This date marks the anniversary of the historic 'Schuman declaration', which was signed 74 years ago on 9th May 1950.
In this declaration, Robert Schuman, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time, proposed the creation of a new model of political cooperation, the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC). This was an ambitious plan to secure long-term peace in post-war Europe and is considered to be the forerunner of what is now know as the European Union. The founding members of the ECSC were France, (West) Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg.
This year we celebrate this day during the Belgian Presidency of the Union, why don’t you test your interpreting skills in the three official languages of this founding country of the European Union? Check out the French section of the Speech Repository here, the German one here, and here you’ll find speeches for Dutch. If that’s not enough, have a look here for more resources.