Europe is at a crucial crossroads in a changing global order. While America has reacted to it’s own decline by falling for a populist strongman, who falsely promises he can take his country forward to the past days of US hegemony, the Chinese dragon rises with an alternative model based on political authoritarianism, with economic development at the expense of personal freedoms and individual liberties.
Trapped by its own insecurity and infighting, Europe risks inertia. While its citizens demand reform, Europe distracts itself with the appointment of so-called top jobs that hold the keys to its future, when the priority must be to define clear goals and a vision for the future. Incapable of exerting power to influence the currents of change around it or defending its interests, this is truly Europe’s last chance.
Fifty years ago, man first went to the moon. This was the crowning achievement of a nation in a race for hegemony in the cold war era. John F. Kennedy came into office in 1961 at a time when the Russians launched Sputnik and when Gagarin was the first man turning into an orbit around earth. The American people feared they were falling behind the Soviet Union but the 35th President of the United States of America pitched a dream and a project for his nation. He knew the significance of a moon landing, but his race to space was mainly a mission to a new technological future dominated by the United States. He outlined hope and bestowed a vision for his people.
Today, too, Europe needs a challenge like the one launched all those decades ago by John F. Kennedy, as the backwardness of Europe is becoming profound, both economically and in terms of technology. Those who drive the development of our internet, the news we consume and the rules regulating our personal data are platforms in the hands of Americans and Asians. Beyond pet projects, Europe is non-existent in this brave new world.
Militarily, Europeans have a huge budget; more than forty percent of the size of the American budget, three times the size of the total Russian military expenditures, yet we are dependent on the US and unable to defend ourself if the Kremlin sent tanks into the Baltics: a failing that threatens our freedom, our well-being, our lifestyle, our independence and moreover our values.
The challenge we need to launch today, is that in 10 years from now, in the space of two legislatures, Europe must take back its place in the world of tomorrow, a world dominated by the Americans and China. The global economic and military goliaths of today. To achieve that, Europe must not copy both giants, but build an alternative model, a third way that is economically powerful, militarily capable, but also a defender of freedoms: the leader of the free world and its basic values. It needs to be a continent where liberties are cherished and the balance between privacy and security is fully safeguarded.
For this dream to be realised, Europe will need to create new tools ultimately by 2024, which can only be realised by initiating deep reforms. We must create economic champions in all aspects of the ecological transformation and the digital revolution, from new batteries to innovative hydrogen technology, from high-speed transport and the production of our own quantum computers to more generally the launch of our own digital standards. As we did in the past with Airbus versus Boeing, we must witness the birth of European giants who can stand tall next to Google, Facebook, Amazon and Alibaba. To deliver this it will be necessary to change our rules of competition, to create unique European wide regulators and to mobilise a massive amount of money necessary to finance the technological fight to win the battle against climate change and make Europe into the first carbon neutral continent.
By 2024, we must also be able to guarantee our own security, by creating a European defence capability or, better, a genuine European army, ending wasteful military spending on duplicated projects. Likewise, Europe must be able to defend its own freedoms internally against those who wish to betray the dreams of our founding fathers. We must remain the cradle of liberal democracy by immediately implementing a pact of the rule of law and democracy in Europe, with measures and sanctions to put an end to the excesses we have seen in Hungary and Poland. There is no room for nationalism and populism in Europe. “Nationalism is war,” Mitterrand said. War is our past. And it can never be our future.
The battle against ethno-nationalism must definitely be won and the arguments for migration as a positive force made. As has happened time and again in our history, it is migration that will rejuvenate our old continent, this time let’s manage it by implementing a blue card system for legal migration, but also by establishing ultimately in 2024 a proper European border and coast guard, a European common asylum system and common tools to guarantee our safety. The development of a European FBI to tackle cross border crime needs to be a crucial step in this regard.
Let’s recognise, it is not the first time that our European project is threatened. In June 1985, after years of stagflation and so called Eurosclerosis, the European Commission, under its then President, Jacques Delors, launched an ambitious action programme seeking to abolish, within seven years, all physical, technical and tax-related barriers to free movement within Europe. It was an enormous success. Europe became a magnet of growth and innovation. A similar jump forward would once again breathe life into our project.
Today we need a “project 2024”, a program of the same magnitude as what Delors did with “1992” by the end of the eighties. Achieving this will require new methods to move faster and decide more efficiently. This means an end to unanimity in the decision making in the European Council, a real reform of the governance of the euro area, a gender-balanced Commission and a reinforced Parliament too. It will require a revolution in the way we deal with appointments and nominations. We cannot repeat the back room deals of the recent and distant past. We have to give to the people, to the citizens, the power to decide who – he or she – will lead our Union. A reform that has to go hand in hand with an enhanced transparency, especially at the top of the administration of the European Commission. For that purpose, a Conference on the future of our European democracy needs to be launched. A conference that, besides the three institutions, will give a voice to our citizens and civil society. A conference that will determine a new democratic order for the European Union of the future.
It’s a lie to state, as nationalists and populists often do, that the people of Europe have given up on the dream of a United Europe. The contrary is true. People believe in a strong Europe. They know very well that a reformed Europe is our only future. “We choose to go to the Moon”, Kennedy declared in 1962. Europe needs a similar ambition of hope and a vision for the coming decade. Instead of staring at the floor, like John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Europe must reach for the stars.
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