The date recalls the day of 1950 when Robert Schuman presented the Economic Cooperation Plan, the so-called "Schuman Declaration" conceived by Jean Monnet, which marked the beginning of the process of European integration (the pooling of coal reserves and steel) with the aim of a future federal union. The date also coincides with the day that marks, de facto, the end of World War II: 9 May is in fact the day after the signing of the Nazi capitulation, when Hermann Göring and Vidkun Quisling were captured.
Today, May 9th is the European Day. Today we must raise our hearts to the joy of having overcome the internal European conflicts. Never ever on the ashes of the Great War we should build more wars! Never, never should we forget the Holocaust and how many innocent victims were sacrificed on the altar of human folly.
Well you Jews, you Arabs, we Europeans should have learned this lesson of history well! And instead? Here we are with each other armed and in the middle there is Syria, a land of division and conflict, torn apart by a war that has lasted for more than seven years.
It is time to look inside our soul and say enough to the warlords. Those, yes, who want the evil of the world to divert attention from their flaws!
Let's look at the history, we European peoples in celebrating Europe's difficult goal on the road to reconciliation. Let us not be fooled once again: Iraq and Libya might have taught us a lesson. And instead, after North Korea, here we are again in front of Iran.
Look in the eyes of the Arab peoples and the great Persian people, you have made history together with the Greeks and Romans, in Europe and Asia Minor. You are history and you must draw and drink from the sources of reason, not those of extempore madness. Join a common afflatus of civilization!
We all drink, we peoples of the Mediterranean, from the same source of luminous ancestral culture. To it we must strive, against all barbarism and fake worship of a dead democracy in the same instant in which it advocates hostility and wars. We tend to peace, to harmony among peoples beyond any barrier of race, gender and religion. The new frontiers of the world must be of peace and not of war!
Afghanistan teaches how madness does not reward with its constant tribute of innocent blood. Enough then, the measure is full! Let's leave the word to diplomacy, weapons do not know what to do! They are only for incapable and demented minds!
Thus, Europe is alive, the true and sincere one of the peoples who support peace.