Faithful to its annual event, and now in its 35th edition, the Association of European Journalists (APE) held its traditional seminar on the future of Europe. From Santander and San Sebastián, always at the beginning or end of summer, the intense debates and discussions of these days have now been hosted in Madrid coinciding with autumn. This year’s edition took place in the renovated building of the Diario Madrid Foundation, which was dynamited by the Franco dictatorship for leading the media fight for freedoms.
Six sessions and as many panels have analyzed and dissected both the state of the Union and its future in a world in which it runs the risk of having to choose between the two great superpowers vying for hegemony. For those whose European pessimism often emerges, José María de Areilza, general secretary of the Aspen Institute Spain, recalled the five existential crises that Europe has successfully overcome in the last fifteen years: financial, refugees, pandemic, Brexit and the current one in progress. the Ukrainian war. Five major tests that can nevertheless be reproduced with equal or greater virulence. In this regard, Toni Roldán, director of the ESADE Economic Policy Center, warned of the need for the EU to soon complete the necessary reforms that should precede the enlargement that is already on the horizon.
The diplomat Javier Elorza, author of “A pike in Flanders. Spain’s footprint in the EU”, denounced the report, prepared by twelve “alleged wise men”, “a document that no one has asked for and that has been presented to society by two ministers from France and Germany”, in which an entire Franco-German strategy seems to be drawn up to move to a Europe with different speeds, and consequently with various levels of decision.
In the same panel, Jorge Domecq, Airbus Strategy Advisor, confirmed that Europe has less and less strategic autonomy in terms of defense, but it can still do a lot both in the face of climate change and in its “priority economic security.” Along these lines, it set three fundamental objectives: promote instruments so that the EU remains relevant; protect ourselves through economic coercion against third parties who attack us, and build partnerships that facilitate our access to fundamental raw materials. The president of the Euroamerica Foundation, Ramón Jáuregui, emphasized that a large part of these raw materials are in Latin America, the continent closest to Europe by culture and values, advocating for an intensification of relations that counteracts the growing displacement of the EU and the progressive occupation of that space by China.
Of the major European dependencies, the main one has undoubtedly been energy. Former commissioner Miguel Arias Cañete defended the need for the EU to provide itself with world champions, since the Europeans, let alone the purely national ones, fall short. He set batteries as the main component in the fight for industrialization, so that “It would be very important for their factories to be established in Spain because this would guarantee that the vehicles would also be manufactured here.” The former Minister of Industry, Claudio Aranzadi, pointed to an industry that will be – and is – decisive in the immediate future: the capture and confinement of CO2, especially for the energy transition programmed by the EU. Aranzadi, on the other hand, was belligerent with the cartels on which the energy supply depends, expressly citing OPEC+, where Saudi Arabia’s decision to cut production by one million barrels a day each will decisively condition the macroeconomy of the EU.
Regarding the enlargement of the Union, the former vice president of the European Commission Joaquín Almunia showed his support for the integration of the Balkan countries, which he described as essential, “because otherwise they will fall inexorably under Putin’s Russia.” Prior to this expansion, he advocated the necessary reduction in the number of commissioners (currently 27, one per country), a quantity that today makes it difficult if not impossible to make decisions with the necessary agility. He did not bite his tongue when he stated that “if Donald Trump becomes president of the United States again, it will be an ordeal for the European Union.”
For the former minister and former spokesperson of the Government Íñigo Méndez de Vigo, who regarding the enlargement stressed that Spain was also always on the side of the integration of Turkey, he was especially cautious with the movement that emerged in the United Kingdom, which asks to correct the error of Brexit and returning to the European fold. Méndez de Vigo suggests that “Brexiters”, that little less than they announced the ruin of the EU after its departure, they confirm its success, and are aware that their departure has also led to the making of decisions that London would have prevented. Almunia also indicated that, after a recent meeting with pro-European Britons, they told him “they do not appreciate Brussels’ great interest in the reintegration of the United Kingdom.”
Particularly intense was the panel dedicated to lying as a weapon. The professor and former president of the CIS Fernando Vallespín pointed out that “Today the lie lacks political significance,” referring to those uttered by Trump and the uselessness of the count of these carried out daily by the Washington Post. His conclusion is that the design of misinformation and lies goes directly to the objective, that is, emotions. This means that the people or the group, who are aware of the falsehood of what is transmitted to them, prefer to accept it by continuing to belong to the tribe instead of denouncing it, and not fight for the truth with the risk of being excluded from the cluster.
To all this, the former director of the CNI, Félix Sanz Roldán, replied: wondering if we want to always live like this or are we going to rebel, especially when there is enough technology to know in 99.99% of cases who is the author of the misinformation and lies. She called not to resign oneself to living in that environment and to get out of the vicious circle.
The seminar was closed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who, in dialogue with the director of Europa Press and vice president of the APE, Javier García Vila, described the current Spanish presidency of the EU as “transcendental for its future, since the decisions that are being made in this semester will determine their course, their role and their place in an increasingly fiercely competitive world.”
Miguel Ángel Aguilar, secretary general of the APE, finally summarized the dilemma in which Europe finds itself with a lapidary phrase: “Either it exports freedoms or it will import slavery.”
2023-09-26 14:02:28
#Europe #autonomy #submission
