“These elections are not about Europe, or not just about Europe, they are about the health of our democracies, about what we must do to protect them.” This was said yesterday in Valencia at the New Economy Forum by the spokesperson for the European Parliament, Jaume Duch, who warned that these elections take place at a time “in which we see how the system is being repeatedly attacked.” I have known Jaume Duch since 1999 when I landed in Brussels as a correspondent for La Vanguardia. He already worked there.
He is a convinced Europeanist, a liberal in the classic sense of the word with social democratic overtones; an expert in the community institutional machine who, on every occasion offered to him, explains that these elections are, possibly, the most important since the European Union was born, for many reasons. There is a threat, he stressed, difficult, but not impossible, of altering the balance of power that has managed the European institutions, a balance forged between conservatives, social democrats and liberals. The rise of the far-right, which governs some member countries, could modify the scheme if the conservatives, the so-called European People’s Party, lean towards them. As Enric Juliana explains well, Manfred Weber, president of this group in Europe, would have no problems establishing alliances with the ultras and, in the process, kicking the socialists, with special emphasis on Pedro Sánchez.
But it’s not just that. Europe has been at war since Russia invaded Ukraine, and several of its member states are rearming, fearing that Putin’s expansionist desire will be insatiable if no one stops him. The EU is taking giant steps towards what Jaume Duch called “strategic autonomy”, that is, not depending on the US or NATO to defend itself if things get complicated. Even more so if the next American president is, once again, an anti-European like Donald Trump. But there are more threats, such as competing in a world where AI is going to play a determining role, with the US and China championing new technologies; avoid the electoral poisoning campaigns promoted by other countries that are altering the elections in the states, the risk of involution in individual rights in countries with the ultras governing or the urgency of being able to reduce dependence on other continents for materials, products and services.
Europe is our political and social space. Jaume Duch recalled that 60% of national legislation is conditioned by the agreements of the European Parliament, and without Europe, for example, the fight against Covid would have been slower and much less effective. To feel European is to know that we are defenders of values ??that, unfortunately, are clearly declining in the world. The European Union, he stressed, has become a reference and, therefore, the EU flag “is no longer just the institutional flag that we see on the masts of governments, of parliaments, in Brussels”, but It has become “the flag that allows many people in this world to demand a democratic regime, a regime of freedom that they associate with the European Union.”
The spokesperson defended the campaign motto to motivate voting in these elections: “Use your vote. If not, others will decide for you,” and it couldn’t be more accurate. Regardless of how the European campaign is managed in each State, what is evident, as Jaume Duch concluded, is that the differential factor of the European Union with respect to other geographies of the world is in the treatment it gives to rights and values. of its citizens. That is what is at stake in these elections.
