EUROPE DAY/Petre Roman: Romania has failed to be in the engine of the European Union

Romania has failed in the 30 years since the fall of communism to be in the engine of the European Union, Romania's former Prime Minister Petre Roman, also a former foreign minister, told AGERPRES on Friday, adding that his confidence in the European design "remains one hundred percent." On the 70th anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, Roman said that the question is whether the battle against the coronavirus has been lost, but the "big question" is whether the EU can keep Europe united, as the great visionaries of 1950 and 1984 would have liked. "On this anniversary, I would like to pay tribute to an extraordinary man, a great figure in the world - President Francois Mitterrand. On May 24, 1984, as president of the European Council, newly elected president of France delivered a speech to the European Parliament, today a basic document - in which he says: 'Many of my generation have shared the same ordeals, experienced the same hopes and worked for the same cause. There are many younger ones who have, in their turn, conceived the ambition of bringing Europe into line with the dictates of history and, through her, serving the just interests of the peoples that make it up. (...) they are the builders of a vast undertaking that will radically change the facts of politics or international geopolitics. They must continue to unite around this project and their public life will be justified by this alone. They will have the planet reshaped.' In the same speech, this exceptional visionary adds:" The protectionist temptation will gain ground - or when it awakes, Europe will have lost the battle on which all others depend.' We find ourselves currently in such situation, wondering if Europe, that is, the European Union, has not already lost a battle - the one against the coronavirus. But the big question is whether it will succeed in the battle to keep Europe united, as its visionaries in 1950, 1984 had the enormous capacity to see it in. That is the big question 70 years after the launch of the European Coal and Steel Community," said Roman. According to him, Romania has missed many opportunities to be "in the engine of the European Union." "In these 30 years of politics we have never been able to be - Romania and the Romanians - in the engine of the European Union. We have always been in a wagon, the tail wagon. My ambition, my enthusiasm, all my energy, all my breath was for the idea that in a project, two, as much as possible, Romania should be in the engine of the European Union. So far, that has not happened. We have skipped many stages in Romanian politics, we have extinguished, missed stages when Romania could have been elsewhere than it is now, but I want to emphasise that my confidence remains one hundred percent for the European design," said Roman. The former head of diplomacy mentioned the importance of the founding of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) in 1951 by France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, "a banner of freedom launched by exceptional visionaries in 1950, that is, far from everything we are now at." The approach represented the application of a plan developed by the French economist Jean Monnet, made public by the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, the ECSC was the predecessor of the European Economic Community and later of the European Union. AGERPRES (RO - author: Catalina Matei, editor: Mihai Simionescu; EN - author: Corneliu-Aurelian Colceriu, editor: Adina Panaitescu)