UN General Assembly
2011

The European Union has introduced a new quality to international life globally. It stabilizes its neighbourhood and is an inspiration and a role model in various regions of the world, where integration initiatives derive from the European experience. The European Union is also an active participant in the process of shaping a better world order for everyone. The progress that the world has experienced after the Cold War in the fields of human rights, international security and arms reductions, environmental protection, sustainable development and many other areas is for the most part due to the initiatives and involvement of the European Union — as Mr. Herman Van Rompuy, the President of the European Council, said here earlier (see ). I am convinced that not only will Europe’s current difficulties — at the moment related to the financial standing of some of its member States — be overcome but that the EU will actually emerge stronger from the crisis. I am also convinced that the European social model and the model of EU relations with the