Gabor Horvath: Strongly pro-European government in Poland opens a fresh opportunity
16.01.2024
Gabor Horvath
A Paris-Berlin-Warsaw axis of force driving integration on a new course.
Recent events and trends also cause concern for the European Union, whether the EU and particularly the member states, will be able to maintain the balance between federalism and sovereignty. What the process of deepening European integration will be? Gabor Horvath, the deputy editor-in-chief of the Hungarian newspaper Népszava, shared his vision with our media.
According to French European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who was present at the 2020 meeting in Davos, then-US president Donald Trump told Commission President Ursula von der Leyen: «You need to understand that if Europe is under attack, we will never come to help you and to support you.» He added, «By the way, NATO is dead, and we will leave, we will quit NATO». «That was a big wake-up call, and he may come back,» Breton said, according to Politico. No wonder that as the commissioner in charge of the EU’s industrial policy and defense agenda, Breton has pushed for the EU to boost its self-defense capabilities amid Russia’s war in Ukraine, and on Tuesday floated a 100-billion-euro fund to ramp up arms production in the bloc.
Even before Politico dropped this bombshell, Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani told the newspaper La Stampa that the European Union should form its combined army that could play a role in peacekeeping and preventing conflict: «If we want to be peacekeepers in the world, we need a European military. And this is a fundamental precondition to be able to have an effective European foreign policy.»
These are just the latest indicators of the unintended consequences of Vladimir Putin’s aggression. If there was any substantial debate about whether the union should move towards federalism or remain the «Europe of nations», the growing outside pressure has seemingly decided the issue. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is currently the only leader arguing against a more deeply integrated EU. All the others see the sign on the wall: there is no effective common defense and foreign policy without strengthening the federalist nature of the union. Striping Orbán of his veto power in matters of foreign affairs is one more clear indication of where Europe is heading — with or without him.
The process is naturally not without difficulties and outright dilemmas. But the new, strongly pro-European government in Poland opens a fresh opportunity: a Paris-Berlin-Warsaw axis of force driving integration on a new course. Accidentally, these are some of the strongest supporters of Ukraine’s war effort — getting ready to go ahead even if a year from now Trump does return to the White House to complete the whack-job he talked about in 2020.
Maryna Kovalchuk, Newssky’s correspondent (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland), head of the V5 Media project, and deputy editor-in-chief, spoke.
