud of this collective life achievement of our parents and grandparents, who did not complain, who did not lose heart, but built the Europe in which we can now bask in the sun of freedom?

Yes, it may be true that young people have developed selective deafness when the talk is of war and peace. For this very reason, and they cannot be blamed for this: those that do not know the meaning of war cannot appreciate peace. But because this is the way it is, visits to war cemeteries should become a compulsory part of every school curriculum. Then the whys and wherefores of Europe may be understood.

Europe – continent of peace.

The second example is a more topical one. Europe – single currency continent. And I stand here before you on tiptoes, sur la pointe des pieds, with regard to these issues, as I can sense the presence of the President of the European Central Bank behind me.

Well, I might just skip what has just occurred to me.

[…] After all that history has inflicted on us and that we have inflicted on history, we in Europe have succeeded in converging our currency policies to a common denominator. Not quite fully, but we are getting there. Nobody thought us capable of it. I could recount many an anecdote from numerous conversations with American President Clinton and others who, truth be told, viewed the undertaking of the creation of a currency union in Europe with huge scepticism. Incidentally, this included in particular German professors, to whom I would like to extend my warmest greetings today, and who were greatly mistaken. Because the euro is here – admittedly, so too are the professors.

The European currency union, the euro, is the joint achievement of the Kohl-Mitterrand generation and my generation. Kohl and Mitterrand due to their clever guidance, and the men and women of my generation, because we, just like them, understood that if currency policies were to be contrived nationally, exclusively nationally, ultimately Europe would certainly become a player in currency policies and therefore also economic and world policies, and would admittedly be a noisy talker, but not a great mover.

We, as Europeans, have achieved this. Nobody thought us capable of it. And the pre-euro bodybuilding programme that we had to submit did cost some politicians throughout Europe their mandates. But it gave us the euro.

As an aside, when I look closely at the list of those with whom I signed the Maastricht Treaty in 1991, I realise that the only survivors of this treaty are the euro and myself.

But construction work on the European single currency is not yet complete. The political arm, the economic policy arm of the European Economic and Monetary Union still needs a bit more muscle. European economic and currency policies are not just about money. Also, we must not allow economic idleness to overstrain and overload monetary policies. I staunchly plead for a more strongly coordinated European economic policy, so that monetary policies can underlie economics in such a manner that something will come out of all these economic and currency policies that will boost European growth and from which the rest of mankind will be able to greatly profit.

The fact that we benefit hugely from the euro is of course also never mentioned. Not least by me. Sometimes I ask myself, how can it be that we have become so lazy at giving explanations? Surely it should be possible to spell out to people – and this would not be difficult – what would have become of Europe in the last 10 years, of its markets, its currencies, had it not been for the euro, this mechanism of solidarity and discipline that the euro represents.

After the first war in Europe to succeed the Second World War – the war in the Balkans – what would have become of our currencies, had the introductory path to the euro not engendered a high degree of collective discipline? What would have happened following September 11? Following the South American, Russian, South East Asian financial crises? What would have happened following the Iraqi War? What would have happened in the face of the raging oil crisis, had there been just 14 national currencies instead of one euro? And what would have happened in Europe following the “no�? of the French, and the “no�? of the Dutch?

After all, I was present in 1992 as a young Finance Minister, when the Danes voted “no�? and when the French managed the jump into the “yes�? camp by a matter of mere millimetres. Back when we, the Finance Ministers, met for discussions in Washington, because we feared that Europe would become the stage for an incredible currency crisis, should a French “no�? have prevailed, also by a matter of mere millimetres.

No, no, no, the euro protects Europeans to an unbelievable degree. And it is unbelievable that we politicians do not manage, because we are too lazy to do so, to explain to people that the euro protects them and that national currencies flying solo would have pushed the European economy out into the freezing cold.

The third European success story – enlargement towards Eastern and Central Europe.

Many are no longer keen whatsoever on the West European move towards Eastern and Central Europe. This also ultimately remains a mystery to me.

Surely, if we stop and think about and remember life during and after the War, life during the 40s and 50s, we can easily see that Europe at the end of the Second World War was in a real combat frame of mind, a zone of potential conflict, confrontation and war waging.

I, as well as the men and women of my generation, still grew up in fear of Russian missiles. And, let us not forget, the people of Prague, Budapest, Warsaw were scared, because they were living in fear of NATO’s display of aggression and aggressiveness, because they were talked into believing it, or maybe because this fear did exist. I would prefer the people of Prague, of Warsaw, of Budapest, of Ljubljana to project their hopes on Western Europe, rather than have missiles being pointed towards Western Europe.

And at the end of the 80s, the beginning of the 90s, people made history in Europe, something that had not occurred for a long time, rather than history working against the people. In Dresden, Leipzig, and many other places in Eastern and Central Europe, people took history into their own hands, rather than passively enduring it and becoming prisoners of history. Entire nations became architects of history, rather than becoming slaves of history.

