Berlin — BERLIN - Thank you for this opportunity to share my thoughts on Europe with you today. Like you students, I once sat in a lecture hall listening to Prof. Pernice when I was doing my degree. I didn't do me any harm, either!
To give you a better grasp of my motivation, of the reason why I have been fighting for a united and peaceful Europe as a parliamentarian for 16 years and now as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office for almost twelve months, let's jump back to the year 1989. Exactly 25 years ago, I was actually supposed to be studying for my school-leaving exams. My world back then was very different to what it is today. We saw closed‑in views, not wide horizons - as you'd expect on the frontier to East Germany. I grew up in north‑east Hesse, less than a kilometre as the crow flies from what was then the border to the GDR; I was, if you like, one of the eastern‑most "Wessis". I looked out on walls, fences and self‑firing weapons systems. For a long time, we all found it unimaginable that this reality, quite literally cast in concrete, would ever change.
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