Tagged Europe Day

Every year, the 9th of May is celebrated across Europe by young and old, by cities and schools, by Europeans and by their non-European friends. They organize competitions, concerts, flash mobs, or activities with a more educational component such as identifying EU member states on a map or associating them with their national flags. Europe Day plays the role of a unifying European symbol, but it is also an important historic day that teaches the lesson of political foresight. On this day, 65 years ago, French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman gathered international correspondents at Quai d’Orsay on the shores of river Seine to announce his famous Declaration, which would lay down the European Union’s foundations.

“It’s Europe Day!” my wife called out when I showed her the invitation flier to Kriek & Frites party on May 8-9 at Place Jourdan in Brussels. Neither the flier nor its typically Belgian offer implied any connection with the EU. Given my early school days were spent in the Soviet Union, I associated the dates rather with the end of World War II. So what’s this Europe Day anyway? I distantly remembered that it had something to do with the day on which France and Germany decided to unite their coal and steel industries, hoping that this would prevent them if not from ever again piling up tanks and cannons…

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