But most of all, I want you to understand that it is up to your generations to build this Europe in several languages. A multilingual Europe is a unique opportunity. Europe is not a homogenous area into which we must all dissolve. European sophistication is an ability to see all the many parts without which Europe would not be Europe. But it is also what makes Europeans, when they travel, more than just French, just Greek, just German or just Dutch. They are European, because they have inside of them this universalism of Europe and its multilingualism.
Europe must be shaped by these languages and it will always be made of the untranslatable. We must work hard to keep this. Political and journalistic debate is fuelled by untranslatable notions. Let me share with you something I’ve learned: tomorrow, some people will be seeking out the small divergences and the debates around this speech, and those without any ideas of their own will be focusing on the sticking points, saying “look, there. . .”. But I’ve noticed that, while there are indeed sticking points at times, they are often not about fundamental issues. They are about something untranslatable, something that stems from a difference in language, in culture. The word “debt” is a perfect example: it does not have the same meaning or implications in France as it does in Germany. We need to consider this when we speak to each other.
Our political debates are always more complicated in Europe than in the rest of the world. Because, in some ways, the European Sisyphus always has his untranslatable burden to roll up the hill. But this untranslatable burden is in fact an opportunity. It is the mysterious part inside each of us, and it is the part of us that trusts in the European project. It is the fact that at a given moment, despite not speaking the same language and having these unfamiliar and complex differences, we decide to move forward together instead of letting those things drive us apart. I champion this untranslatable quality, our complex differences, because I want to imagine Sisyphus happy.
In the end, it is the young people of Europe who must ensure the movement of ideas and people, who must want Europe. This is what has always united us, more than rigid rules or borders. This is why we must trust in Europe, in what all of us have learned over the centuries, to find the path of this unity.
Finally, the essence of the European project is democracy. I would even say that it is its greatest strength, what really fuels it. As in the 1930s, democracy is being accused of weakness. In Europe today there is a fascination with “illiberal” democracies. There is a fascination with brutal unilateralism, because Europe has supposedly become ineffective, and with it democracy. I will tirelessly argue the opposite.
For Europe, sovereignty, unity and democracy are inextricably linked. And those who think we could choose sovereignty without democracy are mistaken! Those who think we could simply, casually, create democratic “gimmicks” without wanting a project of sovereignty and unity are equally mistaken! We must promote this indivisible triangle.
But I am telling you very emphatically this afternoon that we have drawn a line under one form of European integration. The founding fathers built Europe in isolation from the people, because they were an enlightened vanguard and perhaps because they could do that, and they made progress by proving subsequently that it worked. Perhaps they enjoyed a trust that is no longer exclusive to leaders; that is how things are. They lived in another time, when means of communication were not the same.
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