And we cannot rejoice in the fact that we have succeeded since 1989 in steering 22, and since last Sunday 23, of these newly emerged states from in and around Europe into the channel of European solidarity and peace nourishing waters! What if, in the early 90s until the present day, we had just left those 22, 23 states to find themselves, if we had released them into the wild to fend for themselves in the midst of intergovernmental feudal warfare? Wasn’t it better, since this is also what they wanted, that we welcomed them into the realm of Europe, into our sphere of solidarity and peace?

Today this continent would be a lot worse off. Disarray, indeed chaos, would reign on this continent, had we not been able wholly to draw together Eastern and Central Europe with Western Europe on the course of the remarriage of European history and European geography, along with all the difficulties that this process brought about.

The first of May 2004 in Dublin, the day on which we were able to celebrate the accession of 10 new Eastern, Central and Mediterranean Member States to the European Union, that was finally the day on which Yalta was buried.

This was without doubt the final victory of civilisation over the insanity of Stalin and Hitler.

Why indeed do we not rejoice in the fact that not Stalin, but Churchill, was proven right? Churchill, who in 1948 in The Hague, not far from here, on the occasion of the first European Movement Congress and in view of the Soviet refusal to let Eastern and Central Europe benefit from the Marshall Plan, and in view of the Soviet refusal to allow the Eastern and Central European states to become members of the Council of Europe, said the following: “Today we start in the West something that one day we can finish in the East.�?

So here we are. Stalin lost, Churchill won, and we do not rejoice!

And now, finally, after such long decades of separation, we can once again be complete Europeans – Luxembourgers and Europeans, but Luxembourgers and Europeans in Rome, in Berlin, in Aachen, as well as in Prague and Warsaw. I like being wholly European in the whole of Europe. And this is now possible following the reunification of the European continent.

For all of this not to collapse, work has to be carried out to ensure that the European Union remains a success. To this effect there are simple rules that must be obeyed. For instance, heads of state, heads of government, expert ministers, when they pipe up on the subject of Europe, they should not do so only when they have something negative to say about it.

After all, how can we expect the people in Europe, who from Monday to Saturday are told by Prime Ministers, Presidents and Ministers alike, that what is being done in Europe is completely impossible, that they must constantly resist, that they must put up a fight against others, we cannot expect these people, when they are then summoned to a referendum on the Sunday, all of a sudden to embrace the bride, who everyone has described as hideously ugly, as their queen of hearts. That will never work! That will never work!

And it would therefore be appropriate if Europe’s top representatives were to express themselves on the subject of Europe in more agreeable, that is to say more objective, terms. Rather than giving the impression that we must rule Europe against one another.

No, we must rule the European Union together and must therefore stop badmouthing this same European Union.

There is a second method that leads to success. Namely the continuation of the method that has so far allowed us to achieve success: the Community method.

This is the European mode of governance. The Commission puts forward proposals, Council and Parliament decide with equal legislative rights. The President of the Commission is not the decision enforcer of the Prime Ministers. He should be the one they turn to for inspiration. The Parliament is democratically legitimised. And the national governments also have national interests to represent and must therefore not be slated as European putschists.

I have had to resolve the odd conflict with both chancellors sitting here today. Not only regarding tax policies, I might add. Back then even you knew I was right, the argument was always short-lived. We also argued about many other things. But even when differences of opinion were tough to settle, I never felt that this would make us enemies.

Surely this is what European democracy is all about, that differences of opinion must also be resolved.

If in the German Bundestag discussions take place between government and opposition, nobody concludes that Germany is in a deep state of crisis. But if we quarrel in Europe, we are immediately believed to be on the verge of a European crisis.

That said, we do right now have a European crisis on our hands – not in the sense that jumps to mind, but in the sense that should in a way have been foreseeable, since it concerns the nations of Europe. 50% of people in Europe would like a bigger Europe, and 50% of people feel we already have a Europe that is too big. That, in effect, is our European crisis.

The fact is that during the 50s, 60s and 70s all Europe’s citizens knew themselves to be on our side, and we were also on their side, and now we are dealing with a European – that is to say a 25-nation – public exhibiting an almighty crack right down its middle. Which is why, ladies and gentlemen, we should pay careful heed to unprompted slips of the tongue.

Even though I am familiar with the debate, I do not like the discussion about large and small Member States in the European Union in the slightest. For a start, I know exactly where I belong. I am an expert in smaller units, and I know what I am talking about. I know what goes on in my country. Whether every German Chancellor, every French President, every Spanish President has also been aware at all times of what is going on with all those people that need governing and looking after, I somehow doubt.

But the infuriating reignition of this unrelenting and dogged debate on whether, as a matter of principle, small and large should have equal rights in the European Union, is totally absurd. The small ones need to know that they are small. And let me tell you, this is something they very rarely forget. Sometimes we vigorously inflate ourselves. After all, we have to be seen. But the big ones also need to learn that without the small ones they are capable of accomplishing absolutely nothing in the European Union. Absolutely nothing.

