Europe must strengthen its own defense, support the UK rejoining the European Union, and make immigration work amid aging societies as internal divisions and geopolitical tensions are threatening the continent's future, says Timothy Garton Ash, Professor of European Studies emeritus at the University of Oxford and a Senior Fellow of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.
[Original in Spanish. This is a paraphrased automated translation with minimal edits.]
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"Jean Monnet wrote in his memoirs that [the European project] needed the British for two reasons: because they are very good at making the institutions work and because they have love for freedom. I think he was right, and that both arguments are still in place," says Garton Ash.
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"I was excited when I heard [British Prime Minister Andy Burnham] announce [defines the Brexit as a failure and does not rule out a possible re-entry of the United Kingdom into the EU], because in recent years public opinion has been far ahead of politicians. Finally someone dared to say: the Brexit has not worked, let's look at what options we have. That's just what to do. I have no doubt that the best option would be to re-enter the EU, if there are a majority of British people who want it, and if so the European Union also wants it," he explains.
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"Although it is clear that the policy needed to achieve that goal, here and across the channel, will be very difficult," he admits, without losing hope. "The pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will," will repeat over and over again the maximum of the Italian intellectual Antonio Gramsci throughout our talk to explain his hope for the European project, despite the very delicate moment that it is going through.
"Everything that has been achieved [in Europe] since 1945, which many young Europeans take for granted, ... could end up destroyed very quickly. ... If you think it is worth keeping this Europe we have, you must do something about it," Garton Ash passionately defends.
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[Garton Ash] is concerned about the situation the EU is living today: "China, from an economic point of view; Russia militarily, and the United States, politically. A triple challenge that Europe had never faced before. And at a time when we are internally divided and with problems; and we must also respond to so-called global challenges, such as climate change or artificial intelligence," he summarized.
The urgency is called Ukraine, whose future is unquestionably linked to that of the EU, according to Garton Ash. "I think we are right to give full military, political and economic support to Ukraine. Our own security depends on it, and this is not a rhetorical formulation. All this hybrid war Putin is deploying against Europe is seeking to break unity around Ukraine," he explains.
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"Much of the attention [in Eurpoe] is focused on irregular immigration. The most dramatic case, no doubt, was Ceuta's. Seeing all these people swim, people concluded that the state was not in control of the situation. It is no coincidence that the great success of the Eurosceptics slogan in the UK was' Take back control '," he explains.
"When people talk about immigration, they do not refer to the number of people who arrived last year, but to the cultural, social and demographic change that has occurred in the last 50 or 60 years. It is a difficult problem to address, but the reality is that we have an ageing population, a large welfare State and economies that are not growing too much. We need immigration, we have no choice but to make it a success," says Garton Ash.
"And should the EU respond to all these challenges? Are our current leaders up to it?" I ask you, before we say goodbye.
"The problem is that very few of [European politiicans] are systematically defending the need for a stronger Europe in the area of their domestic policy. Because the policies we need today, in areas such as defence, capital markets or IA, must be European. But we also need Europeanism to start at home. Our politicians must defend the need for Europe on their national level. But not all responsibility lies with the leaders. It must also be demanded of the citizens."
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