Everything is going wrong. Yes, yes, listen carefully, read the newspapers, hear the most authoritative voices, they are saying that all is lost, because the next French presidential election would be won by Mrs Le Pen; because Netherlands has become ungovernable since its invention of anti-green populism; because poverty is spreading across Europe up to Berlin; because a “Ukraine fatigue” is threatening Europe as much as the United States and because the Union has just shown itself to be more appalling than ever by failing to come to the Armenians’ aid.
I do not know about you, but I cannot stand this refrain any more, because rather than lamenting day and night, these whiners from the 27 Member States might just accept to see that there is no place in the world where people live better and more freely than in the European Union, and that we have just asserted ourselves as a political power by buying our vaccines and borrowing jointly, arming Ukraine and finding immediate substitutes for Russian gas and oil.
The Union exists. The Union is growing and gaining muscle, even though its treaties were only intended to make it a power of trade and law, but since almost no one seems to take these facts into account, what can we say and what can we do?
It is simple: let go.
Do not try to ask any more whether the European Union should really have bombed Azerbaijan, or what the consequences of this “Ukraine fatigue” are in practical terms, even in Poland. Do not argue anymore, because the EU is by definition guilty. Join the chorus of the disillusioned and, from within the Union itself, say out loud: “And what will become of us between China and the United States, sandwiched between the two superpowers of this century?
It is worth a spoonful of magic potion. Europe’s ranks are suddenly closing, because nobody wants to be dominated by China, and nobody wants American domination of Europe either. The centre-left, the centre-right and the countries of central Europe even no longer want it, because Trump has shattered confidence in the American umbrella. The far left and far right never wanted it because the United States is imperialism for the former and libertarian amorality for the latter. Suddenly, in all public and private discussions, a unanimity is emerging against the obliteration of our countries and it is far from “all is bad, all is lost” that the debate can open up, in all directions.
From the centre, from the left, from the right, do you want to combat uncontrolled migration by contributing to the industrial development of Africa? Fine, let’s make it a common cause, but if the European Union is to become a credible interlocutor for the African Union and its capitals, isn’t it time we stopped blaming ourselves and constantly accusing ourselves of inefficiency, lies and cowardice?
Do you, the far right, want to protect us from a “great replacement” by deploying a European fleet? That is an approach worth discussing, but would not this European fleet in any case require a European Defence, which in turn requires a common foreign policy and budgets, in a word: a political Europe?
All of us, from the extreme left to the extreme right, want to help and protect the Armenians. That is fine, but should not we start by realising that, thanks to our joint efforts, we no longer need Baku’s oil and that we could get Azerbaijan to fully respect the rights of its Armenian minority because it needs our money?
Will the enlargement of the Union to include Ukraine and seven other countries obviously be complex? We all know this and we could have done without such a challenge, but if we want to put up a continental front against Mr Putin and not allow ourselves to be marginalised and then erased by Washington and Beijing, can we afford not to take it up? And once we do take it up, cannot we stop acting as if the Union of 35 should be a carbon copy of the Union of 27, when the European Union of tomorrow will have different degrees of integration, from a single common market to complete political unity?
If you do not want to hear it, a spoonful of magic potion is needed, right now, because it is not the difficulties of the road but the objective to be reached that all debate must start from.
