Is it truly imaginable that 60 million people lost their lives in the two World Wars of the last century? Or that on the first day of the Somme the British lost more than 19,000 men in the first day of battle and there were more than 420,000 British and Commonwealth casualties by the end of that campaign almost three months later? Shouldn’t we remember what happened in Europe in the past and what could happen again in the future should circumstances change?

On Armistice Day on 11 November, we do remember the millions who sacrificed their lives fighting for freedom during the two major wars of the last century. Much of the fighting took place in Belgium. And while the Belgians have singular difficulty in forming governments, they do a wonderful job in continuing to commemorate those who died during that period.

Many will not be aware, but every evening since 1928 (except for the period of German occupation during WWII), the Last Post ceremony has been sounded under the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium. Today is the 28299th Last Post. This daily tribute - performed by a team of local buglers - serves to honour the memory of those soldiers who fought and died in the Ypres Salient during the First World War. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission also deserve great credit for keeping the cemeteries immaculately well-kept and other work such as the ongoing search for the families of those soldiers killed (see Fromelles for example).

These commemorations did not escape the attention of leading Conservative activists from the Thames Valley during their visit to the European Parliament earlier this week. The central point was that we should never forget in our sometimes bitter debates on European treaties or financial matters that the European Union has made a major contribution by providing the means by which traditional enemies work together to find solutions to their common problems.

Oddly enough, the current discussion on the EU annual budget for 2011 is a good case in point. While the fight over whether to have a 2.9% or 5.9% increase in payments is an important one (the difference being £3bn for a market of 500m people), they pale into significance when taking the larger picture into account, a point recently made by the Polish Commissioner with responsibility for the EU budget, Janusz Lewandowski, a former Solidarność member. When he was asked recently could we still afford Europe, he  replied:

“Yes, we can - answers my optimistic generation, due to its historic memory of the communist reality; understanding fully the value of freedom and stability, enjoying Europe without borders and other advantages of the integrated European continent, taken for granted by those whose historical memory of the inhuman alternative ended in 1945 and not in 1989. Above all, we should be aware of the truth that one day of war in Europe would be more costly than the whole budget of the European institutions.”

What conclusions can we draw from the points above? Learning from the historical cataclysms we have had across Europe in recent decades when so many innocent people lost lives unnecessarily, we must continue to work together for a prosperous, stable and outward looking European Union, based on the individual framework of nation states to find ways and means of solving our challenges together, remaining open to fair solutions for everyone concerned. The outlook for the next 15-20 years is one in which the Western world - in particular the EU and US - will be confronted by the rapid rise of Asian countries. We will need to do whatever possible together to ensure the survival of our way of life.

 

Budget, European Union