Speech (extract) by Gro Harlem Brundtland

Speech (extract) by Gro Harlem Brundtland

‘We stand before a completely new era in European history. Four solid democracies stand at the door of a European Union. A further expansion towards the East would be the result of a democratic quantum leap in Europe and would at the same time prove beneficial. The European Union is in the act of becoming a cooperative between all of Europe—something many have dreamed of. […] There are only a few Norwegian words in the collective European vocabulary. One of them is “ombudsman”. I believe the next word that should be incorporated in Europe is “trygghet”. “Trygghet”—or “reliability”—includes the ideas of “security” and “reliance” in the future and provides a guarantee against arbitrariness and discrimination. […] Membership in the European Union is not an end in itself but a means of making “trygghet” more realistic for us, in the workplace, in our environment and for the next generations.’

Photo Gro Harlem Brundtland

Gro Harlem Brundtland