Europe’s credibility on human rights depends on how Europeans treat those seeking refuge, German president Joachim Gauck has said.
Speaking at NUI Galway yesterday, Mr Gauck also said the “politics of national egoism” must not be allowed to define the challenges facing the EU.
The German president, who was awarded an honorary degree at NUI Galway during the last day of his official visit to Ireland, invoked the original spirit of the European project when he appealed for solidarity in the crisis. He expressed concern about the rise of “autocracies” on Europe’s southern and eastern peripheries.
“Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the East-West conflict, we in Europe cherished a dream – the dream of a continent of free and equal democracies,” he said, recalling the signing of the Charter of Paris for a new Europe by states including the Soviet Union in November 1990.
Maintaining solidarity
While Europe’s governments remain committed to this goal, “acceptance of democracy as a form of government has not been this low since 1989”, he said. “We would therefore do well, also in the current crisis, to be frank and make our views known while maintaining our solidarity,” he said.
“We must not allow those who are seeking to revert to the politics of national egoism rather than to foster a balance of interests and co-operation within Europe to define the challenges ahead,” he said. “We have to confidently counter simple solutions by putting forward the challenging approaches which this spirit of co-operation engenders.”
Successes of “populist forces on the left and right fringes of the political spectrum” are a manifestation of a scepticism about Europe, which is increasing even in more prosperous societies within the EU.
“The old Europe with its long history as a slaughterhouse in which devastating wars were waged has become a continent of peace and freedom where individual citizens can explore their potential,” he said, and where countries shared values of inalienable human rights and the rule of law, the separation of powers, representative democracy and popular sovereignty.
Referring to those seeking refuge in Europe, he said “we should not forget that hardship and a lack of freedom in their own countries once drove countless Irish and Germans to set off across the Atlantic to start a new life”.
“Human rights must not be the lip service which I experienced in the GDR and know of in other totalitarian states.”
