Remarks at the Inauguration Ceremony of E.H.U. International

Vilnius, Lithuania, Thursday, June 9, 2005

Your Excellencies,
My dear colleagues prof. Mikhailov, prof. Dunaev,
Ladies and gentlemen,

it always takes time for a virtuous thing to appear and to take root. Evil spreads much faster. But only virtuous things can stop and overcome evil.

To-day we all witness a scene when virtuous action has started to conquer evil.

The Humanities University closed by someone representing the last evil in the very center of Europe is being reborn here, in Vilnius, in the new state of the European Union, in Vilnius where four centuries ago a Rennaisance Belorusian scholar Francis Skoryna received his education and as early as 1525 translated and in one of the first printing houses of Eastern Europe printed 23 books of the Bible in old slavic vernacular.

It would be no exaggeration to say that historically European universities were forerunners of the European Union: the roots of the European Union definitely lie in the universities.

But it is equally true that the roots of universities are in a free, liberal thought, in a freedom of thought.

One can lock a body in a prison, particularly when the state itself turns into a prison, but one can not lock a free spirit: it goes through any wall even if it is built around the whole state by someone like Lukashenka.

This is why the European Parliament can not but congratulate the reestablishment of the European Humanities University in Vilnius.

This is why in a resolution proposed by me and supported by my colleagues in the European Parliament we welcome the inauguration of the European Humanities University as well as efforts of the Republic of Lithuania aiming to promote democracy, freedom of thought and human rights through education, by upbringing a new, open-minded and well educated generation in Belarus, a neighbour country of the European Union still in the cluches of the evil, still under dictatorship.

And this is why we invite the Commission and Member states to follow the example of donators from Europe and the United States and to assist this university in all possible ways.

For we are confident: this will be a real contribution to the enlargement of the space of freedom, the space where freedom of people, solidarity and cooperation prevail for the sake of human dignity. For the sake of our own dignity.

This will be a very important step to bring down the walls of the state prison and to conquer, sooner or later, better sooner than later, the evil.

Crescat et floreat Universitas Humanitatis Europeansis!