Foreign Minister Avramopoulos’s Europe Day message

Today marks 63 years since Robert Schuman’s inspired declaration that initiated the European integration process.

Much was achieved in the decades that followed. The initially small Coal and Steel Community evolved into the the European Union, adopting a common currency and coordinated positions on a wide range of policies, while enlargement integrated our continent, promoting democratization and stability.

Today in particular, with a perceptible rise in Euroscepticism, we need to reflect on our common European values, which are a fundamental and vital component part of the European structure. The values of democracy, freedom, mutual understanding and, above all, the value of solidarity. Practical solidarity towards equal partners with whom, through dialogue and cooperation, our common European homeland is being built step by step.

In the current state of affairs of the economic crisis, these values – expressed and promoted in practice by visionary leaders like Monnet, Adenauer, Gisgard d’ Estaing, Mitterand and Delors – remain very timely. The explosive rise in unemployment, the deepening of social inequalities and the widening gap between the northern and southern countries are giving rise to pessimism, particularly among the young, regarding the future of Europe.

But today as never before, collective action and our unshakeable faith in the European vision must serve as our compass in meeting all of the challenges posed by the crisis of the social state, the uncontrolled rise in illegal migration, and environmental and other global issues. And despite the fatigue we see on the course of the European endeavor, everyone needs to understand that in the era of globalization, these problems can be dealt with only through multilateral cooperation.

Thus, we cannot allow the European acquis to be called into question. We must respond to European citizens’ calls for the adoption of policies that promote growth and cohesion, introduce more transparency into decision-making, and reduce the democratic deficit.

Greece, which will hold the Presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2014, has always been an ardent supporter of the European idea. Participation in the hard core of the European structure has contributed to the consolidation of democratization and a rise in the standard of living, and is a motor force for modernization of the state.

At the same time, the European perspective has been a stabilizing factor for all of Southeast Europe, providing a vision of prosperity and peaceful coexistence for all the peoples of the region.

Today, with the prevailing pessimism regarding the future of Europe, we all have a duty to reflect on what we have achieved together with our other partners. And it is our duty to safeguard the European Union – our new common country – and work together to revitalize faith in the European vision, defying the dangerous sirens of populism and nationalism.