And this is the exact reason why we should not talk of a United States of Europe. This is particularly pertinent, because nations are not temporary inventions of history, their presence is permanent. I have no wish to become a citizen of the United States of Europe and would also kick up a fight if someone tried forcibly to make me join such an entity.

I like being a Luxembourger and a European. I do not need two states, I just need calm, order, security and peace within Europe. That would be enough for me. I do not need a European flag that I am required to salute. All too often the wrong flags have been saluted in Europe.

As coincidence would have it, today the representative of a small country is the recipient of the Karlspreis – there was after all also a selection of larger ones – and this for the second time round. As I already mentioned earlier.

A country as small as Luxemburg, a nation as competent and courageous as that of the Luxembourgers, knows exactly – because Luxembourgers have forever been the victims of German-French conflicts, seeing as Germany and France never found a territory other than little Luxembourg in which to collide with one another – we know exactly what a non-Europe means.

Which is why this prize that has been bestowed upon me today belongs above all to the Luxembourg nation. Merci.

We need to continue on this European path. Which is why we need this European Constitution. The European Constitution is not dead. It takes more than two to say that something is dead. Everybody must declare it dead. As long as not everybody has diagnosed death, no premature death certificate shall be issued. I will continue to fight for this Constitution – even if the term Basic Law might have been more appropriate – until everyone has agreed with the essence of this European Constitution.

And we do not have 20 years to achieve this, we have but a few years. By the next European elections, the European Constitution, or the European Basic Law, must stand on terra firma. Because if this generation fails to achieve this – I say this without denigrating the future – the next generation will not do it. The next generation will have as faded a memory of Hitler and Stalin as I do of William II and Clemenceau.

No, it is up to those whose fathers still fought in the War to sort out Europe. Their great-grandchildren will no longer be able to do this, it must be done now. And we should endeavour that everyone takes part in the whole process.

This concept of a core Europe is not a durable, sustainable or affordable concept. We should not from the outset, a priori, state that there are some things we will do as a foursome, fivesome or sixsome, while other projects will be carried out by others.

But just because of my principled refusal to move towards a core Europe, those that prefer to walk more slowly, those that constantly put on the brakes, those that place bricks under their accelerator pedals whenever the European endeavour gains speed, those should also not be led to think that we would never see through a core Europe. No, a core Europe is not a concept, but it is the only way to avoid a complete deviation from the European course if not enough Member States come to an agreement on joint European ambitions.

I am not an avant-gardist out of principle. I know avant-gardists who do not know where they want to go, the only thing they know is that they want to be the first to get there. That is not enough. We need to set goals together. And if that does not work, then it will be up to a few to do so, but that doesn’t mean that right from the start one should exclude others from the joint path.

And if we want Europe once again to find its way into people’s hearts, two things need to happen.

I could talk about joint foreign and security policies, matters of justice, internal issues, joint health policies, […] many things, but we don’t have the time – so let’s leave that for now.

I would like to say two things.

If we do not succeed, in the next 10 years, to make out of this highly successful economic construction called Europe an equally successful socially integrated European Union, and this includes the reduction of Europe’s mass unemployment, Europe will fail.

One cannot lead Europe to success with the current state of affairs of its workforce. We are talking here of the majority of people in Europe, who after all are no more fools, the simple folk, than the self-appointed elite, no.

If we want to avoid Europe falling by the wayside, we must, by the introduction of a minimum threshold, by means of minimal employment rights effective throughout Europe, fill the European workforce with a renewed enthusiasm for the European Union.

Without a Constitution, without the completion of the internal market, without this social dimension to the European Union, whether we like it or not, Europe will, without any of us being aware of it, gradually become a sophisticated free trade zone. Something that will escape our notice in the beginning. The poison of the free trade zone lies in the fact that it has no taste and no smell. But one day it will be there.

If we do not persevere with European integration through continuing social integration policies and if we do not persist with the European Union through taking ever reinforcing steps, we will end up a free trade zone.

And a free trade zone is too simple a concept for an eminently complicated continent such as the European Union. And the European Union must encompass a political dimension, it cannot be understood just from an economic viewpoint. The market alone produces no solidarity, be it solidarity among people or solidarity among nations. And that is what we need, solidarity among European nations. Which is why the indescribable complaining about net payers and net recipients must at some stage come to an end. A one-month war is more costly than 20 years of European Union.

And we must no longer interpret the European Union as an invention just for us, as something that we alone can fall in love with over and over again. No, Europe also has a responsibility to the world.

Europe does not exist just for Europe.

As long as worldwide 25,000 children die of hunger every day, Europe has not completed its task in the world. And the largest European project has to be that we Europeans – and if need be, we Europeans alone – drive hunger and poverty from the surface of this earth in the next 30 years. That is our European duty.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am happy to be a recipient of the Karlspreis.

I unashamedly admit this.

Once all is done and final conclusions have been drawn and one can no longer answer, because others now only write, I would like it if the following were written and said: “Juncker rightly received the Karlspreis. He was worthy of it, also after he had already received it.�?

Thank you very much for awarding me this prize and many thanks for your attention.

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