When in the early 1990s the United States faced an economical recession, advising Bill Clinton in the then presidential election James Carville coined a slogan that for the next decades became a determinant of neoliberal reasoning (or further, neoliberal worldview). The economy, stupid! (Economics, fool!) was recalled most likely in all languages, drawing a slogan to the situation of the country, company or even private matters. In time, the word “economics” was replaced by an equally crucial noun, paying attention to needs, deficits or crises of another areas and disciplines. We inactive usage it, sometimes intuitively, sometimes at a time erstwhile we are bordering on resignation to show how close we are to the crisis, unless we are already in it.
Therefore, erstwhile the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union chooses “Safety, Europo!” as a slogan, it is hard not to find similarities. due to the fact that although the choice of words is much more subdued than in the US years ago, we have a strong diagnosis of Europe today, pointing to shortcomings in many areas, to the crisis of our widely understood safety (which well describes the priorities adopted for the next six months), but besides – which is to say small theatrical whispering – to the crisis of leadership as such. Leadership, without which stability, rationality or certain predictability, is simply not possible. The crises are multiplying – the upcoming elections in Germany, the instability of France, Austria incapable to form a government without the far right, Slovakia like a rushing car moving towards Russia, Hungary – though with small hope for a solid opposition – “safe” in Putin's embraces, Elon Musk with his appetites for interference in Old Continent politics, hybrid war, disinformation or yet general anxiety, tumultuous and so fragile substance of social resilience. That's a lot, and we didn't even get to the point, barely touching any problems. We would like to say, ‘Europe as it is, everyone can see’, but it is hard present to apply this old definition to a creature as complicated as our Union, to an organism whose interior and external life is in any ways in Polish hands.
Europe reports
It is not at all that the Union is not aware of these crises and challenges. It is not about patching holes in a multidimensionally bad yet almost absent Hungarian Presidency, which fell on the second half of last year. In a sense... this is even better, due to the fact that Orban did not have time to spoil anything, erstwhile the Union, apart from the regular course of affairs, was busy preparing for the beginning of a fresh administrative/institutional cycle which was forced first by the Euro-elections and then forming a new, enlarged and focused on the challenges of the European Commission's present day. The little or little silent strategy to address the effects, while at the same time requiring a "do your job", has helped the EU scope 2025 by January.
However, it is not for Europe to sleep or stay unreflexive. erstwhile you look at the year 2024, it can be defined as the time of reports, reliable analyses of the starting state, indicating solutions to "better tomorrow". The first is prepared on behalf of the Council of Europe, prepared by Enrico Letta, erstwhile Italian Prime Minister and president of the Jacques Delors Institute, a study on the past of the Single Market, indicating a gap between Europe and the United States erstwhile it comes to economical performance. Letta points out, among another things, that although "in Delors' time" (the head of the European Commission from 1985 to 1995) the associate States did not agree to the integration of the energy, telecommunications and financial markets, present erstwhile the Union is losingon this in terms of competitiveness, a shift in direction should be considered, considering a wider capital and energy union, which would let us to get closer to the US (and possibly catch up with them) and strengthen our competitiveness. An crucial part of Letta's recommendations is besides to extend the catalogue of freedoms in the EU market, which present includes the movement of people, goods, services and capital, to which the free movement of innovation should be added. And it is hard not to give him the right.
Since the word "competitiveness" has already been said, it is her second – possibly most commented on last year – study by erstwhile head of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, who warns against the "slow agony" of the EU economy, but besides forces her to "look to the future", towards competitiveness precisely, but besides towards the option of "sustainable prosperity". And it's not just that without forward thinking, we're going to stumble on our own legs, and we shouldn't even think about being the global leader of innovation and economical resilience. Draghi does not beat around the bush by pointing out that if we want to avoid slow agony while maintaining the priorities of fair, environmentally friendly improvement or maintaining jobs, we request costly solutions. However, according to his estimates, around EUR 800 billion per year is needed to regain competitiveness by the European Union. 400 pages – that much, or possibly just adequate – needed Dragha to analyse all sectors of the EU economy, as well as to identify prescriptions, giving a chance to improve their performance. However, the 3 challenges that will not always be pleasant and surely costly are the most important. Therefore, theAddressing the increasing investment gap between the European Union and the United States and China, peculiarly as regards fresh technologies. Next: a decarbonisation of the economy that will boost EU competitiveness. Finally, what we are about to change through all possible cases – safety both in the military, economic-geopolitic dimension and in any another way (which is reflected in the priorities of the Polish Presidency).
