50 years of the EU: A celebration with European Nobel Prize winners at the European Parliament

The proceedings were opened by Parliament's President, Hans-Gert Pöttering, who welcomed the guests and described briefly one of the reasons why each was of relevance to the European project, its values or the challenges facing it.

 

The efforts of Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan to promote peace in Northern Ireland highlighted the importance of reconciliation - a key to the history of post-war Europe. Amnesty International's tireless work for human dignity illustrated another "pillar of the European Union" as did Lech Walesa's struggle for human rights in Poland. Mr Pöttering mentioned his visit to Warsaw last week to mark the signing of "Europe's first written constitution", between Poland and Lithuania in 1791, saying that its values of peace and democracy were also those of Europe's future.

 

The work of physicist Carlo Rubbia was important to the modern search for clean energy, while Rita Levi-Montalcini's medical research had contributed greatly to cancer research. Jack Steinberger and Martinus Veltmann were not only leading physicists but also, respectively, a committed disarmament campaigner and a big supporter of Esperanto.  Paul Josef Crutzen's work on ozone depletion was especially topical. 

 

John Hume and David Trimble were lauded for their work on the Northern Ireland peace process. "What happened at Stormont yesterday is a testament to your achievements", said Mr Pöttering.  Reinhard Selten's contribution to economics and Timothy Hunt's work in medical research were also outstanding examples of European research.

 

In all cases, said President Pöttering, "your work is built on a vision of the future, and on our 50th anniversary we too should be looking to the future".  Mentioning the efforts of the German EU presidency to find a solution on the question of the constitutional treaty, he concluded: "we seek inspiration from the courage of the founding fathers" of the EU "but also from you, winners of the Nobel Prize, who have made such a tremendous contribution to Europe's achievements over the past 50 years. You should give us courage to work for a new breakthrough".

 

 

The first to speak was Rita LEVI-MONTALCINI, who was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1986 (along with Stanley Cohen) for their discoveries of growth factors. She believed that the EU's "enormous developments can be extended further, not just throughout Europe but across the whole planet". She wanted to see the "benefits of the EU spread to the whole world".

 

Prof. Sir Timothy HUNT jointly won the Noble Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2001 for the discovery of cyclins, a class of proteins.  He told MEPs that after visits to Paris and Rome in his youth, he had "never understood those of my countrymen who have such a suspicious attitude to the rest of Europe".   Turning to science, he praised "the advent of the ERC" (European Research Council), which he believed "promises to really strengthen European science" but he issued a general appeal for science to be free to pursue its own ends in academic institutions.  He was also concerned that people were nowadays "afraid to excel", seeing this as an obstacle to scientific achievement.  He concluded by saying "it is a shameful fact that among the top 20 universities in the world, 15 are in the US, 1 in Japan, 3 in the UK and 1 in Switzerland.  Think about that!"

 

Prof. Reinhard SELTEN was jointly awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994 for contributions to game theory.  In his speech today he highlighted the success of economic and monetary union and stressed the importance of preserving the "independence of the ECB".  He added that a major obstacle to a European identity was "the language problem", arguing that the answer was not the "domination of one national language" but for everyone to learn Esperanto.

 

Professor Carlo RUBBIA, who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1984, recalled that the EU was born out of the tragic events of the 20th century and the Second World War.  He stressed the "indispensable and fundamental role of science in development".  The European Union, he said, had strongly supported fundamental research in an international context. An example of this internationalism, he said was CERN: (The Organisation européenne pour la recherche nucléaire (English: European Organization for Nuclear Research).  He listed the 22 European Member States of CERN plus the European Commission, India, Israel, Japan, Russia, Turkey, UNESCO and the USA. 

 

Professor Martinus VELTMAN, who won the Nobel Prize for physics in 1999, said that he was an enthusiastic supporter of Europe also citing the CERN example. "CERN has played an important role in my life". However, Professor Veltman did point out that CERN has only two working languages namely English and French. He argued that this could be applied to the EU institutions as a "way of saving money" arguing that those that had created the euro would have "the sense to solve this problem".  Professor Veltman also gave the example of the ease of building a personal computer in the US compared to the relative complexity in the EU. Finally, Professor Veltman quoted Jean-Paul Sartre who he said had said:  "The suffering of the Palestinian people justified terrorism". Professor Veltman said "You should not boycott people living in a concentration camp".

 

Dick OOSTING, representing Amnesty International which  won the Nobel Peace prize in 1977, said he felt "humble as the only laureate representing an organisation". He said "The EU has an important role to play as a peace project, a union based on values and as a force for change in the world."  The challenges of climate change and security would have to be faced, "the EU must close the gap between values and attitudes, the EU needs to be credible".  The non-respect for human rights, he said, risked undermining the EU's good efforts in the world, he concluded.