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Speech in Rome : Europe after the EU Elections

English Pages, 20. 9. 2019

1. Europe after the 2019 European elections is the same as before. I have to say explicitly, to my great regret. Europe, or better to say European Union, needs a fundamental change but the slightly changed European Parliament and the new European Commission will not make it. We will continue going in the wrong direction which started in Maastricht and was reinforced in Lisbon years ago. I am rather pessimistic. I am not alone, there are many of us here in Europe these days who have the same feeling. The European elites, the European nomenclature, do not attention to it.

2. The EU critical political parties slightly improved their position but the EU uncritically supporting political parties have restructured and will easily block any meaningful change. They will try to accelerate the non-democratic unification and centralization of Europe, they will radically move in the green direction. They will support multiculturalismus and genderismus. They will continue supporting mass migration. And they will continue demonizing Russia and will continue non-cooperating with it. What is even more dangerous, they will more strongly attack anyone who wants a real change, anyone who wants freedom, democracy, free markets and national sovereignty and who dares to propose it. Again, a rather pessimistic view.

3. I hope the Visegrad Group countries will stay together even though they will be a strong pressure against them and even though their forthcoming domestic elections may complicate maintaining their very fragile unity. I strongly support the political stances of Hungary and Poland, I don´t see any nationalism there. On the contrary they help to restart a serious discussion in the EU. The attempts to silence the EU opposition are and will be counterproductive.

The former communist countries lost a lot in half a century of communism, but they gained something as well. Due to it, they are sensitive to all kinds of freedom, democracy and national sovereignty diminishing and weakening steps and measures which is a characteristics which the people in the countries of Western Europe don’t have. This is one of the reasons of the current disputes and discrepancies in the EU.  

4. To summarize, this year´s European elections didn’t guarantee a much needed change. On the contrary. Europe will – due to it – continue its already decades lasting relative decline and will become less and less able to be a serious player in the world affairs.

Václav Klaus, Boris Mints Institut,  Conflict Diplomacy in the Digital World, Řím, 20. září 2019