Welcome to Europe, Ukrainians!
Speech by We are Europe! members on Majdan Square, Kyiv, 14/12/2013 (link to video)
Nine years have passed since the world looked at Kiev. Here, through the Orange Revolution, you have liberated yourselves from fraud and manipulation with all your strength. You forced new elections that produced a different result than the rigged elections before. That was a great success, that was one of the best chapters that the book of European history has to offer, and you were the authors!
Now, almost a decade later, you are back on the streets of Kiev protesting. You are protesting against a policy you no longer believe. You are protesting against a policy that you no longer trust. You are protesting against a policy that you no longer understand. And that is your right. No one in your country and no one outside your country can take it away from you.
We represent an organisation of Europeans. It is based in Germany, in Düsseldorf, but it is not a German organisation. We are Europe! is a community of Europeans from all parts of the continent – regardless of whether you belong to the European Union or not. Russians and Ukrainians belong to it just as much as French and Portuguese.
We are called “We are Europe!”, and we call ourselves that because we believe: all Europeans will one day form one community. When are you a European? You are when you believe in European values, in freedom of expression, in religious tolerance, in an independent judiciary, in equal rights for men and women, in the freedom and responsibility of each one of us, in the power of peace. But above all, remember that it is the citizens of a country who determine its fate – and no one else. This is true for Ukraine, it is true for Germany, it is true for all European countries, and it will soon be true for the European Union itself.
So you, citizens of Ukraine, can decide for yourselves which way you want to go. No one can dictate it to you. Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to choose between East and West. Germany, too, does not have to choose between France and Poland, but is friends with both countries. One day it will be the same with Ukraine and its eastern and western neighbours.
We just want to give you one message here today: We are proud of you, of your courage, of your perseverance! We believe that your energy can be a model for the whole of Europe. And we call out to you: Welcome to Europe, Ukrainians!