Prime Minister, Rector, Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen:
First, may I thank you for giving me the opportunity to return to Bruges and in very different circumstances from my last visit shortly after the Zeebrugge Ferry disaster, when Belgian courage and the devotion of your doctors and nurses saved so many British lives.
And second, may I say what a pleasure it is to speak at the College of Europe under the distinguished leadership of its Rector [Professor Lukaszewski]. The College plays a vital and increasingly important part in the life of the European Community.
And third, may I also thank you for inviting me to deliver my address in this magnificent hall. What better place to speak of Europe's future than a building which so gloriously recalls the greatness that Europe had already achieved over 600 years ago.
Your city of Bruges has many other historical associations for us in Britain. Geoffrey Chaucer was a frequent visitor here. And the first book to be printed in the English language was produced here in Bruges by William Caxton.
Britain and Europe
Mr. Chairman, you have invited me to speak on the subject of Britain and Europe. Perhaps I should congratulate you on your courage. If you believe some of the things said and written about my views on Europe, it must seem rather like inviting Genghis Khan to speak on the virtues of peaceful coexistence!
I want to start by disposing of some myths about my country, Britain, and its relationship with Europe and to do that, I must say something about the identity of Europe itself.
Europe is not the creation of the Treaty of Rome. Nor is the European idea the property of any group or institution.
We British are as much heirs to the legacy of European culture as any other nation. Our links to the rest of Europe, the continent of Europe, have been the dominant factor in our history.
For three hundred years, we were part of the Roman Empire and our maps still trace the straight lines of the roads the Romans built. Our ancestors - Celts, Saxons, Danes - came from the Continent. Our nation was - in that favourite Community word - "restructured" under the Norman and Angevin rule in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
This year, we celebrate the three hundredth anniversary of the glorious revolution in which the British crown passed to Prince William of Orange and Queen Mary.
Visit the great churches and cathedrals of Britain, read our literature and listen to our language: all bear witness to the cultural riches which we have drawn from Europe and other Europeans from us.
We in Britain are rightly proud of the way in which, since Magna Carta in the year 1215, we have pioneered and developed representative institutions to stand as bastions of freedom. And proud too of the way in which for centuries Britain was a home for people from the rest of Europe who sought sanctuary from tyranny.
But we know that without the European legacy of political ideas we could not have achieved as much as we did. From classical and mediaeval thought we have borrowed that concept of the rule of law which marks out a civilised society from barbarism.
And on that idea of Christendom, to which the Rector referred - Christendom for long synonymous with Europe - with its recognition of the unique and spiritual nature of the individual, on that idea, we still base our belief in personal liberty and other human rights [...]
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