 It is now time for me to welcome another friend of the Committee of Regions and the personal great friend, the Vice President of the European Commission for Promoting Our European Way of Life, what more important than that, and I'm really happy to introduce to you Margarit Iskinas, the Vice President of the Commission. Dear Commissioner, it is a really interesting debate we will be having today on promoting the European values through the culture and the education. And you know very well that although we are a union of values, as it was stated in the article two of the treaties, unfortunately today they're being seriously challenged. So one of our main responsibilities is to defend and promote the European values, which is exactly the cement that unites us. In particular we must engage our youth via education based on a simple question. If our children's parents and grandparents knew from their first-hand experience that the European Union is a project to establish and maintain peace, I wonder if the future generation of Europeans would know why they should support this project. And also what should be the reason for them to remain together as European citizens. So once we define these two very important questions, then the answer will become very clear. It is our shared values that represent the blood going through the minds and souls of our people. And I'm convinced that in our responsibility as parents and as leaders to make sure that our educational system is properly enabled to offer our young generation clear proofs of European Union's values. For instance, I was always wondering why our classes on European history speak mostly about conflicts between our countries. While we shall learn from a past that divided us, we must also understand that our unity and peace today were made possible thanks to the European Union. And this reality must be taught to our children in our schools. This is our duty. And this is what we must do today if we want to have a tomorrow together. So in order to promote values via education and culture, I am sure that I can find an ally in you as Vice President responsible for the European way of life and for oversight of the European education area. While we are all aware that the European Union has limited competence on education, our regional and national authorities across the EU hold shared competences in terms of education and school curricula, including when it comes to the knowledge on the European Union and our values. Therefore, my dear friends, dear colleagues, based on our existing cooperation with the European Commission, Vice President, and in particular between Commissioner Gabriel and our SEDEC Commission here in the Committee of Regents, I want to propose to you a pilot joint project to promote European values. This project, this pilot project, could be on a voluntary basis for everyone with full respect of subsidiarity and based on existing experiences in our regions. The objective here would be to create a community of practice that would bring Europe in all the classrooms. Many regions have already good experiences from educational and cultural projects promoting our founding values. We could set up a community of European classrooms supported by mayors and regional presidents, governors, with schools, universities and cultural establishment that could promote an exchange of curricula and programs on European history, on values, on citizenship. If successful, this pilot project could evolve into a broader platform of regions, cities, villages, promoting the EU values in education. So your role as Vice President, promoting the European way of life is pivotal to get things moving on this area and this idea. So I count on you and our teams to make it happen while using the momentum on the conference on the future of Europe. Last week I was in Spain. I visited Madrid. I met with the President of Madrid, Ms. Isabel Ayuso, and we discussed about the importance of the shared, the common values that we have as Europeans. It is what unites us. It is what is holding us together. And this should also be our new vision to strengthen our union. So we are here, regions, cities, to play this role. We are here to collaborate with you, Vice President Kinas and the Commission, and we are here to bring results in this very, very important area for us. So Vice President, dear Margaritis, the floor is yours. Thank you, Mr. President, dear Apostles, dear members, dear friends. It's a true pleasure and an honor to be here with you for two reasons. First, because I understand that I am the first Commission representative to be physically present in the committee since last October. That's good. That's good news. In fact, I really wanted to come in person because there is no better way to engage and discuss with elected representatives like yourselves than looking at each other in the eye. Zoom, it's good, but not for all kinds of exchanges. So I wanted very much to come here in person, and I'm delighted that I'm here. The second reason is because Apostles' invitation allows me to discuss with you, how should I put this, the nice part of my portfolio, which is this Europe of opportunities of education, cultures, poor youth, a Europe that vibrates. I also have another part of my portfolio for which I will come on another day, which is a bit more thick, which is borders, security, migration, but I'm delighted to do it on the former than on the latter. So, yes, this discussion on values through education and culture is very timely. It's timely because our values have been severely tested. As was our way of life during this horrible nightmarish, 15 months we went through. At the same time, I must say, and this also reflects a certain pride, collective pride for all Europeans, that despite this very severe test of our societies and of our model of society, we were tested, we were shaken, we were threatened, but we resisted, we coped. This period was also an opportunity to remind ourselves of the resilience of our societies, to remind