Editor's note

Each year thousands of people take part in visits, debates, concerts and other events to mark the day and raise awareness about the EU. Festive activities are taking place on 5 May in Brussels, on 5 and 9 May in Luxembourg and on 10 June in Strasbourg. About activities in Latvia see:

https://ec.europa.eu/latvia/events/europe-day_lv  

Initially, the pooling of coal and steel production (European Coal and Steel Community Treaty, EC&SCT, signed on 18 April 1951) provided for the setting up of common foundations for economic development (Economic Community Treaty, 25 March 1957) as a first step towards the federation of Europe.

Schuman’s initial vision was to create a European institution that would pool and manage coal and steel production. A treaty creating EC&SCT is considered to be the beginning of what is now the European Union. See more in:

https://europa.eu/european-union/about-eu/symbols/europe-day_en#why_a_europe_day_?

These treaties and further decades of European integration have changed the destinies of the EU member states and those regions which have long been willing to create a “common Europe”.

However, as was proclaimed in the initial declaration, “Europe wouldn’t be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity”.

Europe Day, held on 9 May every year, celebrates peace and unity in Europe. The date marks the anniversary of the historical 'Schuman declaration'. At a speech in Paris in 1950, Robert Schuman, the then French foreign minister, set out his idea for a new form of political cooperation in Europe, which would make war between Europe's nations unthinkable. More than that, it created a block of about thirty states, one of the most powerful socio-economic region in the world.