European Movement in Serbia
Djure Jaksica 5/I - 11000 Belgrade
tel/fax: (381 11) 630 281
E-mail: emins@eunet.yu web site: www.emins.org

INSTEAD OF CELEBRATING THE EUROPE DAY

This year Day of Europe, May 9, will not and cannot be marked in Serbia and in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The European Movement in Serbia deeply regrets that on that day it would not be able to join European Movement organizations throughout the continent in celebration of the noble European idea being finally, after a number of centuries, concretized in the contemporary European Union.

The reason for the European Movement in Serbia's not marking May 9 is a simple one. It may be interpreted as "technical", since the Movement's home country is being bombarded round the clock. And, it may be called political, as bombs falling on Serbia and all over the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia have compromised the European idea in this country at this point.

The bombing of Yugoslavia - Serbia and Montenegro - has been justified by repressiveness of Yugoslavia and Serbia's regime engaged in ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. It's a well-known fact that for over a decade Kosovo Albanians have been devoid of self-government, both political and economic, and have not managed to regain it by political means.

However, no international, moral or political right entitles anyone to bombard an entire country because of its repressive regime. The world abounds with repressive and genocidal regimes, but as far as we know no country has so far been bombarded on such grounds. Today it all happens to a European country that has been not too long ago, till the beginning of this decade, the closest to the European idea and the erstwhile European Economic Community among all other former East-European states.

The European Movement in Serbia will go on with its extremely hard task. The Movement's membership remains devoted to the European ideal - the ideal of associating European nations into a community enabling free flow of ideas, people and goods, into a community of democratic states governed by standards of democracy and not extended by means of bombs. We believe that relations among nations in our region will derive from such principles.

As a voluntary organization nourishing freedom, peace and prosperity, the community of European nations, like the entire humanity, is experiencing these days a turbulent history of unpredictable events. In terms of history, it would only be natural that Europe, a continent of a progressive and old civilization, leads today's world to peace and freedom.