Close to you: Presidential home town
360 views · Published 22 June 2012 · 4:11 · Indexed 27 October 2026
Channel: European Parliament · 2012 · News & Politics
It's almost embarrassing for Martin Schulz to lead journalists and a camera crew through the main square of the small town of Würselen where his political career began in the mid 1980s. I had even less hair then! But I was the longest serving mayor of this town. A visit to the bookshop which the Social Democrat Schulz founded at the age of 27, five years before becoming the youngest mayor in North Rhine-Westphalia. Naturally, many of my friends were meeting here. As a councillor, and later as the mayor of this town, I had a room at the back of the bookshop that was used as my office and as a kitchenette. There I met with the mayor, the party whip and the local MP. We used to coordinate our workload amongst us. Those who weren't there called it the 'kitchen cabinet'. What reading tips does the former bookseller, current EP President have for a crisis-torn Europe? Habermas. The last publication by Jürgen Habermas is an impassioned plea to intellectuals in Germany, as well as in other EU countries, to not shy away from a joint Europe, but to understand that within the global village that we all inhabit, retreating to small state thinking would be the wrong way forward. Europe has to understand that unity brings strength. The idea should be more prominent here than elsewhere in Europe. Both Belgium and the Netherlands are only a few kilometres away. From his office, the EP President can see the border triangle in the distance. This is the Netherlands, that's Belgium there. I'll go over to Belgium now. Now I'm in Belgium. So I just went from the Netherlands to Belgium, and now I'll move over... ..to Germany. The triangle Maastricht-Liège-Aachen has to be one of the most European areas in the whole of the European Union. Of course, growing up near a border has shaped my life to a great extent. Even as a local politician I was deeply involved in cross-border cooperation with the communities on the Belgian and Dutch sides of the border. There's no doubt that anyone who grows up in this region grows up with a sense of these borders and how to overcome them. Be it in Würselen or in Brussels, overcoming borders remains a political mission. What the borders meant to the generations of my parents and theirs before them, which is that hostile nations once clashed in this place, is still very much alive in people's memories. If Maastricht were to disappear, if the EU fell apart, it would be disastrous. Before he opened his bookshop, Schulz excelled as a defender for Rhenania Würselen. He dreamt of a career in professional football, but then: I was jumping for a ball when I heard a bang. A really audible bang. Then I realised that bang was something to do with me, because I had torn my hamstring. After that I just had to leave it. But the young Martin Schulz still learnt one or two lessons on the football pitch. To achieve something, you have to make an effort. And you had better say out loud what needs to be said, even if it causes controversy. A major criticism of modern democracy and parties coming from the voters is: 'No one can tell you apart, you're all saying the same things.' But if you have someone, and I'm trying to be that someone, who talks in a way that sets them apart, who's not beating about the bush, then this may cause disagreement, but that's what's needed in a democracy. I will definitely not change in this respect and I will keep on trying to honour the words of one of my great role models, Johannes Rau, who lived by the maxim: 'Say what you do and do what you say.' EuroparlTV video ID: f406122f-35f6-47e2-a111-9fdb011627c3
