🎙️ Yesterday we opened the Conference Days of the European Forum Alpbach. Around 800 guests, one annual theme: 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗪𝗶𝗻𝘀. Not a question. A task.

Today many behave as if all of our democratic achievements are normal. As if peace, freedom and the single market were part of the weather. I call them the 𝘀𝗹𝗲𝗲𝗽𝘄𝗮𝗹𝗸𝗲𝗿𝘀 — a word I borrow from Christopher Clark, who described the leaders of 1914 as watchful, but blind. They were not uninformed. They simply drew no consequence from what they saw.

🧭 A democracy stays strong as long as it can keep one promise: 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗼𝗺𝗼𝗿𝗿𝗼𝘄 𝗰𝗮𝗻 𝗯𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝘁𝗼𝗱𝗮𝘆. When that promise becomes uncertain, people do not become extremists overnight. First they become tired. Then they become angry. Then they stop listening.

That is why we need that hope for a strong Europe back again. And we can do this. We can deliver. Because we already know what to do. That is the encouraging part of this evening, and also the painful part.

📊 A single market of 450 million citizens, and a company still has to think in 27 versions of the same rule. Trillions in European savings, and hundreds of billions of it building someone else's economy every year. Rules we agree in Europe and make heavier at home, before calling the result Brussels bureaucracy.

𝗪𝗲 𝗱𝗼 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗸𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺. 𝗪𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺.

🤝 So the question is not what should be done. The question is why we still have not done it.

Europe wins when Europe acts together.

🔗 Full speech: https://lnkd.in/df3QhFVY

#EFA26 #HowEuropeWins

Fotos: Matthias Sedlak, EFA/Pichler