The Europe Experience

Previous page
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6
Page 7
Page 8
Page 9
Page 10
Page 11
Next page

Franc & Andrej, SLOVENIA

‘We have NO other chance, but to build common future’

Hello,

Our names are Franc, already 84 years old, having somewhat longer academic personal history in nuclear physics and a son Andrej, 50 with public administration and research experiences. We are coming from Slovenia, one of the younger member states of the European Union. Till 1991 we had been a socialist country with all that this brings to the citizens and especially for Christians. Our socialism had been somewhat softer than other Eastern European countries but with a very brutal end of the WWII. That system had been falling as many others of the same type worldwide. First European step out of this was our independence from a larger, very heterogeneous Yugoslavia that had been made after a short war for independence in 1991, lasting less than a month, which had been enabled by the fall of the iron curtain in Europe. Not all nations of Yugoslavia had been so blessed. The wars that followed in other parts of Yugoslavia took several hundred thousand lives of citizens.

Our independence was based on a referendum with close to 90% voters being in favour of independent own state, according to what we learned visiting states around us in Western Europe. It was an expectation that gave us hope.

What followed was the challenge of accession to the European Union (EU). The EU was a positive challenge not only for having much higher standard of living but also having much more sound and ethical legal basis. This all kept us working to attain the EU membership. It was a positive experience and a means to transform from a former socialist to an advanced democratic country, a process that takes time, however in a positive direction. It was a pleasure to experience the day when Slovenia became a full EU member in 2004 and our national Slovenian language was adopted as an official EU language. We were glad to be allowed freely to move along EU, more than thousand kilometres around us and be as welcome as many other EU nationals.

No system is perfect as nothing human is perfect. So is neither the EU. It possibly went rather far (away) from initial goodwill. But like our lives, also state structures need challenges to be kept alive and to improve. Nothing is for granted.

So we are living now in a period of such challenges for the whole world (climate change, demographic change, globalisation, war/peace, slow economic recovery with low prospects) as we are also living in Europe of today with wars not so far from us, numerous refugees, slow economic growth that seem to drive quarrel among the member states.

We think it’s really like in our lives: when God sends us a burden, it is on us to decide turning it into a blessing by searching for a divine providence. It is not really the way and the time looking for a comfort in this situation.

As our EU had been initiated after a terrible WWII war among our nations and just to reverse the hatred into cooperation, we have NO other chance, but to build common future. We believe, we need to work hard, but it is like a family with many members that have to do a lot to secure everyday’s life, fair to everybody and in love. Then we can peacefully wait for the Lord to accomplish our work.

As said, life on earth is not perfect and we need to wake up as coming years tend to be much different than the past decades that seemed not to need our action to secure our common good. But we shall definitely be brave Christians in this.

Franc & Andrej

Franc & Andrej Cvelbar, SLOVENIA