The government delegate in Galicia, Pedro Blanco, celebrated today the transformation that Galicia achieved thanks to the economic and social impulse that came with the entry of Spain into the European Union, of which 40 years of trajectory are celebrated. Not a commemorative act of this anniversary, Pedro Blanco advocated strengthening Europeanism among citizens, “with the perception that the European Union improves people’s lives.”
A reinforcement that is the best way to combat totalitarian discourses and defend democracy and constitutional values. Pedro Blanco reviewed the profound impact that this accession had for Spain and Galicia, allowing it to be today “a country advanced in rights and freedoms, a solid and competitive economy, a plurinational state in which all of us can sit down and live them as Galician, Spanish and European citizens, on equal terms with the rest of the inhabitants of the other 26 countries of the European Union”.
In his speech, he put Galicia as “the best example of this transformation”, since 40 years ago it started in a situation of desventaxa as a peripheral region of the periphery of Europe. In this process he acknowledged the response of the Galicians and the Galicians, companies and institutions, who “knew how to take advantage of this opportunity with intelligence and responsibility”.
“Thanks to them, Galicia and Spain cannot be understood outside the European Union,” he said. He also acknowledged the men and women who negotiated the entry of Spain into the EEC, convinced that this incorporation was what the country needed to “definitively overcome the barriers of the dictatorship and to achieve the economic and social development demanded by the Constitution and the Spanish people.” And, in this memory, he made a special recognition to the Coruña politician and intellectual Salvador de Madariaga, as one of the promoters of the current Union as an organization built on democratic values and peace.
40th Anniversary
On June 12, 1985, President Felipe González signed the accession of Spain to the European Communities, forming the Europe of the Twelve together with Portugal, which did so on the same date. In memory of this historical fact, the Government Delegation organized today an event that combined the projection of distinctive elements of the European Union with the appreciation of the changes that brought in Spain and Galicia the four decades of membership of this economic and political association unique in the world.
The celebration began with the presentation of the official flag of the EU that, from today and during these days, will be exposed on the facade of the Delegation, as a way to involve the citizens of this commemoration.
Later, in the interior, four people representing the transformation of cities, education, the economy and the primary sector in these years were given a voice: Silvia Seoane, owner of a dairy farm in Touro (A Coruña); Alfonso Martínez, Law Degree student at the UDC; Cristina Porteiro, journalist specializing in Economics and a former correspondent in Brussels, and Begoña Llamosas, who was responsible for programming and coordination of activities of the Metropolitan Forum and the Agora Center in A Coruña.
The event was attended by the subdelegate of the Government in A Coruña, María Rivas, and various academic, institutional and consular representatives linked to the European Union.