The “Alarming” Shape of Europe & the Urgent Need to Reconstruct

While lamenting the changes that over-the-top liberalism has brought to Europe and the United States in particular, in an exclusive interview with Panorama TV show, John Crombez, leader of Belgium’s Socialist Party, also reflected on Georgia’s European aspirations and the this-time-for-sure to be granted visa free regime, on which the wise folks at Brussels hosted a definitive plenary session yesterday. Here is an excerpt from the full interview, pertaining to EU-Georgia relations and Mr. Crombez’s image of new Europe

“We need to work very hard to analyze and reassess what we have done wrong here, in Europe. The ongoing policies and European politicians pursuing them did everything to estrange its own population to common European politics. We didn’t really think through all of this and what we got was Brexit. What is even more troubling that even after Brexit happened it doesn’t seem like conclusions were drawn and Europe learned its lesson. Instead, it pretended as if nothing happened - While the British tell their citizens that Brexit will undoubtedly make their economy more robust and independent, we don’t have a single argument to tell both the EU citizens and those of Britain that no kind of fiscal and economic independency is going to make the British economy stronger if the EU suffers for it. From one side, we opened the door to our neighbors in Eastern Europe so that they may work freely anywhere on the territory of the European Union, while at the same time we created convenient conditions for European companies, to “force” them to expand and not stay squatting in only Britain, Belgium, Germany and France, instead operating in third countries. And while it may be considered a noble gesture, it wasn’t intended to bring about the regress of the European economy, unemployment and dissatisfaction of people with European politics. And at the end, it brought about Brexit – it wasn’t illogical after all, it was a logical conclusion, an expected collapse. Therefore, I think that the European family in its current form is in alarming shape and we need to start not only to think and muse, but to make practical steps towards reforming Europe into another shape; modernizing and reconstructing it. The problems we face are huge: elections are looming in The Netherlands, France and Belgium, and nobody knows what will happen and, to be frank, I’m not that optimistic. That’s why I said we need to “Reconstruct Europe”. And this reconstruction should happen really quickly – we need to find new relations, all the while not excluding those risk factors that we’re facing. Let’s take Georgia, for example. Personally, I commend the democratic processes and reforms that are taking place in Georgia. We are witnessing a very rational, stable government and that is reassuring. It had multiple democratic elections in a row – progress is there to see, and to celebrate and confirm this progress, we need to give Georgian citizens the possibility to freely enter EU countries. New, more robust political and economic relations should be maintained between Georgia and member countries of the European Union. At the same time, Georgia should address alleged problems of corruption, nepotism and rule of law and bring these up to European standards. The number of Georgian refugees in Europe should go down and this will happen when Georgia successfully tackles the abovementioned problems – When Europe shows you an example, you should learn from it and most importantly, use it!

Vazha Tavberidze