Friday morning, the president of the European Movement, Pat Cox, opened the event organised for the sixtieth anniversary of the Congress of The Hague, in The Hague’s Nieuwe Kerk. This anniversary of a founding moment of Europe’s construction process is preparing the future of Europe as around 500 delegates from representative organisations of the civil society from forty countries gathered in The Hague and were invited to present “60 ideas for Europe”.

“Our generation bears the duty of continuity” explained Pat Cox, a former President of the european Parliament, when he opened the Congress in presence of Prince Constantijn of the Netherlands. An obvious continuity also in the reigning family as the Congress of 1948 happened in the presence of the Princess Juliana and the Prince Bernhard.

In his introductive message, the President of the European Movement, Pat Cox, reminded the audience of the main message addressed by the Congress of 1948: “Europe is threatened, Europe is divided and the biggest danger of all comes from its divisions”. Hence the call, which was at the origins of the creation of the Council of Europe: “time has come to take actions to deal with the danger”, that is to say uniting European peoples because “the destiny of Europe and peace in the world depend on it”.

In sixty years, much was accomplished, explained Pat Cox, and The Hague’s European dream became concrete on the juridical, democratic and institutional level. But that doesn’t mean that everything is achieved: the president of the European Movement said that time has come for Europe to dig its roots deeply in the compost of civil society – and not only focussing on political, economic and intellectual elites – so that the citizens can own the European dream and shape Europe of the future that they wish to have. This is why the Prince Constantijn saluted the work achieved by active organisations within the civil society where a “pragmatic integration” is taking place, which shows that on a European level, “many things happen outside of Brussels”.

“We the people” must become the key element of the idea of Europe and of the ideals it still holds concluded Pat Cox when starting the workshops of the European Forum of Civil Society which will end Saturday at the end of the afternoon. Sixty good ideas for the future will be launched on the basis of a vote of the participants.