EU must defend freedom against terrorists, says Merkel
German Chancellor Angela Merkel today called on Europeans to take a joint stand against Islamic terrorists and defend what she called the European Union’s core values of democracy and tolerance.
Merkel, whose nation held the rotating EU presidency from January to June of this year, urged EU citizens to view the union not only as an economic bloc, but one of common values.
“We need the European Union as a community of shared values,” Merkel said today in an address at the Academy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria.
Merkel also called the Western ideals of human rights a universal value that reaches beyond the borders of the EU.
“For me, tolerance is the soul of Europe,” Merkel said. “It must be our guideline in discussions with the enemies of democracy, with extremists.”
Merkel referred to comments by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that called Israel’s right to exist into question as an example of where Europeans need to respond in a common voice.
The chancellor also said she was pleased that references to the inviolable rights of the individual and Europe’s religious roots were included in the new EU treaty, a revised version of which was hammered out and agreed to under Germany’s turn at the bloc’s presidency.
