The European vocabulary

The Nobel Peace prize award ceremony ran the risk of becoming a day of expected integration process commemorations, with prevailing nostalgia instead of a sound refection on EU’s difficult current and future challenges. But at a closer look, a parallel and honest reinterpretation of the past and present situation provided insights to this difficult transaction phase of the community process.During his presentation speech the Chairman of the Nobel Committee, Thornbjorn Jagland, highlighted the importance of the reconciliation between Germany and France after the Second World War, that laid the foundations for the European Integration while chancellor Angela Merkel and the French President François Hollande, stood up and holding hands lifted them up in a simple gesture of friendship. One can assume that more than one consideration emerged on the true or alleged Berlin- Paris diarchy pillar of the EU’s current fate, like in the past with the European Economic Community (Adenauer-Schuman, Adenauer-De Gaulle, Kohl-Mitterrand, Merkel-Sarkozy…).Undeniably the community’s first steps have been conceived and carried out specifically to rebuild a mutual trust, and then a lasting agreement between the two Rhine shores, always contended, traditional battle fields in the nineteenth century and world wars of the last century. Therefore, the Nobel Peace Prize is intended in the political and diplomatic process which led to the EU, first through the Maastrich Treaty and now with that of Lisbon conceived and pursued with determination to overcome the rivalry between France and Germany by building common interests and concrete solidarity. These were the pillars of the Schuman Declaration on May 9, 1950, which led to the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC), the European Economic Community and today’s European Union. The solemn text read by then -French Foreign Minister Robert Shuman and – read once again today – has an unique outlook ability. "World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it". And " 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. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany". The twelve-stars on a blue background Europe started from here and for better or for worse Germany and France have often been the Union’s "engine". But the Nobel "is not an award to the past but rather to our tomorrow", for the national political leaders (at least those in Oslo on December 10 who believe in integration), responsible for the Brussels and Strasbourg institutions, commentators, the souls of civil society – among which the Catholic Church- who do not surrender to populist and nationalist allusions fuelled by the economic crisis. The speeches delivered in the Nordic city were much more than a commemoration. Key-words of a Europe that accepts the modern global "battle fields" (economy, demography, migration, environment, energy, internet , multi cultures..): with a vocabulary that includes terms such as rights, development, freedom, democracy, dialogue, openness to the rest of the world. Without neglecting the word "compromise" – in its most noble meaning- that is an agreement at the highest possible level towards an ambitious combination, between partial and general interests, national and community. A synthesis that some still call "European Common good". The virtuous encounter between history and the EU of today, focused on achieving the Europe of tomorrow, is mirrored in the names pronounced in the elegant auditorium of the Norwegian capital – from Herodotus to Monnet, Willy Brandt to Wojtyla, Gorbachev and Walesa – and also by the young faces of the four students who were part of the EU official delegation, together with the Presidents of the European Council, Commission and Parliament. Europe, a work-yard that was opened more or less seventy years ago, has more than one wrinkle, and feels the burden of a complex season, it has to come to terms with the crisis, unemployment and instability in public spending: but nonetheless is looking ahead. There is a need for Europe. It is a "community of values" and at the same time a tool to produce outcomes and benefits, that its more or less aware, 500 million citizens are expecting.