If we want peace, we need to be ready to defend it

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War in Europe, the EPP Group in the European Parliament held a conference ‘War and Peace 1945-2015’ with the participation of historians from the US, Russia and European countries.

“Tens of millions of people who fought and died to liberate Europe from Nazism should be honoured for the extraordinary sacrifices they made. Their heroism should not be used to justify redrawing European borders by force and to consolidate Russian society for a struggle against external enemies”, said Sandra Kalniete MEP, Vice-Chairwoman of the EPP Group, at the opening the conference.

The renowned American historian and author Timothy Snyder delivered a keynote speech while European participants Françoise Thom, Andrey Zubov, Jacek Tebinka, Boris Reitschuster and Roland Freudenstein held a panel discussion on the use of the myth of the Great Patriotic War today. Conference participants discussed how to defend the rules-based European peace order.

“If we want to preserve peace for another 70 years, we have to be prepared to defend it. That means a rapid increase of smart investment in our defence. That means learning to protect our societies from sophisticated non-military tools of hostile regimes. That means finding the strength to face the truth, no matter how unpleasant and frightening it might be”, said Kalniete.

The conference was jointly organised by the EPP Group in the European Parliament, the Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung.

All the conference material, including a full video recording, is available on our website.