WELCOME SOFIA AND BUCHAREST!
1 January 2007

From today the European Union has 27 member states and and almost 500 million citizens. The truly joyful moment of accession was celebrated yesterday at midnight in Romania and Bulgaria when these former Communist states, after hard work to fulfil the many membership criteria, became members.

Europe has been my passion for quite some years now and it continues to be so. I am proud that we have managed to turn wars and walls into a constructive project where open borders mean not only that it is easier to travel, move or work elsewhere, but also that prejudices are fewer and understanding better. For example, Erasmus students live and study together for one year abroad - who will start a serious war-torn conflict with a friend? In my opinion this is one of the cores of the European project!

I don't paint it all in rosy colours. The EU faces serious problems and challenges - illegal immigrants arriving on the shores of the Canary Islands, trade walls against the rest of the world and enormous internal scepticism of the EU itself. Understanding between Europeans is better than 20, 30, 40, 50 (...) years ago, but what about understanding of other non-Christian religions? This leads us to the challenge that we have seen related to the negotiations and the public opinion about Turkey as a future member state.

Climate change is another problematic issue that the EU is taking very seriously at the moment and most likely in the foreseeable future too. Pollution and energy-related issues do not stay within borders and co-operation is absolutely necessary. Environmental co-operation is another crucial core of the European project.

The days are gone of romantic ideas and ideals about the sovereign "nation state". In this day and age we should start viewing "non-sovereignty" as a positive thing- we need to acknowledge that being dependent in certain areas is not necessarily only negative.