This is the full text of Janez Janša´s (Slovenian opposition SDS leader) speech about the future of European civilization. Speech was delivered to a EPP meeting in Helsinki on November 7 2018.

“Security, opportunity, future”

Europe is not just a geographical term. Europe means civilization. It was forged through millenniums of known history, shaped by bad and good times, flourishing, dying under the thrusts of invaders and totalitarian concepts, emerging again from ashes of broken empires and ideologies.

European nations have developed their own cultures and national identities. During the last millennium, however, this has happened within a framework of a common civilization. On the basis of Ten Commandments and elightenment the fundamental values emerged as a core of this civilization. Freedom, justice, human dignity, rule of law among the most important.

Those values were, however, not enough to prevent terrible clashes among the European nations, neither to prevent antihuman ideologies of national and international socialism to enslave many of the European nations for years or even decades.

To prevent the sad and sometimes cruel history from being repeated, the founding fathers, which were all Christian Democrats, created the European Union. Union of values. Since then, more and more Europeans enjoyed peace and high standards of living. This success story created a strong tool of soft power which helped the military might of the free world to dismantle the red evil empire and make European unification possible.

While there isn’t and will never be one uniform European national culture, the European civilization has been existing for centuries.

History teaches us that every civilization is permanently challenged from the inside as well as outside and that moments come when its very foundation is endangered and has to be defended. Right now, we live in such a moment.

From the inside, our civilization is challenged by various forms of cultural Marxism seeking to dismantle family, national and European identity, private property, private education and religion. Being backed by those who see a future world as one multinational company. Together they advocate that we have to abandon a house built on the rock of our common values and build a new one on the sand. Probably in the dessert, where history ends.

From the outside, we face a huge and increasing demographic pressure on aging Europe. Being used also as a political weapon by radical Islam.

The combination of both threats presents the most serious danger for European civilization since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Defending the basic foundations of the European civilization is the most crucial task for the EPP, a political force which established the union. If the EPP will not defend it, somebody else will. And, most probably, they will fail, because aside from the EPP, nobody is currently strong enough to lead this defense of our civilization, our way of life.

There are also global and indeed regional challenges ahead, which are too big even for largest of European nations. This is another reason for the existence of the EU. It is obvious that European nations have to fulfill the commitment to increase our responsibilities in NATO and that the EU has to organize an effective common European hard power – including non-NATO members – to be able to defend external borders and to help stabilize our neighborhood. No development aid and no humanitarian projects are going to succeed until we are able first to protect those who we want to help.

We are a big family of more than fifty parties and we compromise on many issues. But defending the very foundation of our civilization is an urgent and a noble goal where we have to be united. Being People’s party, our duty is to fight for Europe – whole, strong and free. And provide Europeans with security, opportunity and foreseeable future. If voters across the continent will see and feel our unity and determination, then next European elections will be a significant victory for the EPP.”

Janez Janša is  a Slovenian politician who was Prime Minister of Slovenia  from 2004 to 2008 and again from 2012 to 2013. He has led the Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS) since 1993. Janša was Minister of Defence from 1990 to 1994,