“We can solve problems only if we start again with new perspectives, otherwise we remain prisoners of the past, shackled to the demons of our past. And we do not want this in Europe today”. The newly elected president of COMECE, Monsignor Jean-Claude Hollerich, opened his first press conference today with a gaze turned to the “new”. The press conference was attended also by 3 of the 4 vice presidents of the European body: Mgr. Mariano Crociata (Italy), Mgr. Noel Treanor (Ireland), and Mgr. Jan Vokal (Croatia). And this is because, Mgr. Hollerich explained, the “new presidency will work as a team. As you see, we represent large and small countries, we come from different regions of Europe, and what we can do is to work as a team, to build bridges across our diversities”. As he introduced himself to the press, the archbishop of Luxembourg pointed out that he had spent a large part of his life outside Europe, living 23 years in Japan, and said: “Living outside Europe has allowed me to look at this land in a different light. When you live far from your homeland, you focus on what identities have in common and not on what divides us. I hope to continue to always have this perspective. As COMECE, we care about the people who live in Europe. This is the substantial message we would like to give to political leaders: every human being is important in Europe, every man and every woman, we all have the same rights”. This is a perspective that will have political implications here in Brussels. The will of COMECE – the new president underlined – is to “continue our dialogue with the institutions”. “Dialogue means listening and also means sharing different perspectives to find solutions together. Europe without the Union? No, we cannot conceive it”. Then the archbishop went on to express his esteem and friendship to the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker. “He has a vision for Europe, and this is what I would like to talk to him about, about his vision for Europe”.