Popular
support for the European Union is wavering amid its unrelenting economic
crisis, German President Joachim Gauck warned in Brussels. He called for
"more Europe," not less, in times of crisis.
"I am
pleased that you've made your way to Brussels so soon after taking
office," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told his German
guest at a joint news conference in Brussels Tuesday.
The
Portuguese carefully uttered a few sentences in German: "You're sending an
important, positive message about your commitment for Europe."
The journey
to Brussels was new President Joachim Gauck's second foreign visit, after
Poland, since taking office. He met with EU President Herman Van Rompuy, NATO
Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and Belgian Prime Minister Elio Di
Rupo.
Comparing
notes
Both Gauck
and Barroso were intent on exchanging more than just friendly words for the
press. Gauck said he and the European Commission's chief compared notes on
parallel developments in their personal lives, namely, growing up and living in
a dictatorship. Barroso experienced the end of Portugal's military rule at the
age of 18, and Gauck was a civil rights activist in communist East Germany.
The German
president said their European convictions were shaped by these experiences.
"As
young men, and for differing lengths of time, we shared the experience of
knowing freedom only as a longing," Gauck recounted. "It was only
much later that we were able to shape our freedom."
 |
| Gauck as a young man in East Germany |
"The
vision of Europe is closely bound to the practice of real political
freedom," Gauck added.
Barroso
cautioned Europeans to remember the European project, saying its
accomplishments neither irreversible nor to be taken for granted.
“We need
the commitment to the European project," he said, adding that Germany's
president is in the right position to lead the way.
Don't be
led by fear
The
economic and financial crisis in Europe was also on the two presidents' agenda.
"It's not only a crisis of finances, but also a crisis of trust,"
Gauck said.
Barroso
warned of populism and social exclusion: "We need more Europe as a
response to the crisis, not less," he said, pointing out a growing lack of
confidence in the political and economic elite on the part of Europe's
citizens.
Gauck said
life in a dictatorship taught him "that fear narrows our eyes and tightens
our hearts, - in difficult times, we shouldn't be led by fear or the temptation
to go back, to leave the European project," he said. "As Europe, we
are strong."
Gauck spoke
as the head of a country - albeit the ceremonial head - that is at the center
of expectations for aid in the current crisis. He said firm commitments make
acts of solidarity easier for Germans - a reference to an EU stability treaty,
the European fiscal compact that Germany lobbied hard for.
A vision of
the future
Is the
creation of a "United States of Europe" at the end of the road? Gauck
said such a union would make sense.
"EU
countries acting alone no longer have the reputation and the economic and
political strength to be noticed in the large power center of this Earth,"
he added. "As Europe we're strong, but not as individual national
states."
He went on
with a smile to acknowledge that mentalities are slow to change and people in
Europe are very fond of their national states.
A
"United States of Europe" is a vision of the future that we're not
ready for yet, Gauck said.
Author: Christoph Hasselbach/ db
Editor: Shant Shahrigian
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