Issue No 13
September-December 2025
www.eesc.europa.eu/rex
Dear reader,
In its latest
Strategic Foresight Report Resilience 2.0 - Empowering the
EU towards 2040 and beyond, the European Union introduced a new concept
of resilience which will steer us through dramatically altered circumstances.
The pandemic,
for instance, disrupted value chains and triggered the realisation that some
production, such as vaccines and health devices, must be controlled within each
country or bloc of countries like the EU because it is fundamental to security.
The health response to the pandemic by public hospitals is a strategic resource
(now being underestimated in some countries), as are the critical materials needed
to continue our green and digital transitions.
Russia’s unjustified
and cowardly aggression against Ukraine of 24 February 2022 was another watershed. It has brought war back to
our continent and placed the security of our borders at the heart of our
strategic agenda, along with solidarity in the form of the essential support we
have been providing to the attacked and wounded Ukraine. We hope that a just
peace can be achieved as soon as possible, with the bill for reconstruction delivered
to the aggressor: yes, that bill must cover economic and financial losses, but even
more importantly it must factor in the human lives lost on both sides.
The war against
Ukraine broke a fundamental principle that had existed in Europe since the end
of the Second World War: you cannot change national borders through force. It
also inevitably led the EU to rethink its defence strategies for the EU as a
whole and for the Eastern, Baltic and Scandinavian border in particular. The
war is also having significant consequences for our energy autonomy, requiring
coordinated environmental energy policy responses
within the EU.
Although the
Ukrainian conflict has acquired paramount importance for the EU due to its
proximity, the loss of life and the social and economic impact, it is not the
only conflict in the world today.
In Palestine, Israel’s disproportionate response to the craven terrorist
attack perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October 2023 ignited another conflict that led
to the destruction of much of the Gaza Strip. That conflict is now being halted
by a truce –– although we do not yet know how long it will last if the prerequisites
for a genuine peace between Israelis and Palestinians are not in place. Peace must be built on solid foundations, not
on the showy joke of a reconstruction which was being presented by studios in
London and New York while bombs were still raining down on Gaza.
Beyond these two
conflicts, there is a whole series of forgotten wars. The war in
Sudan is one such war, and we are talking about it again thanks to the
satellite images transmitted by the
Humanitarian Research Laboratory of the American University of Yale of probable mass killings in and around
Al-Fashir. There are other conflicts plaguing Africa: in the Democratic
Republic of Congo against M23 rebels supported by Rwanda, in Somalia, in Mali,
Burkina Faso and Niger (the Sahel), as well as in Ethiopia and Mozambique.
This difficult
situation forces us to think seriously about how to ensure the worldwide
availability of global public goods such as peace, health security, a
sustainable environment (safeguarding sanctuaries fundamental to our existence
like rainforests, the Arctic, the Antarctic and oceans), the eradication of poverty,
global economic governance capable of ensuring economic and financial
stability, and fair world trade.
These goods are
fundamental for the coexistence of nations, since availability to one does not
diminish availability to others. They are all present in Article 3 TEU and we
in the House of Civil Society have the right and duty to make sense out of
those words. We need to step in for:
- peace anywhere in the world, from Ukraine to Gaza to Darfur;
- human rights that are currently disregarded when children are kidnapped from Ukraine or civilians are killed and humiliated in Gaza;
- social and labour rights that support the social and market economy that is the envy of the entire world;
- fair and sustainable competition which complies with trade regulations and social and environmental rights, and does not penalise those who compete with due regard for the rules of the game.
To achieve this, Europe
must become a global player once again as well as the point of reference that
it has been for many countries: it must not be relegated to the role of bit
part by the rivalry between two opposing mastodons, the United States and
China. Europe should come back to the political arena, inspire the rest of the
world and have the courage to make its voice heard.
The Europe we want will not be humiliated by accepting a trade
agreement imposed by an American administration gradually shifting away
from the liberal and democratic culture that has been the basis of
transatlantic relations for the last 80 years. An agreement signed in a golf
club in Scotland with the American president as the “golf player” and Europeans
reduced to the role of caddies. A deal which made the Financial Times claim
that Europe had sold its soul to Trump by sacrificing any possibility of denouncing the US
administration’s violation of the international rules laid down by the World
Trade Organization. Faced with the same challenge of tariffs, other
global players have reacted very differently –– not just China, but also
Canada, Brazil and Mexico.
I am bound and
determined to ensure that in these new scenarios where predatory global players
such as autocratic nation-states propped up by huge multinationals are
emerging, the EESC cannot and must not fail to support the European Union in speaking
out for a Europe that continues to uphold the principles and values
enshrined in its Treaties, in the UN Charter of Universal Rights and in the EU
Charter of Fundamental Rights, including respect for the rule of law in the EU
and beyond.
That is what we set
out to do in the REX section: at every opportunity, we try to find a shared
solution to the issues presented to us, both when preparing opinions and during
missions outside the EU. We will do this by analysing the situation and proposing
policy recommendations –– the challenge will not be easy but we will overcome
it with all our strength and professional skills, since we owe it to the civil
society that we are called upon to represent.