ourselves of the validity of what we have built together with strong public health and education systems that left no one behind, the cohesion of our societies, the defense of the most vulnerable, the fact that we are implementing the most ambitious vaccination program in the history of humanity for all Europeans, that we have come up with an unprecedented historic recovery instrument of unprecedented ambition. So this is also part of who we are. This is also something that reflects our collective success and no discussion on values or way of life should ignore these things that many times go unnoticed. Now, discussing the angle from education and culture also acquires a certain interest, because these are the areas where clearly we shape the conscience of next generations. This is the areas where we build our toolbox, our instruments, and these are the areas where we need to cater for everyone who defends and stands for human dignity, pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, social justice, solidarity, quality. This is the moment where Europeans learn to be Europeans through education and through culture. Let me start with education first. Education, of course, forces us to operate in a rather asymmetric policy area where we have to face a reality of very strong national competence in terms of curricula and constitutional arrangements in our member states, but at the same time there is a very strong European dimension that is emerging on education, that brings us together and bridges the differences that some of our national systems are conducive to, and we have over the years managed to create this thread of common community, European interest on education, which probably started timidly 20, 30 years ago, but now is very strong and it will become even stronger. Erasmus Plus is the jewel in the crown of this European dimension of education. So far, 10 million people, 10 million Europeans benefited from this unprecedented experience. This is about the international dimension of learning through thousands of bottom-up cooperation projects. Erasmus has shaped not only education realities, but also has produced a new generation of Europeans who understand Europe differently. In the new Erasmus Plus, we have practically doubled the amount of money that we'll be dedicating in the next seven years. We now have 26 billion euros for Erasmus Plus in the next seven years, the which you have to add 2.2 billion for engagement international Erasmus partnerships in the developing world. So it is not a surprise that this program would be one of the most positive, one of the, where our firepower would be concentrated on building values through education. And I go even further because in my mind, in the future, Erasmus should not only be an option in Europe. Erasmus should become a fundamental right. Everyone in Europe who would have the ability, the ambition, the will to go through an Erasmus experience should have a guaranteed right to do it. Parallel to the Erasmus program of education, we are building what is probably known by most of you as a European education area. This European education area is not built in a political vacuum. It's not built as a self-standing product in a sterilized laboratory environment. This is an area which is deeply rooted in our traditions, in our democratic systems, in our human rights, in our diversity, in our social justice traditions. And this European education area which we want to see becoming a reality by 2025 would actually converge our education systems towards this European dimension we are striving for, with many different elements. Mobility would be a key element, but also we are now building up very strong European university alliances, alliances of universities from throughout Europe, many of whom, many of which based in the regions you represent here. And we want with these alliances to produce this communality into the content of the educational process. We want to fund these alliances to become living unions of like-minded people. And at the end of this path, we want one day also to see European university degrees. This is an area where Europe has not done well so far. This is a problem that has cost us a lot in terms of international competition, but Europe has not yet become a destination for European university degrees. We are losing out to the United States and to Asia. As part of this European education area, I can imagine a moment, not tomorrow, but not far away either, where these common university alliances will also lead to common European degrees and much more presence of Europe in the area of higher education. Finally, we also have the Jean Monnet initiative, the Jean Monnet program. These are small or medium if you like, academic cells dotted across the EU geography that mainly relate to EU studies and EU education. As of 2022, the action of Jean Monnet will offer funding for European education projects going beyond the academic environment, bringing teachers and many schools from society into EU studies learning. Before I go to culture, let me say a final word on education. All this should not be seen as a closed circuit, where educators will talk to educators or academic communities will talk amongst themselves. That will not help us. If we want to build values, if we want to intensify the common denominator of what Europe represents through education, we need the educational communities to open up to society. We do not want them to talk to themselves. We do not want academic discussions amongst academics. As in the Renaissance, European universities have always been a beacon of light for society at large. We want to take these debates on Europe out of the walls of the university and educational establishments. I am sure that your role as political leaders at the regional level will be crucial in helping us to take these debates out. A few words on culture now. Culture is also part of this values-driven approach that we want to see emerging in the years to come. In terms of values and