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Notes for Karpacz 2024: Is the EU 20 Years after our Entry in It Greater?

English Pages, 4. 9. 2024

Many thanks for the invitation and for the opportunity to speak here. To speak here again. Because of some other commitments, I missed the last year’s Forum, I am all the more pleased to be here now.[1]  

I like to come to Karpacz for many reasons, but one of them is very personal. I have a weekend apartment on the other side of Karkonosze and enjoy getting a chance to see Mount Śnieżka from the north. I look at it normally from the south.

The title of this year’s Forum indicates optimism. It suggests that the “Time of New Leaders” is on the horizon. I am not so optimistic. In addition to it, looking at the title I am not sure I belong here. I am definitely not a new leader. The second half of the title says “Shaping the Future Together”. I do not possess the unhumble ambition to shape the future. I am an old leader (and perhaps a former leader) who is – at least I hope – not yet spoiled by the post-democratic, post-political, progressivist spirit of the day which rules in many countries of the West. I hope to find here, in Karpacz, that many Poles see it similarly and are aware of the dangers hidden in the current era. Once again, thank you for bringing me here.

My first point, perhaps a question, if not disagreement, is connected with the title of this session which says “20 Years of the Greater Union”. I feel, first, a problem which may look like a linguistic one only, but it is not. Is the EU greater (in the sense of Donald Trump) or is it only larger? A second problem is that – looking at it geographically and economically – the EU is probably not even larger now. Due to Brexit, the EU is smaller and weaker than it was 20 years ago. I know – of course – that Mme von der Leyen would not agree with such a statement. But it is true. 

When it is not larger, is the EU greater? I am not sure. The EU is certainly not “closer”, it is not more united and more harmonic, it is more disputed and there are more doubts about its meaning these days. The EU is also not more loved and respected by the citizens of individual member states. Their hearts have not yet moved from the capitals of the member states to Brussels despite all the ambitious institutional shifts organized by the EU Commission under Ursula von der Leyen.

I dare say that the EU is more divided now than it was 20 years ago. This change is connected with several conceptually mistaken EU initiatives which were introduced in the last years:

- with the unnecessary overreach of the EU ruling bureaucracy, which tries to dictate even the smallest details of life in individual countries;

- with the irrational energy policy known as the Green Deal which makes us all poorer and which substantially redistributes the positions of winners and losers of the economic “game”;

- with the European migration policy (characterized by the famous saying “wir schaffen das”) which destroys both the European culture as well as the coherence of individual member states;

- with the unstructured and poorly explained and justified support of Ukraine in the current Ukraine war which is becoming a new fundamental factor dividing and destabilizing Europe;

- with the Gaza war, different from the previous one as there is no explicit EU policy towards it. Etc. Etc.

Let’s accept for a moment the adjective “greater” (as opposed to larger). When talking about a greater union, is it a positive (descriptive) statement or a normative one? Is it a statement about the reality or about the plans or ambitions of European politicians? Just two comments to that:

When we carefully look around, we should acknowledge that not all individuals in the EU are eager to create a greater union. Even many Czechs and Poles (and other nationalities) don’t want a closer, which means more unified, more centralized Europe. They – and I belong among them – want to preserve the nation state as the cornerstone of the European integration process. They don’t want to be artificially, inauthentically, involuntarily “unified” as individuals.  

The same is true at the macro level. Not all nations (and states) in Europe want a greater (which means closer) Europe. Larger countries may be in favour of it because they are not afraid of losing their identity through European unification. Smaller countries see it differently and have legitimate concerns. (This may also explain the differences between the attitudes of the Czech Republic and Poland towards EU developments.)

Let me conclude by repeating my main message. I am not in favour of a closer union, therefore I don’t need a greater union. I am in favour of a looser association of countries in Europe. I take – with all my respect – Poland as a country, not as a European province or region.

These (and many other) questions should be raised and discussed openly and without aprioristic, politically predetermined stances. I am glad that this Forum is a place where such discussion is possible.