Remarks by Yves Leterme on behalf of the EU Council Presidency at the Falling Walls Conference

Remarks by Yves Leterme on behalf of the EU Council Presidency at the Falling Walls Conference

• Discours
• Europe

08/11/2010

Mr. President
Excellencies,
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen

Twenty one years ago a wall came down in this city. Twenty one years... This means that meanwhile a whole generation has grown up which has not known the harsh and artificial division of Europe. This is something we can only rejoice in.  But we should not forget. To those new generations, we should pass on how cruel this wall was, how hard and unfair a price the people to the east of it paid for what was called peace in Europe.


A wall came down in this city. But as the programme of this very interesting conference shows, the walls which divide people, which block our way to progress, are not just walls of brick and mortar, of barbed wire and landmines and guns.

 There are walls in our minds, which prevent us from seeing and seizing new breakthroughs in science, in international relations, in the way we organise our societies, in the way we prepare the future.

One of the items in the next session particularly caught my attention. It is the topic of breaking the wall of high level nuclear waste.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We need economic growth to preserve our European systems of political and economic freedom, coupled with social and ecological responsibility, in short, in what we call our Rhineland model – and I hope the Berliners do not mind my calling it so.

But we need economic growth that does not deplete the energy resources of our planet. And we need economic growth that respects the environment and the climate.
Although this has been a taboo for many people – and still is –, we know that we cannot achieve all this, as matters stand, without nuclear energy. And we are not the only ones. Developing countries are in need of a secure and affordable source of energy.

But again, this form of energy also is only acceptable if it does not mortgage the future of this planet, a planet we do not own, but have in loan from the coming generations.

This means we have to find a solution for nuclear waste. To start with, we have to reduce significantly the volume of waste produced, and the time span of its harmfulness. We must take into account the very real, and legitimate, concern of our citizens.

Europe has all the brains and means needed to realise major steps forward in the treatment of nuclear wastes and 4th generation nuclear reactors. My own government, if I may be allowed to mention it, has invested heavily in a long term programme to that effect. It is called Myrrha and is open to further European and international participation.



Ladies and Gentlemen,

In this city a wall came down. Since then our European Union has managed to bring down many walls, walls in mortar and stone, and walls within the minds of people, to create a unique process of continuing integration, which is the envy of many other parts of the world.

I’m happy to say that the Union is moving forwards again, now that the institutional discussions are behind us. Under our presidency, we have been able to bring down a few more walls, to create better common institutions for economic governance, a better protection against the excesses of an unfettered capitalism.

Many walls came down. We have free circulation of persons and goods, we have a single market and, for 16, and soon 17, countries, a single currency. We now have to focus much more on a common, single, strong economy.
After the failure of the Lisbon strategy, we have to invest heavily and seriously in EU2020. We have to strengthen our industry, and realise new breakthroughs.

 One of the walls we urgently want to bring down is the one in the way of the European patent.  The Belgian presidency convenes a competitiveness council this week with the firm intention to reach at last a consensus which has been thirty years in coming.

We need a common, a single economy because we need a larger scale economy, comparable to that of the United States, China, India. In this endeavour, the German economy has  to be our guideline and our standard.


Ladies and Gentlemen,

Of course not all walls must fall. We need some walls, to protect our privacy, our intimacy. We could not live in a world without walls, in a gigantic glass house. Europe has to safeguard its diversity.

The European Union is not a steamroller meant to annihilate its nations. It respects what I’d call the good walls, the walls that give people the space to be themselves, en thus make them better equipped to work and live with others.

People who are self confident are all the more able to question themselves and their surroundings, en bring down the walls in their minds that blind them to new ideas, to other people’s ideas.

 I hope you bring down some of these walls today. I congratulate the organisers on having decided on such a brilliant theme, and I wish the conference all possible success