citizenship, participation in cultural activities promotes democracy, civic engagement, and we know that societies are more open and tolerant, economically stronger, and enjoy higher resilience where their citizens have access to a wide range of cultural activities and products. This is a fact. We have a rich cultural heritage in Europe, and our dynamic cultural and creative sectors help create and strengthen this European sense of belonging. In a recent survey of over 60,000 Europeans, culture was at the top of the list of factors most likely to create the feeling of community. And this finding was ahead of issues of other topics like history, geography, economics, or language. So culture is the main unifier. There again, you are familiar with our flagship program, Creative Europe, which has both an audiovisual component but also a cultural activities component. You are also familiar with our European Capitals of Culture program, which is a very extensive and ambitious program that brings the Europe of Culture very close to local communities and to which many cities represented in the Committee of Region have also been awarded this label in the past. And finally, as we're coming out of the pandemic, we now need to make everything possible to help cultural and creative sectors reopen safely in this very delicate environment in which we find ourselves in at the same time. Other than safe reopening, we need to help them to move towards a sustainable recovery because culture and cultural activities were the ones that paid an excessive price because of the confinement in the last period. Let me now conclude these introductory remarks and then very much look forward to exchanging with you by saying a few words on the pilot that the President Zicostas has mentioned. Yes, we definitely support this idea of a pilot joint action plan where we could use the brain power and the fire power that the Committee of Regions represents to try to open up our schools and learning institutions to European values and learning about Europe. This is a fantastic idea. We can do it together. And we should do this by exploring synergies to unleash this potential of course under this caveat that we can imagine this only in areas where the regions are responsible for education across the European Union. And we will be there to support, to help, to fund. But I imagine this as an open-ended pledging process where regions can contribute ideas, initiatives with a blessing, if you like, and the label of European Union. When I started this job at the beginning, and let me end with this, I had a very, how should I put this, exciting hearing at the European Parliament, my confirmation hearing, it was the longest of all my colleagues. It lasted three hours and 21 minutes, which also is a proof of the interest around this idea of a European way of life. I had a chance then to say something that I want to repeat today in front of the committee, that for me, the European way of life is not an us versus the rest narrative. It's not a binary choice. It's not us against them. It's not a bulldozer. It's a mirror. The European way of life is a mirror, a mirror that reflects the diversity, the richness of our cultural traditions, of our languages, of our history, of the way we live in society. And there is no better way to see this mirror in practice than looking at you. Because you, members of the Committee of Regions, you are very much the mirror that reflects this diversity of Europe's, of Europe's regions, and I'm delighted to have the chance to discuss with you these issues. Thank you again, Apostle. Thank you very much, Vice President. Thank you very much, Vice President. Let's open now our debate with the members of the Committee of Regions and let me start by giving the floor to Miss Isabel Ayuso. You need to press on the speak button, please. Thank you very much, Mr. Ayuso. The floor now to Emil Boc, please. Dear President, dear Commissioner, my intervention is more abstract due to the time constraints. The education and culture represent the oxygen of our European way of life. For us, as EPP members, the education and culture are not technicalities but key factors for the success of our European way of life. As long as we keep education and culture at the highest level of the political priorities, we have a common democratic future. Education and culture are the best antidote to intolerance, racism, populism and ignorance. Education is the best way to get out of poverty and there is no risk of bankruptcy, no matter how much money you invest. Dear Commissioner, education and culture have always been at the heart of the attractiveness of the European way of life. 2,500 years ago, the Greeks, through the marathon and Salamina victories against the Persian Empire, saved not just Athens but the European civilization. Those victories had the significance of the success of the European civilization, then represented by Athens with democracy, education and culture as the main values. Later on, the Roman civilization spread around the world and survived for so many centuries, precisely because of the values it promoted and the attractiveness for the others of the Roman civilizations. Nowadays, wherever you go in the world, in a music concert hall from Tokyo and Shanghai to Dubai or New York, you feel the spirit and music of Beethoven or Mozart. All I want to say, dear Commissioner, is that we as Europeans are strong and our European way of life is and it will be a model for the world as long as we defend and promote our values with education, culture and others at its core. I strongly support the pilot project, action plan you proposed as President Tkostas. Why? Because it's emphasizing the magic power of the education and last but not least, together. The power of togetherness is a very brand of the European way of life. Thank you. Thank you, Prime Minister. The floor now to Ms. Karja Leinen from the PES Group. All of us would like to thank the zero tolerance for the values of the Europeans. Education is the