Pessimism is intellectually chic. Optimism is never regarded as realistic. Optimism is always regarded as naïve but today, too bad for me, I will be optimistic – optimistic but not blind nor naïve.

As you do, I know that the United States of America, the richest and most powerful democracy in the world, the country which was the main force behind the victories against Nazism and Communism, could break with democracy, liberties and human rights. America could become a kind of Hungary, Orban’s Hungary, if Donald Trump were reelected tomorrow. India already became a democratorship, half a democracy, half a dictatorship. China is not at all ashamed, just the opposite, to explain that democracy is a weaker system than its one party regime and there is, in the largest democracies, an intellectual exhaustion of the left and the right and a democratic fatigue in public opinion.

With an economic crisis becoming frightening because of the pandemic, we have all reasons to fear that this century could see the end not only of European unity but also of democracy all around the world except, may be, in Norway, but no!

I don’t share this rather common view and I would like to tell you why.

First point: there is a democratic fatigue but only in democratic countries. Hong Kong dreams of liberties as Iran does and the Arabic countries do. Viktor Orban lost the ten largest Hungarian cities at the last local elections and is clearly afraid – and rightly so – of losing his majority in the next national elections. The demonstrations in Poland are very impressive and, there, the conservative majority is more and more divided since the presidential election.

Next point: there is a Putin fatigue in Russia. Mr. Putin is in a very poor situation in the Middle East because his only ally, the Iranian regime, is weakened by Iraqi and Lebanese crises, the economic sanctions and the pandemic. Bachar al Assad and Putin won the war but this is a Pyrrhic victory and Putin is in a deadlock in Ukraine and now Belarus, less and less popular and unable to restore the economic situation because the oil prices will not increase in the coming years.

With or without Putin, the Russian elite will have to try to reach a security and cooperation agreement with the European Union because the Chinese option would be a national suicide.

Third point: the idea of a common European Defence is not anymore a taboo in the member states, not even in Poland, because everybody understood that Europe is not anymore a national priority for the United States. What was already clear during the Georgian crisis and the Syrian war became official with Trump and would not change with Biden. There will be a European Defence, roughly speaking in two decades, and this will change a lot of things because…

Next point: because a European union with a European currency, common rules, common industrial policies, common investments, common institutions and a common Defence will be more than a simple Union. Confederation or Federation, it will be already an actor on the international stage, a wealthy one, able to negotiate a new alliance with the US, a coexistence with Russia and a new economic complementarity with the south rims of the Mare nostrum.

Fifth point: There will be no certainties. Everything will be difficult but we will succeed because it is a necessity and because, strangely enough, Russia and the US will need a strong European Union, both of them because of China.

Next point: Therefore, the two European priorities should be to put on the table, as soon as possible, proposals to Washington and Moscow, ideas for a new Atlantic alliance and a new Helsinki agreement.

Point seven : If Mr. Trump were reelected this week, it would be easier to find unanimity on foreign affairs inside the Union. With Mr. Biden as the next American president, European unanimity will be more difficult to reach but the new team in Washington could understand rather quickly that it would be in the best American interest to have a strong ally in Europe willing to finance its own Defence.

Next point: Polls show a deep political confusion in Europe except on European unity and populist movements. Europeans – and now not even people in the United Kingdom – don’t want to leave the EU and the new nationalists, on the other hand, are losing ground in almost every country.

Next point: There is every reason to hope that Joe Biden will be elected this week.

Tenth and last point: All things considered, it’s not too optimistic to reject pessimism and to expect, in this century, the survival of democracy and the birth of a strong and political union of a new kind: The Unites states of Europe, politically united in cultural, historical and institutional diversity.