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Berlin Declaration
The Declaration was signed in theZeughaus of Berlin.
Created	25 March 2007
Signatories	Hans-Gert Pöttering,Angela Merkel andJosé Manuel Barroso
Purpose	Reflect over theEU's history and aims, and provide impetus to its reform process
Full text
Berlin Declaration (2007) atWikisource

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TheBerlin Declaration (officially theDeclaration on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signature of the Treaty of Rome) is a non-bindingEuropean Union (EU) text that was signed on 25 March 2007 inBerlin (Germany), celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of theTreaty of Rome which founded theEuropean Economic Community, the predecessor to the modern EU.

The Declaration was the brainchild of the GermanPresidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2007. Designed to provide renewed impetus to the process of EU reform after the ratification of theEuropean Constitution had failed, the Declaration aimed for a "renewed common basis" in time for the2009 European Parliament elections. The German presidency followed up on the issue by brokering a consensus for what later became known as theTreaty of Lisbon.

Presented in the name of "We, the citizens of the European Union", it was signed by the Presidents ofthe three major political institutions;

• Hans-Gert Pöttering asPresident of theEuropean Parliament.
• Angela Merkel asPresident of theCouncil of the European Union (and theEuropean Council).
• José Manuel Barroso asPresident of theEuropean Commission.

It was originally intended that the leaders of all themember states of the European Union would sign it, though getting a document agreeable to all members proved a challenge, thus it was left to the three institutional heads – though this was met with some criticism.

The declaration has been criticised byPope Benedict XVI for not mentioningChristianity.Poland originally threatened to veto it because of this omission but stood down in order for an agreement to be reached. Severalsecular organizations objected to the proposed inclusion of religion and produced their own declaration called "A Vision for Europe".^[1]

In the original German (the language the document was drafted in), the phrase"We, the citizens of the European Union, have united for the better" was written as"Wir Bürgerinnen und Bürger der Europäischen Union sind zu unserem Glück vereint."^[2] which is in fact closer to "We, the citizens of the European Union, have united in our fortune/happiness". This has been seen as a deliberate political mistranslation.^[3]

• Treaties of the European Union
• Treaty establishing a Constitution for Europe
• Treaty of Lisbon

EnglishWikisource has original text related to this article:

Berlin Declaration

• Berlin Declaration in all official EU languages
• 50 Years Website (EU website)
• Commission statement on the Declaration

• 2007 in the European Union
• 2007 in Berlin
• March 2007 in Italy
• 2007 documents
• Declarations of the European Union

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