News • 22 December 2002

The day I cried

Kurt Sansone’s experience in Copenhagen was an adrenaline rush similar to the one experienced 13 years ago when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down

I can still vividly recall the images of the mass protests outside the Berlin Wall in 1989. I was 15 years old at the time and bubbling with political idealism. But never did I believe it possible to witness the awesome events that took place during that eventful year.

Hungary had started the beginning of the end of Communism by dismantling the Iron Curtain in May that year. Soon after it opened its border with Austria.

From then on it was a sea of protests by people wanting to break loose from the shackles of communism. I cannot forget the determined faces of people demanding their dignity be respected. And then it came: the fall of the Berlin Wall. For long a symbol of hatred and division, oppression and brutality the Wall was to be no more.

Those images of the Wall being torn down by the bare hands of people from all walks of life as helpless soldiers looked on will always remain imprinted in my memory. I recall watching CNN, Euronews and RAI for hours on end, flipping from one station to another hoping to get the ‘better’ news. As I write this piece, a shiver runs down my spine.

The people of Eastern Europe had won back their dignity. Indeed, all of Europe had won on that November day when the Wall existed no more. Victory was mine as well. And on that day I cried.

More than a decade has passed since then but on Friday 13, December 2002 I experienced the very same adrenaline rush that I experienced when the first stones of the Berlin Wall were being dismantled.

This time I was not only watching history unfold on a TV screen, I was recording it as a journalist. In Copenhagen One Europe was born. The proud words of Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen at the end of the two-day summit were inspiring. Europe had come a long way and the enlargement expected to take place on 1 May 2004 is a homecoming for Europe’s Eastern countries into the European family of democracies.

The closure of this historic chapter now rests with the peoples of the respective accession countries.

After the Second World War Europe enjoyed its longest period of peace and stability. Despite the Cold War, Western Europe prospered and former enemies chose the road of co-operation.

All this did not happen by coincidence. The European Union, formerly known as the European Economic Community was the motor behind this period of peace. It was a vision crafted out by the political leaders of European countries emerging from the devastation of WWII.

That vision of a united Europe was confirmed in Copenhagen. History was made. In 2004 Europe will be one again.

And my country little as it may be has the opportunity to take its rightful place alongside other European states in the realisation of this vision.

Europe has come a long way since John F. Kennedy uttered those famous words ‘Ich bin ein Berliner’ at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s. I only hope that we can grab this historic opportunity to form part of a united European family.

A new era will start after 2004 and it will have an impact on us irrespective of which road the country decides to take. Joining the European Union is not an end-of-the-world scenario but being there at the start of an era, like any shrewd businessman can tell you, is better than trying to join at a later stage when everything has been set.

Fortress Europe

Ironically, while in Copenhagen the day after the summit I was invited to an anti-EU party by a fellow Maltese eurosceptic. We met by chance in Copenhagen’s central square where a union-led demonstration had just ended. She invited me over. It was the first time I felt myself isolated in my beliefs in favour of Malta becoming an EU member state.

Well, eurosceptics are to be found all over Europe. They come in all shades and colours but the underlying theme that united all those at the party I attended was the allergy toward a fortress Europe dictated by large multi-national companies.

I agreed with them. The European Union should not become a fortress isolated from the realities of the world’s poor. It should not succumb to the undemocratic and ruthless ideals that fuel multi-national companies. That is a temptation Europe has to resist.

But contrary to my Eurosceptic friend I have hope in a block that has proven otherwise. Reality shows that the European Union is increasingly having a determining say on the world stage. It provides an alternative form of free market capitalism that embraces both environmental and social values.

Nothing is perfect. Admittedly, much more can be done to ensure that the peoples of Europe have a stronger voice in shaping their own future. But it is more of Europe that we require and not less of it to achieve this aim. This is where I differ from my eurosceptic friend.