The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, emphasized this Thursday, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the need to preserve cohesion between Europe and the United States in the face of new threats, in a global context marked by "the rivalry between great powers, war, and confrontation between states."
"Twenty-five years ago, the world was paralyzed. Stuck to our screens, we watched in horror and disbelief as the Twin Towers fell," recalled the head of the community executive in a statement, in which she paid tribute to the nearly 3,000 fatalities of the attacks and to the firefighters, police, and emergency teams who "ran towards the smoke and dust" to try to save lives.
Von der Leyen described 9/11 as "the most significant event of the turn of the century" and indicated that those attacks brought alliances and collective security back to prominence, highlighting the reaction of Europe and NATO after the attacks.
"Europe immediately knew where it stood. We were alongside the United States," she pointed out, recalling that the attacks led the Atlantic Alliance to activate for the first and only time Article 5 of collective defense, which states that an aggression against one of its members is considered an attack against all.
In this regard, the German conservative leader emphasized that Europe and the United States remained united in defense of the principles they share on both sides of the Atlantic, such as "freedom and democracy," against the terrorists' intent to sow fear far beyond New York, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
"Twenty-five years later, we know they failed. Our democracies endured. Our societies remained free. And the ideology of terror did not manage to impose its dominance over our world," she added in her message.
A different geopolitical scenario but the same lesson
Von der Leyen warned that threats have evolved since then and that the planet is once again navigating through "turbulent geopolitical waters," now conditioned by "the rivalry between great powers, war, and confrontation between states."
Nevertheless, she argued that the lesson left by 9/11 remains valid a quarter of a century later: "In times of danger, our alliances matter. Our unity matters. And the values we choose to defend matter."
The president of the Commission has concluded her statement evoking the two columns of light that project into the sky of New York at the site where the Twin Towers stood and that, in her understanding, represent resistance against forgetting and keep the memory of the victims alive.
"They challenge forgetting. They carry the memory of those we lost. And they remind us that light triumphs even on the darkest days," she concluded.