Security is the 3rd of the large reports published in 2024. Its author is the erstwhile president of Finland, Sauli Niinistö, in eighty recommendations made for European security, indicating in the first place that "together it is safer". This "together" refers, of course, to the Union as a community that should be able to strengthen its civilian and military capabilities, to identify and analyse possible threats and to respond to them early, to strengthen its civil, social and military resilience, to build crisis consequence skills and to increase their cooperation between the civilian population and the military. Niinistö straight mentions the request to strengthen awareness of existing threats: those resulting from information manipulation, cyber and hybrid threats, the anticipation of sabotaging or, finally, consequence to open aggression. The study besides proposes to make regulations establishing common standards for emergency preparedness so that decisions can be taken jointly, rapidly and efficiently, without getting active in multi-weekly or multi-monthly discussions or disputes. present we know that the Union's defence and safety orientation is simply a priority, and in addition to various responses to the study itself, it is worth remembering the fresh form of the European Commission itself, straight enriched with the position of Commissioner for Defence (former Lithuanian Prime Minister Andrius Kubilius), as well as the cooperation in the field of security, which involves cooperation with NATO, or, finally, the political appreciation of the experiences of the countries bordering Russia's immediate threat (the safety Commissioner was Finka, Henn Virkkunen, and the Vice-President of the European Commission and the advanced typical of the Union for abroad Affairs and safety Policy, Estonka Kaja Kallas). Defence and safety are so advanced on the list of EU priorities.
Chance or Lesson
So it is not that Poland starts the Presidency in a large void, that it is our occupation to bring light into the bureaucratic corridors, cure the infirmities and inefficiency, or yet "take over leadership". The second is not the nominal function of the Presidency, although its effective administration, together with the rational management of EU processes, can surely be a way towards it. The Presidency's task is, in a sense, to administer EU processes, to enclose erstwhile themes and processes, but besides to introduce fresh themes and problems requiring an efficient and expeditious consequence to the agenda, or to yet open fresh fields of discussion. As the first Presidency in the fresh organization EU cycle, Poland surely has the possible to creatively influence the form of fresh thinking. It besides faces the problem of managing a full array of topics, which inevitably combine under the umbrella the words "security".
Hearing “Security, Europo” many repeat: “Poland is facing a large chance today”, adding: “We hold our fingers!”. However, specified “keeping our thumbs” besides frequently led us to inaction or – how Polish – wisdom after harm. However, the 7 safety pillars identified are: external safety (and finally, in its framework of shaping relations with NATO, the US and another allies; improvement of military infrastructure or support for Ukraine), interior safety (border protection, improving the ability to deal with hybrid threats, terrorism, organised crime or yet a delicate issue specified as illegal immigration), information safety (when we inactive request to learn disinformation and to effort to destabilise policies and relations), energy safety (so crucial erstwhile we are talking about independency from Russia, the improvement of green energy or the way towards atomic energy) or, finally, safety in areas specified as food or wellness (where the first must be to strengthen the Common Agricultural Policy and to guarantee access to advanced quality food, and the second is not only drug safety and support for the production of medicines within the EU, but besides so powerfully stressed issues related to intellectual wellness of children and young people). That's... for starters.
The further into the forest, the more trees... due to the fact that the expansion of the community to the east Balkans, Moldova, the hard process concerning Georgia and... even more hard erstwhile it goes – not only for war reasons – to Ukraine. Subsequent stages of transformation, but besides the request for a creative consequence to recommendations appearing in the aforementioned reports. Each of them is simply a step into the Union, which we seem to want, despite the divisions. The Union that Donald Tusk says "Let us do everything we can to make Europe strong again." And he is right to repeat that the Old Continent must appeal to the sources of its strength, and those – from the times of the Founding Fathers – are in the values we share, in the solidarity that we can show, the sovereignty that we do not want to give up, in the freedom by which we defender our rights and yet in the strength that we request to find within ourselves, in order to emergence above smallness or privacy for ideas more important. The Presidency is besides mediation. The ability to get others to cooperate, the ability to agree on opinions and reconcile interests. We will request this 1 very much in the day, on the 1 hand, is full of external threats, and on the another hand,You gotta handle and solve cases in your own backyards.
