Europe Day: Celebrating unity, peace, and shared values across Europe
Every year on 9 May, Europe Day
[https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/europe-day_en]
marks a defining moment in European history. On this day in 1950,
French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman presented the Schuman
Declaration
[https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/1945-59/schuman-declaration-may-1950_en],
proposing closer cooperation between European countries to secure
lasting peace after the devastation of the Second World War. This
vision laid the foundations for what would later become the European
Union [https://european-union.europa.eu/index_en], built on
cooperation, shared responsibility, and mutual trust. 

More than seventy years later, Europe Day continues to celebrate unity
and peace across the continent. It is an opportunity to reflect on how
European cooperation has evolved, from early economic partnerships to
today’s wide-ranging collaboration on security, climate action,
digital transformation, and social progress. This year’s
celebrations are especially meaningful, as they also mark 40 years of
official Europe Day celebrations, as well as 40 years since Portugal
and Spain joined the EU, highlighting decades of shared progress and
integration.  

Sharing data across Europe is one of the ways in which European
cooperation takes shape today. When countries, institutions, and
organisations make data available for reuse, they create a common
knowledge base that extends beyond national borders. This shared
evidence helps policymakers learn from one another, supports
researchers in addressing cross-border challenges, and enables
businesses and citizens to build solutions that work at a European
scale. By bringing datasets together on platforms such as the European
Data Portal [https://data.europa.eu/en], Europe strengthens
collaboration through openness, turning information into a shared
resource that reflects the same spirit of solidarity and trust that
Europe Day was founded on. 

To mark Europe Day, EU institutions in Brussels and across Europe will
open their doors with free events and activities on Saturday, 9 May,
from 10:00 to 18:00 CEST. Citizens are invited to discover the places
where European decisions are made and learn more about the Union’s
work. Find out more and explore events near you on the official Europe
Day website
[https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/europe-day_en] 

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Publication Date/Time
2026-05-09T08:00:00+00:00
How a historic declaration shaped European cooperation and continues
to guide it today