BERLIN:Germany on Friday swore in new president Joachim Gauck, who warned the government that it had a historical obligation to help Europe's weakest members as they struggle to stay financially afloat.
Gauck, the first head of state from the former communist east, delivered the impassioned appeal to members of parliament and Chancellor Angela Merkel in the light-flooded chamber of the Reichstag parliament building.
“We must keep saying yes to Europe,” said Gauck, who was elected president by a special assembly with an overwhelming majority on Sunday.
“Particularly in times of crisis, the tendency to retreat to the level of the nation state is very common.
European unity is however impossible without the life's blood of solidarity. Particularly in the crisis, we must dare to have more Europe.”Gauck, 72, said that languishing under the Nazi and then the communist dictatorships had made the notion of a united Europe living in peace, freedom and prosperity a driving force of his political awakening.
“Europe was the promised land for my generation,” he said.
“For my grandchildren, Europe has long been part of their day-to-day reality, with freedom across borders and the opportunities and concerns of an open society. This reality is an achievement, not only for my grandchildren.”
Germany, as the rescue-fund paymaster for Europe's stricken member states, has come under pressure throughout the sovereign debt crisis to boost its contributions to the bailouts in the face of Merkel's resistance.
The turmoil has also exposed old rifts, with protesters on the streets of Athens branding Merkel a “Nazi” for her hardline stance.
Gauck, a Lutheran pastor and former East German democracy activist, said he would make the integration of Germany's large immigrant population and the struggle against the far right priorities of his presidency.
In a rousing passage of the 23-minute inaugural speech, Gauck said Germany would stand fast in the fight against extremists.
“To the right-wing extremist haters of democracy, we say: your hatred will only spur us on,” he thundered, calling united Germany “the land of the democratic miracle”.
“We will not leave our country in the lurch. We will not give you the gift of our fear. You will be history and our democracy will live.”
Germany was shocked to learn in November that a group of neo-Nazi militants was likely behind the killings of 10 people, most of them shopkeepers of Turkish origin, over a seven-year period.
The murder spree has sparked a new drive to ban the anti-immigrant National Democratic Party of Germany, which had ties to the suspected killers.
After the speech, Gauck and his partner, journalist Daniela Schadt, were welcomed at the presidential palace Bellevue with military honours.
Gauck will make his first trip abroad as president to Poland next week.
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