center of the struggle, the struggle for the interests of the people and the populism. It is our duty as a young man to promote the education of the European people and also the education plan of the European nation. The European Union is the value of itself. The value of people, the value of freedom, the value of democracy, the value of equality, the value of human rights, the value of monies, the value of sovereignty, the value of sovereignty, the value of rights, the value of society and the value of equality are the identity of the European Union. All of these same values are connected to the rights of all of Europe's nationalities. The European Union was a teacher and a teacher. This is already a very young man and a foodie at the same level. This year, the European values ​​were half-naked and carefully selected in all European education institutions and in all education levels, from education, high school, education and civilized education. The local regional authorities can provide European values ​​and European identities and nationality in the area of education and culture and in the local level. You can therefore support the group with this goal. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. President, Mr. Vice President, cultural education plays a central role in the promotion of our European lifestyle and our diverse European values ​​and therefore our identity, our European way of life. I would also like to say, Mr. President, that we must make education more accessible and integrative within the European Union. Education is the key to freedom, diversity, non-discrimination, tolerance, solidarity and equality. It must be transparent between institutions and it must be barrier-free. Education creates an improved access to opportunity and the possibility of developing young Europeans and Europeans their full potential to develop and implement it. We are deeply convinced in the social democratic family and therefore enter the union of the children. What does the union of the children mean? Education must not be a privilege. It must be available for everyone and everywhere. For this reason, the students who accompany life come to school until the end of their professional career. I am convinced that every investment in the education of our children and youth is also an important investment in their and our future and our values. Therefore, we have set the goal of making core to children and family-friendly regions of Europe. We work intensively, day and night on this. What do we do specifically? We follow the principle of at least one school program, where financial, social and demographic aspects are in the foreground, create so-called educational camps and educational centers, in which we lead education directions and guarantee equal, high-quality education and influence social inequality and education. Mr. Vice President, you have a partner on your side. Thank you very much. Ms. Kuland from the Renew Europe Group now, you have the floor. We cannot hear you, there is a problem with your microphone. We can see you, we cannot hear you. Let me move to Mr. Go ahead, can we hear you? No, there is a problem with your sound. Maybe it works without the earring. Anyway, let me move, yes, try without. Can you hear me now? Yes, we can, go ahead. Do you, Mr. President? No? Yes, yes, we can hear you, go ahead. Yes, okay. Dear President Sitzikostas, Vice President Chinas, fellow representatives of the European Union, good afternoon from Ireland. And I welcome in particular President Sitzikostas' private project on the European cooperation as a teacher. It would be very heartening to have more cooperation across the European Union. And indeed, the commissioner's suggestion is more resonant, I think, with the enlightenment in Europe as of the renaissance, a union of ideas which it certainly should be embraced. Our European Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law, and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities. These values are common to the member states in a society in which pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity, and equality between men and women prevail. That is what it says in our Treaty of the European Union. Fellow Europeans, one of our member states, Hungary, the latest laws there which effectively conflate pedophilia and sexual minorities are a gross affront to the values of the European Union. They call to mind a period in our history when people were incarcerated and tortured as a result of their religion or their sexual orientation. When one idea of identity supersedes all others, society suffers. As a teacher of history to teenagers here in Ireland and as a public representative who has lived through a social revolution on this island where we were the first country to legalise gay marriage by popular vote with 62% of the population voting yes, I am shocked and condemn in the most vehement terms the recent developments in Hungary. A 2017 study in Hungary found that more than half of the ABT students there felt unsafe at school and more than two-thirds suffered some form of verbal abuse about their sexual orientation. The circumscribing of sex education preventing young people from finding images that they can identify with in textbooks and presentations in their schools is simply unforgettable. I call on Hungary to rethink and I call on us in the European Union to sanction such unforgivable action. I wish to move away from the area of sex education and to look at the issue of language learning. As local representatives at regional level we understand the importance of brokering, of talking, of compromise. We all very much miss the energy and synergy of debating each other in the chamber there. As the old advert used to say, it's good to talk. Language can be a barrier between nations and can hinder natural communication. As the rapporteur for the European Commission of the Region's Opinion on the Digital Education Action Plan I firmly believe that digital tools can benefit and assist people