Msgr. Gianni Ambrosio at the COMECE centre in Brussels: “Unfortunately, the feast of Europe is ignored or forgotten, but the memory of peace and unity in Europe is very important. During the 60th anniversary of the signature of the Treaties of Rome, Pope Francis recalled that by saying: ‘In the memory lapse typical of present days, we often forget another remarkable goal originating from the solidarity ratified on 25 March 1957: the longest peace period in the last few centuries’”. On the day after the Feast of Europe (9 May – to recall the Schuman Declaration of 1950), with sluggish celebrations in Italy, Msgr. Gianni Ambrosio reflected on this subject. The bishop of Piacenza-Bobbio is actually Vice President of COMECE, the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Community, gathering in Brussels the representatives of the bishops’ conferences of EU countries. “9 May recalls the anniversary of the historical Schuman Declaration”, says Ambrosio to SIR. “During a speech in Paris, in 1950, the French Foreign Minister of the time, Robert Schuman, illustrated his idea for a new kind of political cooperation for Europe, in such a way as to make war among European nations unthinkable and unattainable. His ambition was great, and that was just the first step of his project: creating a European institution sharing coal and steel production, and managing it together. A treaty giving birth to such institution was signed just one year later. For that reason, the proposal of Schuman is regarded as the birth certificate of today’s European Union. Later on, many more steps were made to approach peoples which had been fighting each other throughout history, in terrible conflicts such as World War II”. Msgr. Ambrosio says that during the 60th anniversary of the Treaties of Rome, Pope Francis asked everyone to address the Founding Fathers, because “they remind us that Europe is not a set of rules to be followed; and it is not a manual of protocols and procedures. It is a lifestyle, a way to conceive man as of his inalienable and transcendent dignity: man is not just a bunch of rights to defend, or expectations to claim. The origin of the idea of Europe is the figure and responsibility of the human person with his ferment of evangelical brotherhood”, “with his will for truth and justice, supported by millenary experience”. The bishop also says: “It is necessary to go back to the pulsating heart of the European political project: man”, “in order to overcome this tragic crisis of Europe and European peoples, due to both centrifugal forces and decrease in the foundation ideals of the Union”. “If Europe re-discovers the great project of its founders, it will not get old, but will have a chance for a new youth – as the Pope says -. Successful Europe will depend on the will to work together once again, and from the will to bet on the future”.