If we want to truly understand what Europe means we need to go back in time in the post-war Europe, a place haunted by economic and social crisis under the threat of a new world war and a place of confrontation of various political ideologies. In was on that background that on 9 May 1950 that the French foreign minister Robert Schuman presented what would be known since then as the Schuman Declaration. It proposed the creation of a European Coal and Steel Community, whose members would pool coal and steel production. Its words remain today, in this time of crisis, as actual now as then:
“Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity.”
It created a space of solidarity and prosperity, a space of rule of law and welfare that 70 years after still holds on and attracts a lot of attention as it has expanded throughout our continent. Even if nowadays it is strained by the effects of pandemics more Europe is the answer to this crisis.
9 May is also the Independence Day of Romania. On 9 May 1877 in the Romanian parliament, the foreign minister Mihail Kogălniceanu read the act of independence of Romania as the will of the Romanian people.