In my opinion, it is important that we do want to talk with each other in the first place. Zygmunt Berdychowski observes that there are countries, like Hungary or Turkey, where talks between the government and the opposition parties are not possible at all, since both sides are trapped in their own identity bubbles. Walls of aversion and hatred, contempt and mistrust have been built between the former parties to the political discourse.
How far are we from building such walls ourselves? Relatively far, since we are still willing to meet in the same place to talk.
This year the watchword of the Forum is: “Europe in search of leadership”. Quite a pertinent topic. Indeed, we all feel that the pandemic has only exacerbated the problems with leadership. The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted states to abandon an open border policy in favour of full closure. The peaceful transition to European integration has been halted by a major obstacle.
The other side of the problem is the increasingly evident tendency of European democracies to drift towards isolationism and autarchy. We can manage on our own! - this is the favourite slogan of the populists, who - despite their inflated patriotic rhetoric - are completely unprepared to govern a state in the age of rapidly progressing globalisation. This is a phenomenon that the pandemic has not been able to eliminate.
Brussels is doing its best to counteract it. It understands all too well that nationalist attitudes are hostile to integration, hence it has been accelerating the latter, frequently meeting with opposition from nation states.
