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Can you hear me with this microphone?
Perfect. Dear friends, ladies and gentlemen
It's a great pleasure for me indeed to be here in this
very special moment and speak to you. I know that your province
is the youngest province in this country,
in the Netherlands. This is the nation I respect and cherish
so much for being hard-working, strong,
innovative but also because this is the only nation, or maybe
one of the very few nations, that can pronounce my surname
in a proper way.
But I'll tell you one thing: the people of this province, you must have been
twice as hard working and twice as innovative, because you are living on the land
which did not exist fifty years ago. And I know many nations
who's got tons of lands but they
don't have any idea what to do with the land.
I represent European Christian Political Movement which is
a European political party with an unique
Christian voice in the European politics; exactly in the same way as your party
Christian Union has
unique Christian stands in the Dutch politics.
And, it was started twelve years ago
by a handful of very enthusiastic politicians.
And now it grew into a network
or basically the biggest network of Christian parties and organisations
and the individual politicians across Europe.
We advocate spreading Christian democratic values
across Europe, as well as outside of it, and support the basic and fundamental
values as
human dignity; as Christian values; as
freedom of speech and religion;
as well as inclusive economy -
based on concept of Christian understanding of
human being. Being one of the fastest growing parties in Europe
we also have a strong impact
over the European politics. We opened our office in Brussels last year
and we are gearing up for European elections. And I
do hope, by the help of the Christian Union, by the help of the
SGP, in their success, we will become
stronger in the European politics. I'll tell you one thing
I feel straight away that this party has a future, because how
active the youth movement was here while debating and discussing some of the
bits and pieces of the program. When I started talking about
your nation I mention two words: hard-working
and innovative. But no matter how hard-working one or two nations might be
is not enough to face the problem and to solve the problem that
Europe is facing at the moment - and to make Europe a better place
to live. We all see that at some point and some moment Europe...
European Union
made the continent more stable, more prosperous
and we all benefited from that.
But at some point something went wrong. It is not happening anymore and we all feel that.
Lots of people in this country as well as
in the other countries as well feel disconnected from
European Union as an idea and as an institution.
People simply don't trust Brussels anymore.
It's clear that something
has to be done about this, but what?
This is the big question. And answer, we have
here. And this is what I'm going to talk about,
in the rest of my speech. A new paradigm based on
Christian understanding of human being is something that is needed to restore
the relation and trust between the European institutions
and between the people living in the Member States.
The basic of the paradigm is the
realistic view that the human being
is a relational its biological existence,
in it's ecological dependence and economic interdependence. Our relational
vision
is good balance between individuality
and communarism. What is missing from the present
EU is Christian understanding of human
dignity that affirms the unique value
every human being from conception to the natural death.
A value that can only be understood
in relation with each other. For example: if we understand how valuable
the other person is, then we can understand the full value of our life.
Human dignity in its all sense
and for all the people should be back in the EU
as soon as possible. The weakening situation
of the family fracturing society and
decreasing solidarity are essentially the one of the reasons
of the problems that we're facing today. It also affect social situation and
generates distrust between
the people and the European Union. Therefore we need to support
and promote stronger families. The family has
always been the bedrock of society and you know that better than me
in the hardest times in this countries, as well as in my own country,
it was the strong family that saved the nation.
Strong families generate stronger society
and makes economy more stable and vibrant.
But we have to make sure that it's not only
that people who serve the economy, but the economy
that serves the people. Unfortunately nowadays
there is a tendency, and we all see that, that the weak and vulnerable
become subordinated to the strong and tough.
Often the choice of an individual is regarded as the higher value
and principal than responsibility, or solidarity, or mutual care.
Sex trade and human trafficking
is becoming a modern-day straight slavery in the 21st century and it's
a disgrace
of the 21st century Europe. The EU should be
more active about to solve this problem as long as it is
a multi-national problem instead of meddling
in our affairs, starting from schools and kindergartens
finished with health and some other issues that the nations can
address lot better way the EU. We need
to have a EU that regulates
less, but facilitates more.
After seeing the episode of horses, which was a
wonderful story, I can't think of
anything but good leadership.
Technically those forces could have saved themselves, they can all swim
quite well but if not for that leadership
of that two outstanding persons, nothing
would have happened and could have happened. This is what I'm hoping:
the good leadership from mister Van Dalen, from mister Bas Belder,
and all the candidates that are now gearing for the European elections
these kind of strong and good leadership is needed
and expected. And as a final note of my speech I want to go back
to my childhood and tell you a little story,
something that my dad used to tell me a lot.
When we would walk to the forest he would look
up at the tree and would say:
"Look what a wonderful tree! How strong, how beautiful!
But remember: it's good for nothing
without its roots." And he used to tell me that
"Remember that the height of a tree is not measured
from the ground, but from its roots".
Human dignity, Christian values, inclusive
economy, freedom of speech and religion;
has always been the roots that fed
the European Union. This is why it became prosperous,
this is why it became so successful.
And when it went down, downwards,
this was because the European Union rejected
its own roots: fundamental values
Solution is, very simple: More Christian
Europe. Thank you.