in learning languages right across the generations. This would certainly help to promote more of our values in the European Union. In my role as a teacher, I teach through Irish our first language here in Ireland. Our students study French, Spanish, German, Italian and I'm proud to say that we have an interpreter on the Commission's interpreter staff, one of our former students. Recently our students won a competition which was to encourage the promotion of language learning and held days of screenings of European film, thematic food days, the learning of natural dances, the displaying of flags and emblems. This is the sort of thing that I would have promoting from our primary through our secondary schools and it is very important for the inculcation of European values. Our schools must be placed with an open exchange of views and knowledge. Let us continue to give every student a chance to fulfil their potential so that they will grow up to be European citizens clear in the knowledge of the values which will protect democracy in Europe. As Immanuel Kant said, day after tomorrow have courage to use your reason. Thank you President. Mr. Kovacs, please, from the ECR group, you have the floor. Mr. President, the European values are being developed from the European Union and the basic rights of the basic rights. These are the European Union's basic values. The European way of life comes with much more and is much more difficult to define. Some of our communities are with us. The Tizparancelat, the Greek philosophy, the Roman law, the search for, the development, the human dignity, and the right to justice are all of the facts which are linked to European values. On the other hand, we are citizens. We order international organizations, our customs, our customs, our customs, our language, our music, our food, we are building this diversity. These are our Europeans, united in the diversity. It is important that our common values are connected to the right values, to our common values and to our international identity. This is the most important thing that we can give to our children, to our values and to our customs. This is the most important thing that we can give to our European citizens, to our customs and to our customs. Mr. Tisparancelat, on behalf of the regional and local institutions, we would like to thank our colleagues for their support and support. We have a long-term experience and we have a plan to make the European values more accessible to the public. I would like to remind you that the regional and local organizations are also involved in the program implementation. We are partners in the cooperation and I am happy to say that our children are also very actively taking part in the European education program. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Mr. McCarthy from the EA Group. You have the floor, please. Thanks, President and dear Commissioner. You mentioned the softer elements of the EU project education and culture. Yes, they are two boxes as you know it, but they are also the DNA glue of binding us together and they make us who we are. For centuries, European identity has been silently built among people who live inside and outside the present EU. We have to connect that feeling along to the European Union and we cannot do so by just presenting the EU as a project which creates economic benefits. It needs a strong emotional component and to feel a common identity we need to have a sense of a common face and that is something that we have lacked in the past and also there is a fear that we will keep lacking it as time goes on because of globalization. It is absolutely necessary to teach children and young adults about the European Union and its added value as it is actually facing. Mobility and peer-to-peer programs as you have detailed, such as Erasmus, Erasmus Plus, the Jean Manet program, the European Capital programs have done more for European unity than hundreds of communication campaigns and even the new Discover EU is a great story and providing people with tools to engage with the EU project doesn't have to be complicated. The simplest of projects have worked really well and have been embraced by many citizens and the projects are mirrors to use your own analogy you speak about really need to be promoted by all of us more and we need to promote and enable contacts between people at all levels and every generation then can be more European than the previous one. I am really glad to hear that the pilot project that the COR proposes is one which your brief is interested in pursuing. Ultimately it does aim to assist the exchange of best practices and is rooted in our communities and neighbourhoods and I am also very happy to hear of the European education area and university alliances and many local reach authorities and universities work hand in hand to make their respective municipalities a better place so we do need to keep working with each other and keep pushing forward. Many thanks Commissioner. Mr Panen please, from the Greens I am a bit shy but I am happy to be in a forum in Finland. This is a question that we have been talking about in the last few weeks about the political situation and in China this is a question that we have had in the past few years when I was a child I got a question about the politics of Europe and people from all over Europe in this sense are able to understand their glosces and understand everything they learn and learn everything and you can understand every single glosces both in Swedish, English and English And then of course Apparently today, every single flier has learned 5 glosces and the glosces of all languages I'm a very proud person. I'm proud to be part of the group. I'm a very proud person. Now I'm going to speak in Finnish. I want to thank you for your very good speech. I will be talking to the board of directors, the Commission, and the board of directors of the European Culture and Education Association. I will be speaking to members of the board of directors of the European