As you mentioned, Prime Minister, there was the founding generation who created an unprecedented space for peace, freedom and prosperity. There was a generation who grew this Europe, sometimes leading it astray, taking the wrong path. Our generation has a simple choice, a unique alternative: continue to manage Europe as it is, pretending not to see what is under our eyes. In this case, this generation will take the responsibility of letting Europe die. It will die from the clashes, brutal exits, or it will be left to wither and die, year on year.
But the other choice, which I am going to propose to you this evening, it to rebuild Europe, because our generation can choose to rebuild Europe today, now, by radically criticizing it because we would be wrong to leave the criticizing solely to those who hate Europe! Those who love Europe should be able to criticize Europe to rebuild it, correct it, improve it, rebuild it! But with this same energy, same desire, not figures, not technicalities, not bureaucracy, no! We must bring back the primary force of hope which led certain individuals in Europe, despite the divisions of the post-war period, to desire a bigger story, more beautiful than themselves.
Indeed, I am here tonight to talk about these hopes, these three hopes of sovereignty, democracy and confidence.
Reconquering our sovereignty is essential. Because I will not allow the so-called “sovereigntists” be the only ones to use this term. No, sovereignty is what allows us to decide for ourselves, to decide our own rules, our own future, it is what makes our world. Sovereignty is not the property of those who prefer to withdraw into national borders! Do not leave sovereignty to those who wish to wither, those who pretend that looking inwards is a defence, a protection, a decision when actually it is a hate for others, a refusal of those who come from abroad, a denial of decades of shared history where we have finally tried to move beyond nationalisms!
