Mark Pentleton

Today I’m in the European Parliament in Strasbourg, accompanying a group of students who will be taking part in a debate with young people from across Europe. I first took part in this ten years ago when I was invited to join the group as one of the members of staff and since then I’ve become more involved, now jointly organising the visit with Mr Euroscola, Gerry Toner. Every year as the students enter the hémicycle of the European Parliament, this song is played, so I thought it was appropriate to include it today.

The song dates from 1990 and in fact won the Eurovision Song Contest that year. It was a time of great change in central and eastern Europe and the lyrics of many of the songs that year reflected this in their lyrics: the Berlin Wall had fallen only six months previously. The winning song looked forward to the European Single Market, due in 1992. Indeed, the title of Toto Cotugno’s song at the time was Insieme: 1992 – insieme means “together”.

You can read more about the work I’m doing in Strasbourg on Euroscola Online, and indeed see photos of today’s event as it unfolds. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy today’s song! And apologies for the cheese!

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