Commission The EU was the first to deliver a written letter to the EU, which is the only one that has ever been in the EU. In the next five years, the EU will be the first to deliver a written letter to the EU, which will be the first to deliver a written letter to the EU. eunstrategia kehys eunrasismin torjunnan toiminnan suunnitelma vammaisten henkilöiden oikeuksia koskeva strategia ja HLBTIQ henkilöiden tasarva koskeva strategia on hyvä ottaa nämä huomioon eun kaikissa toiminnoissa. Hyvä puheenjohtaja lyhyesti koulumevat moninaisia. Meillä on oppilaita eri kielisiä. On tärkeä, että jokainen lapsia nuori Europasta kokee kuuluvansa europpalaisen yhteisön ja opettajana haluan myös tukea opettajien vaihtoa ja opettajien koulutuksen edistämistä eri Europamaista. Kiitos, herra puheenjohtaja. Haristo, Kirja Brojder. Paraboli. Hyvää. Okay, colleagues, we have seven colleagues who want to intervene. What we don't have is time. You know that we will lose the translation in ten minutes. I suggest that they all say one word, so I will give 30 seconds, half a minute, to each seven people who want to intervene, just to give the basic idea so as to leave time to the commission, to the vice president to respond. So please, Mr. Wupp, let's try it. Thank you, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President. I would like to focus on the public libraries. You have a very, very large range in the population. No other offer is, in comparison, so lowly. No other cultural education institutions reach generation, cultural environment, to many different people. And that's why it's important that we, if we want to talk about culture and the importance of educational work in the promotion of democracy in the European Union, that we also focus on the libraries, on the public libraries that make a very large contribution here. Thank you very much. Mr. Wupp, congratulations. The floor to Mr. Auschio, please. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you so much, Mr. Sienas. I think we are now discussing about the true future of Europe. The values and the culture is the most important thing. I want to point out the one good practice we could and we should use all around the Europe is a child-friendly city model that we could apply in all European cities and regions. And in my city, in the city of Himmelina, we have good examples of this, and I really strongly recommend on focusing on children, on European children. Thank you and stay safe. Thank you. Thank you very much, Mr. Auschio. Mr. Bianco. President, I would like to thank the Vice President for his intervention. First of all, I would like to thank the people of Montalbano, for being here personally. And for speaking with so much passion. So I would like to thank, above all, for what he has said, both in terms of erasmus and the formation of young people, both in terms of school. A telegram. The Committee of the Regions has tried an important role to use, even in terms of entrepreneurship for young people, cultural goods. When there will be time and will, we will be able to return to this topic that has a great relevance, even to create entrepreneurship for young people. Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you very much, Ms. Magyar. Thank you very much, Mr. President. I would like to ask for your understanding of the pedophilia of the Hungarian people's participation in the negotiations. I would like to ask for your understanding of the pedophilia of the Hungarian people's participation in the negotiations. We have now received such a basic expectation from our colleagues. The agreement is aimed at protecting young people, protecting any kind of sexual propaganda against young people, very carefully, but does not speak from the people of the LNBTQ orientation, who are absolutely sure of their rights here. The domestic violence, the fact that it is known, is truly valuable. The children's name, the questions, are kept around the international community, and we would like to express our children's interest. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Svartz, give her please. Thank you for the word, Mr. President, Mr. Vice President. We must not forget such topics as culture and education, that the standard of integration in the Eastern European cities is different than, for example, in Western Europe. Let's take the example of language knowledge. In the Western European border region, it is self-evident to learn the language of the neighboring countries, which, of course, increases the connections. It seems almost impossible for us to do that. The language and cultural diversity is our most important value, and their security and support is part of the fundamental tasks of the EU. We must always be careful, that, for example, the Middle States of Eastern Europe are on a different level of integration. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mr. Nica, please. Yes, thank you, Mr. President, and thank you, Mr. Vice President, in us for the very eloquent arguments. The European Capital of Culture action is meant to show up all those values that the EU stands for, democracy, civic involvement, human rights, diversity, EU identity, and citizenship. All these cities, all the cities that hold these title structures, their cultural programs, around these values. So my proposal will be, among other measures, to consider a stronger promotion from the European level for the European Capital of Culture and not just leave it at the level of cities' marketing strategy. That would be a real support to put to the spotlight and the international attention of the selected cities as a mean to emphasize the richness of the and the cultural diversity of Europe and also the EU identity principles and our way of life. