LISBON, May 9 (Xinhua) -- Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa and Prime Minister Antonio Costa called for unity and solidarity among EU member states to fight against the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on the Europe Day, which falls on Saturday.
The president said that the current situation requires "a real start in the European soul" and a European Union with "de facto solidarity" to fulfill to the dream of its founders, Portuguese Lusa News Agency reported.
Marking the 70 years of the Schuman Declaration by then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman on May 9, 1950, which set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, the president said in a statement titled "Europe will be supportive or not" that the demonstration of "solidarity" will be decisive in the future of the European project.
The Schuman Declaration contained "a premonitory and still decisive statement that Europe would be built, not all at once, not based on the realization of a predetermined global project, but through concrete achievements and the creation of de facto solidarities," the president was quoted as saying.
He stressed that this solidarity is urgent "in a time of insecurity and uncertainty, which imposes a real start of a European soul, capable of realizing the dream and ambition" of those who laid the first stones of what would become the EU.
"It is this solidarity that today, more than ever, we expect and demand from Europe," he added.
Also on Saturday, Prime Minister Antonio Costa stressed the importance of unity of the EU member states confronting the pandemic.
"Today, as in 1950, only united and with a common response will Europe ensure its reconstruction, strengthening itself as a Community of values, an area of shared prosperity and a leader in the response to major global challenges," he tweeted.
"Reuniting with History 70 years after the Schuman Declaration. We had not suffered a crisis of this magnitude in society and in the economy since WW II," he added, referring to the COVID-19 pandemic.
"The European Union is a community of values. It is the largest economic area of shared prosperity and is our strength to face global challenges," Costa said in a video speech of 27 EU leaders, published on the Twitter page of President of the European Council Charles Michel. Enditem
