Editorial | European unity exercise

2023-10-05 23:42:12

The summit of the European Political Community meeting in Granada, a prelude to the European Council this Friday, described as informal, is more than justified by the need to renew the commitment of 47 countries to help Ukraine and to counteract the signs of decohesion that, in the face of a war as long as it is costly , appear from time to time on the horizon. With the crisis opened by Poland, and followed by some of its neighbors, regarding the difficulties posed to the import of Ukrainian grain, with the victory in Slovakia of the populist Robert Fico, a declared pro-Russian, and with the destabilization in the Caucasus.

The welcome given to the president Volodímir Zelenski and the demonstrations in support of Ukraine Ursula von der Leyen, Pedro Sanchez and other European leaders went in this direction. On the other hand, the possibility of the first day in Granada including a relevant intervention by the Union in the Nagorno-Karabakh crisis through Franco-German mediation to find a solution to the conflict that gives security guarantees to Armenia, after neither the president of Turkey nor the president of Azerbaijan attended the meeting. It is obvious that the interference of Russia It has been the spring that has prevented European diplomacy from trying to suture the wound. Moscow has sent another clear message to the participants in the summit, with the bombing of a small Ukrainian city far from the current combat zones and without any strategic value, with more than 50 dead.

In days of anxiety, Europeans must convey an image of complicity, even more so at the European Council this Friday, aimed at making progress on two key issues: management of migratory flows and the processing of future expansions towards 2030. The agreement in principle reached on immigration by the permanent representatives of the Twenty-Seven and the years of work of the European Parliament’s ‘ad hoc’ commission allow us to glimpse a minimum agreement on a matter of a human nature, often of a tragic nature, which is a cause of division between the EU partners, which polarizes public opinion and which largely supports the dull nationalisms of the extreme right. The practical application of the agreement will be the moment of truth as long as reservations proliferate and the situation does not prevail. solidarity with the countries on the southern flank of the EUso often ignored.

Unlike the expansion programme, which can be undertaken without time pressure, When it comes to immigration, it is of utmost urgency.and in the same way that unity is an essential ingredient to face the Russian challenge, it is also essential to address a reality as complex as the south-north migratory flows, the respect for human rights in extreme situations, the cost of welcoming newcomers and the need to maintain their demographic contribution to an aging continent. The experience accumulated by Europe since 2015, when a million refugees arrived on the continent, demands a precise and realistic commitment from the Union’s partners that puts an end to deaths at sea, expulsions without guarantees and reformulates agreements with third countries whose application there is no way to monitor.