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Nica. Mr. Gamalo Aleer, please. My main idea today is to remind you of the importance of the paths of Santiago, the path of Santiago, the city where I come from, because it has played a crucial role in promoting dialogue and cultural exchange and creating an integrated link between people all over Europe. I believe that the path of Santiago is at the basis of the European values. And I want to thank Vice President Quinas who has supported, from the beginning, the Jacobeo phenomenon and the paths of Santiago and inviting Vice President Quinas and Vice President Chisi Costas and all of you to visit us in Santiago this year and the next. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So, thank all of you for respecting the time limit that we set together. And I would like now to give directly the floor to Vice President Margaritis Quinas for his responses and his overall reaction on what we discussed today. Thank you. Thank you. Let me first tell you that I'm very much impressed by the enthusiasm of your interventions and the quality of your suggestions. It could not be otherwise, because I know that you feel passionately about these issues. You do not live in an exoplanet. You live with the people in society at the local level and it makes perfect sense to relay these concerns in Brussels. I have five minutes and five points. Let's try to go emulate your example and go one minute per point. Point number one that relates to what Isabella Yusso and others had said. I do not think that in Europe there is something that we could call a homo-europeus. There is not one size fits it all. There is not one model for a European omu. But there is a corpus, europeum of values. So the diversity that shapes our reality in Europe is totally legitimate and is grounded in law. So where we're discussing issues like reproductive health, same-sex marriage, abortions, it in a way makes sense that our traditions and our legal instruments have a differentiated approach. So no homo-europeus. But at the same time, the corpus-europeum of our values is what binds us together. And this difference, I think, it's something that we should keep very present in our mind. The first does not eliminate the second. And our job is to be able to distinguish between the two. Then Ankar Halainen, and that's point two, asks me, okay, but let's define these European values. Let's see what is this corpus-europeum of values. For ease of reference, this is to be found in Article 2 of the Treatise and in the Charter of Fundamental Rights Attached to the Treatise. That's the short answer. The more elaborate definition of these European values is very simple. We are all democracies. We defend the rights of minorities. We safeguard the role of women in the family, in the society, and in the workplace. We are world champions of human rights. We're world champions of personal data. We have universal systems for education and health. We take care of our elderly. And we have no death penalty. This is what binds us together. And parts of all this you probably can find in other parts of the world. But all of this together, you will find it only here, in Europe. Point number three from Mr. Box, very inspirational and historic references. I agree with you that if we look back at our history from the times of Salamina and Marathon and Thermopylae, until now, the enemy is always the same. And the enemy is the same because the enemy is those who want to destroy what we stand for. It may change names, but the enemy is always the same. The same way that the Hellenic civilization and democracy was always a thorn in a world of authoritarian leaders at the time who wanted to crush it. The same way Europe, with everything we represent today, is something that too many people, it's a nuisance. That's why they don't want to see us succeed. And that's why they fight us. They fight us through disinformation, fake news, hybrid threats, you name it. Point number four, especially for Mr. McCarthy, who said that we're not only a market, we are something more than a market. Fully agree, our heads of state and government in the European Council last week, for the first time in many years, they have been discussing precisely that. And they agreed. For the first time, the European Council spent time discussing values. And they came to that conclusion that we are not just a market. We are a community of values. And there is another compatriot of Mr. McCarthy who put it very nicely in a sentence, Bono, the singer of the YouTube group, who said, actually, a sentence that I would have liked to say myself, but Bono was faster. He said, Europe is a thought that needs to become a feeling. And I think he said it all. That Europe is something that we often have in our minds. It's something that is around us. But it will become something more only if we feel it inside. And everything we have been doing with Erasmus, with Mane, with Discover Europe, with the Solidarity Corp, with San Mone, with European cultures, capitals, points out to that direction. Point number five and final point. I also agree with many of you, like Mr. Wolf, for example. And Mr. Camelo Aguirre, when they say that there are other areas, there are other issues, there are other topics that can help us build this communality of thinking, like libraries, like the Camino de Santiago. I would also add to that list the preservation, conservation, and branding of heritage sites in Europe. Everything that we can do to bring this together under one single roof of European culture and valuing what we have, what the treasures of that history bestowed on us. This is also a fantastic opportunity. And there again, your role as regional leaders would be crucial. So thank you again for your very warm welcome and reception. And I promise to come back for the other part of the portfolio, migration, security, and the rest. Thank you again. Thank you very much, Vice President. We will certainly see you again soon for the other issues of your portfolio. But I think in seeing the interest of our fellow colleagues online and in person, these matters are of great interest for all of us. And thank you very, very much for being here with us today. Colleagues, we take a little break, and we will be back in 25 minutes.