After Ursula von der Leyen presented her new Commission, the function of commissionary Schinas caused some uproar because of his task description “to defend the European way of life” and because this task was linked to the management of the migration flows, suggesting that migrants were a threat to the so-called “European way of life”.
Therefore von der Leyen thought it was useful to remind the European public of the European Values and she had a statement on this published in a set of important European newspapers on 16 September 2019. In that statement she referred to Article 2 of the European Union Treaty. Since we agree that this basic reference to formally validated European Values is a useful clarification we publish it also on this website.
How the linkage between “European Way of Life”, “European Values” and migration has to be understood will be debated in detail in the European Parliament in the coming weeks.
“The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the Member States in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and equality between women and men prevail.”
