Europe in the World Days Welcome Speech by Andreas Treichl

This is the 80th time the European Forum Alpbach takes place.

Next year it will see its 80th birthday. Alpbach was founded at the end of August in 1945. The war in Europe had already ended, it was about to end in Japan.

The forum was founded by a group of scientists and resistance fighters, who had one goal: to give the young European generation the perspective of a democratic future to prevent that all the bloodshed and hate that they had lived through all their lives would never ever be repeated.

Next year, if everything goes well, we will celebrate 80 years of peace in Western Europe. That’s for European standards and a record period of time.

We would have been able to celebrate 80 years of peace in all of Europe, hadn’t it been for the wars in former Yugoslavia and hadn’t it been for the brutal attack of Putin on Ukraine.

If you leave everything else aside, wouldn’t it be time to think about the accession of the remaining European states into the European Union? As fast as possible. Just because of peace!

30 years ago, we celebrated the accession of Austria and Sweden and Finland and we grew the EU to 15 member states. If we look back at that time, in the middle and late 90s, we started opening the boarders within the Union, we celebrated Erasmus, we celebrated the fact that we turned the EU into the largest and most successful consumer market in the world. We celebrated a lot in the late 90s!

Then came 2004, and we expanded the union again by 10 members at the same time, from 15 to 25. With Cyprus and Malta, but manly with our friends in Eastern Europe. From the Baltics down to Hungary.

We had a blast, we were on our way up,

The unification had worked and we all benefitted from it.

And then – somewhere around that time something happened.

Anti-European forces had always been around, but I guess for a pretty long period of time they were silenced simply by Europe’s success.

With the economic and political success of Europe slowly fading away, the became more powerful. Like now, they claimed everything that went well for the nation states and blamed everything that went baldy to the European Union.

Then Brexit came.

And today, 8 years later, I think we have to accept the fact that Europe is not a leader anymore. Neither economically, nor politically.

We have become the masters of regulation, big announcements and mediocre execution.

That brings no joy, that brings no pride,

that does not create jobs.

It is the nation states’ fault? Yes.

It is the EU’s fault? Yes.

Wo what do we need to do?

The first step to solve a problem is to realize that you a problem.

We had brilliant politicians in the past, we had not so good ones in the past, in the EU and in the nation states. And we have the same situation now.

But let’s take one example – and I apologize to many other politicians, because there are many more examples.

Think back to Poland 20 years ago. Very Catholic. Very conservative. A country of argriculture and nastily stolen cars. At least, that was the image back then. Then, in 2007, Donald Tusk takes over. Within 7 years, he transforms Poland into a brilliant economic region, he turns Poland liberal and open-minded. Throughout the financial crisis, Poland was the most successful European state.

Then Tusk became president of the European Council in 2014.

Tell me one accomplishment that Donald Tusk stands for during his period in this position until 2019 that was a breakthrough? I haven’t found one.

Now Donald Tusk is Prime Minister of Poland again and he rocks the country. Hopefully he is successful again.

I would love to see the EU rocking.

It’s up to you to make this happen!

I want to see great politicians finding ways to rock the EU and its institutions.

I want pride and joy coming back about our accomplishments!

The present and former President of the European Commission acknowledged that Europe lost out on the internet, on digitalization and AI, but promised that we will lead the green transition.

And Europe is leading the world in the regulation of the green transition!

But it’s not leading the transformation.

That’s not good enough!

The present and former President of the European Commission took a very clear and powerful position towards supporting Ukraine.

Some of the nation states took strong actions but unfortunately not strong enough. Ukraine’s dire situation in the second year after the attack is proof of it.

We live in a brutal world, in which success demands longterm, full and decisive commitment of everybody involved.

If we do not have that commitment that for topics that are crucial for the future of Europe, like defending our territory, our environment, democracy and rule of law and our prosperity - we will fail.

We presently live in a world with 2 superpowers.

One is a capitalist country under the control of a dictatorial communist regime.

The other one is a capitalist country in which wealth created in the hands of a very few is so gigantic that it can influence politics in an unprecedented manner.

Let’s hope that the US will go into the right direction.

Let’s see which direction India will be taking.

Let’s see where Africa is going, the Middle East, the connection of BRICS states that try to create another geopolitical order.

But I guess for the next decades, one more geopolitical power that can live a healthy balance between politics the business world and civil society, would be just great for the world.

It’s this balance that is the pillar of democracy, rule of law, freedom and human rights.

If we want that kind of Europe, we have to create a stronger Union.

We need a defense union to secure our borders wherever we define them - without outside help.

Does this weaken the sovereignty of the Nation States? Yes. But it makes each of them stronger!

If the union wants to lead the world in green tech, does it weaken the Nation States’ sovereignty? Maybe yes, but it will make them stronger.

There are many other unions that we need to finalize, like the capital markets union, the communications union, the transportation union. All topics for which sovereignty is totally unimportant and they will all make Europe stronger!

And with all those things we should not wait as long as we waited in the airline industry.

Are Belgium or Austria less sovereign since their local airlines are owned by Lufthansa? Definitely not, but it took them 50 years to find out. Let’s be a little faster with everything else.

We have to make a choice!

One part of the European spectrum of political parties has made its choice:

the nationalistic parties. They clearly stand for less Europe instead of more Europe.

With this position, they make it very clear that they are not a bit interested in Europe being a partner in shaping the future of the planet. With this position, they make it very clear, that they are not interested in Europe being souverain.

As a consequence,

In terms of defense, we will remain at the mercy of the US or we do like Hungary and cozy up with the Russians and the Chinese at the same time.

Nationalistic parties fully neglect the fact that politics, the world’s economy, and the business world have taken a dramatic shift in the sense – whether that’s good or not! - that size matters like never ever before.

If Europe wants to be able to compete with the US and China, we need champions. In green tech and in many other industries.

And we should demonstrate to the world that you can be very successful without longing for military supremacy by just being able to protect your sovereignty.

Nationalists do not care about all of that. But the liberals, christian and social democrats and greens just do not act decisive enough and fast enough.

Getting to action is what Alpbach is here for.

This is the moment of truth.

Here in Alpbach we have great minds from science, politics, business, civil society and the arts. And we have the best and most diverse group of the young generation that I can imagine. And they are all here for to fight for a better Europe.

Together, and only together we can help to create a better Europe.

A Europe that knows exactly what it wants and knows exactly how to get there.

A Europe full of pride, joy and happiness.