by Daniel Diez (European Legal Studies – Manuel Marín Promotion)
On the 9th of October we celebrated the official start of our academic year. At the opening ceremony we received a powerful message to encourage us to look ahead and fight for our dreams: “Be courageous, don’t be afraid to move ahead. Courage doesn’t just stem from character but also from the heart. Always fight for the things you believe in.”
This quote by Mr Antonio Tajani, President of the European Parliament, was directly connected to the spirit of Manuel Marín, patron of our promotion, frequently called “Don Quixote” by his critics. Such a nickname, though maliciously used, points to classic qualities for leaders eager to improve reality: stubbornness, coherence in their ideas, awareness about unjust situations, love for the people suffering from them, a commitment to act and the courage to change the state of things.
The 9th of October is the day when the writer of “Don Quixote de la Mancha”, Miguel de Cervantes, was baptised in Alcala de Henares, my hometown, where there is a medieval festival to celebrate it. Manuel Marín was born in Ciudad Real, a region of La Mancha, and he maintained close ties with Alcala de Henares. He was not only present in several celebrations around Cervantes square and the University of Alcala but was also a professor at this university in his last years of life.
Other professors and local politicians recall his frequent participation at the Cervantes Awards for the best writers of Hispanic literature, which are given yearly at the University of Alcala. He loved literature but, unfortunately for us, he vowed that he would never write his memoirs. Thus, we can rely only on anecdotes told by the people who met him and, of course, on the outstanding work we know he did for the citizens of Europe.
The wittiest anecdote I have heard until now about Marín was given by Rector Jörg Monar at the opening ceremony: Marín was well-known for his political activism at the College and he remains the only student who placed a red flag in a public building in Bruges. But not in an ordinary public building. The feat of Marín was to place the red flag in the tower (le Beffroi de Bruges - het Belfort van Brugge). The “giant” of the square of Bruges tells us the size of our admired Quixote, who conquered the height of the tower as if it were a mill from La Mancha or Kruisvest.
With similar ease he climbed to the top of the College of Commissioners a dozen years after his graduation from the College of Europe. However, even when he was there he never forgot his roots and maintained his sensitivity to help people from rural areas. Manuel Marín held the greatest honours that a public servant can have, and he has given back much more to a country, or rather, to a continent. He gave us a destiny: unity. Unity of affective ties between young Europeans as the “father” of the Erasmus programme. Unity to Spain, understood as a nation linked to the rest of democratic European nations, all united by ties of “de facto solidarity” (as Schuman had stated). He even had the energy to extend his “fatherly” protection to those in need of humanitarian aid all over the world.
On the 4th of December 2017, Josep Borrell, ex-President of the European Parliament and current Minister of Foreign Affairs, gave a conference entitled “From the Spanish Constitution to European Integration”. Many other members from the socialist family were together in Madrid, such as Jose Manuel Franco, Rodriguez Uribes, Carmen Barahona and Carlos Carnero, to mention a few. It was around 7.30 pm when we received the bad news in the room and that moment will stay in our memory. The youngest deputy of the first democratic Parliament which drafted our Constitution and the architect of Spain’s accession to the EU had just died. We felt at the same time the weight of history and the sadness of losing a beloved member of the socialist family. However, “socialists do not die, they are sown”, as Pablo Iglesias Posse stated.
Today and every day that I look at the last wall of the class containing his great portrait, I give thanks for the gift and the pride of having a socialist, Spanish and European reference inspiring my efforts and those of the wonderful people I am meeting in Bruges.
To you, the Manuel Marín promotion, I dedicate the following lines which I wrote on the 8th of October:
“We are the Manuel Marín promotion”
We are the Manuel Marín promotion. It’s beautiful to think that a student of the College who studied here in 1973, in the Giuseppe Mazzini promotion, is now the patron of the promotion for all of us. I wish that you can all follow in his footsteps and one day give your name to a promotion. That would mean that your days at the College had been useful, that you were able to contribute to the EU project.
We can take Manuel Marín as a mirror in which our generation, the Erasmus generation and Marín promotion, can look at to feel inspired. He was a good example in his professional career and in his personal life. He contributed to the accession of Spain to the EU, as maybe some of the Balkan students or Georgian students of this promotion will do in their home countries, following his example.
He was born in one of the most forgotten regions of Spain, La Mancha, where he fought to achieve the best for ordinary people and to provide equal opportunities for everyone. He brought this social sensibility to every position he held in Spain and Europe. He applied his personal feelings, his heart, to do his best in his political career. He met his wife, Carmen Ortiz, during the famous Extraordinary Congress of the Spanish Socialist Party, right after the dramatic resignation of Felipe Gonzalez (the president of Spain and European leader). This reminds us that we can find joy even in the most stressful situations, and you can find your love in the middle of the exams, here at the College, bringing Europe together with the strongest bonds.
It is said that we are the “Erasmus Generation”, a generation who is building Europe with personal bonds and friendships. Manuel Marín is “the father of the Erasmus programme”, so that makes our generation, somehow, “the children of Manuel Marín”, if Paloma and Alejandra, his daughters, accept us into the family. He was aware of the importance of education to transform lives and unite Europe, and that’s a legacy the EU and all of us should preserve.
We should never forget what happened in the “European Civil Wars” in the twentieth century. As Rector Jörg Monar mentioned before visiting the Flanders Fields, we should never forget the similarities between our society and that of the pre-war period before 1914. Salvador de Madariaga, a Spanish founder of the College, tried to prevent those wars from happening again by establishing this College. We should do our part, defending a democratic Europe free from xenophobia, making it a useful tool to preserve peace all over the world.
In case of conflict, the EU provides humanitarian aid through DG ECHO, an agency in which some of us will work and which was also created by Manuel Marín. He was often called Don Quixote by the British press to criticise his ideas, but for someone coming from La Mancha who spent his energies achieving peace and progress in so many countries, it is an honour to be called “Don Quixote”, a character which express the Spanish trend to rebel against injustice. I hope he can inspire all of you who are going to work in international relations to push for a more stable and peaceful world.
As mentioned, he gave birth to the Erasmus generation and protected many people around the world, but he had two daughters to be proud of. This is a moment to think also about our families, who can’t be with us for some occasions, but who might also be very proud of us. Fortunately, we have WhatsApp and Skype to send them pictures and videos. This is to them: thank you for your efforts in bringing us to this point.
Now it is our time to perform, to show what we are capable of. Manuel Marín was an example for youth empowerment, the youngest deputy elected in the first democratic elections in Spain. Even in his last years he stayed young, concerned and engaged in environmental policies and new technologies to modernise politics. I hope some of you follow in his footsteps and become an elected deputy in future European elections. If it is too early for that to happen, at least we can engage in the elections in May, albeit during the exams.
But let’s not think about the exams yet, and let’s celebrate tonight. Enjoy!
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