European Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos, emphasiaed this Tuesday at the Forum Europa in Brussels that the EU "has always been built by those who dared to think beyond the limitations of their time."
Marta Kos stated this at a briefing organised by the New Economy Forum in the EU capital, where she was introduced by S&D MEP Nacho Sánchez Amor, who emphasised that during the previous term, the relationship between the European Parliament and the Enlargement Commissioner "was quite turbulent, stormy, to say the least".
Sánchez Amor considered that Slovenian Kos carries "in her personal and collective memory" the demands of the accession process, which "turns any country upside down" and "guarantees great empathy" for one of the "most transformative tasks that will define the European Union in the coming decades".
In her speech, the Commissioner noted that today the EU is home to 450 million people, has an economy ten times larger than Russia's, "and we are much more innovative and technologically advanced".
She also argued that there are countries around the world that want a free trade agreement with Europe, and framed this within the context of the destabilisation created by the announcement of the tariffs that the United States intends to impose on the European Union.
And countries are turning to the EU, she argued, "because we are predictable, we are trustworthy", despite the fact that "some say we are bureaucratic and that our decision-making process is slow".
"I am optimistic about Europe; I know we have the capacity to adapt and reform", she argued, affirming that Europe has always reacted well to crises, as recently occurred with the COVID-19 pandemic. "Our Union has always been built by those who dared to think beyond the limitations of their time", she reflected.
Kos also cited the figure of her late mother, born in 1932, and recalled that whenever they had family problems, "she would say that as long as there was no war, everything would be fine".
Therefore, she maintained that, although the war in Ukraine has now lasted three years, the arrival of the Donald Trump administration in the US has created new challenges, "and I think we are responding well".
The Commissioner argued that "we can really be strong" and that the EU sometimes lacks self-confidence. After admitting that defense is not a common European policy, she asserted that "there is an interest among most Member States and partners like the United Kingdom and many others" to work together "on a peace project".
"That is why I consider enlargement so important today", she emphasised, because it seeks to create "a great community that will protect values", not just to make the European Union larger in square kilometers or in number of inhabitants.
Kos emphasised that the EU would be nothing without values; it's no longer just about the economy. She argued that more time is needed to explain to candidate countries that press freedom counts and that they should have freedom of expression.
The goal, she concluded, is actually the unification of Europe, which the Romans attempted, then the Habsburgs, and Napoleon. "They didn't succeed; we have the opportunity to achieve it", she added.
