25 March 2017, European Parliament, Brussels, Belgium
Europe is currently bound to the North by popularism, and to the South by refugees drowned in the sea. To the east by Putin's tanks, and to the West by Trump's wall. In the past by war, in the future by Brexit. Today, Europe is alone more than ever, but it's citizens do not know it.
Europe is, however, for that reason the best solution and we do not know how to explain that to our citizens. Globalisation teaches us that today Europe is inevitable, there is no alternative.
But Brexit also tells us that Europe is reversible, that you can walk backwards in history, eve4n though outside of Europe, it is very cold.
Brexit is the most selfish decision ever made since Winston Churchill saved Europe with the blood sweat and tears of the English.
Saying Brexit is the most insidious way of saying goodbye.
Europe is not a market, it is the will to live together. Leaving Europe is not leaving a market, it is leaving shared dreams. We can have a common market, but if we do not have common dreams, we have nothing. Europe is the peace that came after the disaster of war. Europe is the pardon between French and Germans. Europe is the return to freedom of Greece, Spain and Portugal. Europe is the fall of the Berlin Wall. Europe is the end of communism. Europe is the welfare state, it is democracy.