The 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome

Image from Financial Review

 Author: Stefania Guzzo 

On 25 March 2017, the EU Member States have celebrated the 60th Anniversary of  Rome Treaties, the international agreement that brought to the creation of the European Economic Community that represented the starting point of the European integration process. In the frame of Rome, the “eternal city”, the 27 national leaders recalled the stages of an adventure undertaken by the six pioneering countries when on 25 March 1957, the representatives of Belgium, West Germany, Italy, Netherland, France and Luxembourg signed the Treaties of Rome also known as the Treaties of the European Community (TEC): the EEC (European Economic Community) and the EAEC (the European Atomic Energy Community, also known as Euratom).

"Today, we celebrate the perseverance and the cleverness of EU's founding fathers, which has its best proof in this crowded hall"- Italian prime minister Paolo Gentiloni  said in his opening speech in the very place where the Treaty of Rome was signed 60 years ago. In his speech, Gentiloni also recalled the several achievements of the European integration project, while acknowledging that EU has found itself unprepared and responded late before major recent challenges such as migration, economic crisis, and unemployment among others.

"We don't want a divided Europe!" - Gentiloni said - "Europe is united and indivisible, but we want to move forward on a common idea of Europe in areas such as defence, security. We need greater integration and we claim a global role for Europe".

The event  marks the foundations of our Europe. The celebration intends to remind to the citizens the main aim of the founding fathers: to bring peace and development in Europe after the second world war. 
The declaration of Robert Shuman - "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” – represents this aim.

Many steps further has been made by the EU Member States after the foundation of the European Community: the fall of the Berlin Wall (1989),
the Treaty of Maastricht (1992) also better known as the Treaty of European Union, that nowadays forms the basis of EU law, by setting out general principles of the EU's purpose, the Treaty of Lisbon (2009) that intends to realize the concept of an integrated Europe. In particular, after this latest treaty,  the Member States has spent many efforts to reach a minimum level of harmonization among the national states, especially in the area of Freedom, Security and Justice.
During the celebration, in the ancient “Horatii and Curiati” hall, the EU leaders have signed the “ Rome Declaration” emphasizing their commitments to renew European Unity.

It is worth to underline that Rome Declaration reaffirms the fundamental values of European unit, the need of the single market developments and four most important issues to be dealt: the security, the defense, the liberties, the welfare growth. It also highlights how it promotes the economic and social progress, as well as the cohesion and convergence of nations belonging to the EU, respecting the diversity of national systems.

For the President of the European Commission, Jean Claude Junker, the document represents a new beginning for the European project, but the priority is to turn these words in facts.

Europe is facing a period of international crisis and internal skepticism that imposed a moment of reflection in the face of internal and external challenges that is going to face.

“For 60 years, the values on which this Union is built have not changed: peace, freedom, tolerance, solidarity and the rule of law bind and unite us. They must not be taken for granted and we must fight for them every day.” - thorugh this words, Juncker stated the unifying value of the Rome Declaration.

During the ceremony, the release of UK has not been mentioned, probably because, almost certainly it is not considered an obstacle or a brake on the journey within the Europe integration path.

Another relevant statement was made by the President of European Parliament with which he stressed the economic development reached by the internal market. He said: « Europe must be changed, but not destroyed. Since the European Union is founded, GDP grew compared to the American one, and created millions of jobs». Antonio Trajani reaffirmed also that the way to improve and complete this European enterprise is let the EU the potential untapped free ».

Pope Francis recalled the Christian roots of Europe and noted that "the Union is not only the one of the parameters, but of the values, of the richness of diversity, of the example, of morality and of ideas’’.

After several years we may say that the method used to make Europe at “small steps" and “successive approximation" has reached many goals, but not the main one which is the political union of the EU countries. And maybe has also partially missed to show to the citizens the original vision of solidarity which have inspired the Father Founders (Shuman, De Gasperi e Adenaur).

In fact, there are many positive examples achieved by Europe : Euro and the single market have made economic and monetary stability for businesses and citizens possible, free movement of goods, people, services and capital, mini-interest rates, affordable mortgages, low-cost flights and reduced tariffs by End of monopolies.

Europe has secured peace and well-being for over half a century and for these reasons we must give it confidence and believe in it.

"Europe is a precious point of reference for all humanity" said Francis Pope to the European Parliament.
Indeed, the crisis suffered by the European Union pose a new challenge, especially after the shock of Brexit, also to not disappoint the people who still believe in a multiethnic and multicultural Europe without prejudice and  border to migrants.

Anyway, sixty years after its birth, the EU remains an “indispensable need”, an existential imperative without which it would be impossible for all the Europeans to defend their civilization, values and model of society and development.
For me, as young European citizen, if the EU wasn’t existed and it would not be a great and precious asset, it should still be invented.