Politics
(Brussels) “We, Europeans, are the inhabitants of the smallest continent in the world”, “our economy is losing strength”, and we are increasingly irrelevant from a demographic point of view. The President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, said this in his address delivered at the Institute of European Studies of the Catholic University of Leuven yesterday and released today in Brussels. He maintained that “this is not the time to withdraw into our national languages and embrace provincialism”; rather, we need to “join forces” to make Europe move forward together. Starting with the military, we could save “between €25 billion and €100 billion per year which could be used for other policies or to make our common defence policy more effective”, that is to say, to make Europe’s “soft power” more credible. In order to make Europe grow, there is also a need to “bring Europe closer to its citizens”, for they are often tired of the fact that Europe is entering “all areas of their lives”. The European Commission has therefore reduced the number of initiatives and directives, but is working resolutely towards the “single market, digital Europe, the capital market, the energy market and the defence market”. Brexit is “a tragedy”, especially for young people who will grow up in a European context without knowing its boundaries. According to Mr Juncker, however, the time has come to “let those who want to advance more quickly do so, by putting in place a more structured framework, open to all”.
