Europe is living in a “dark age“, after the world has moved from cooperation to conflict and from managed competition to transactionality. This was stated by the President of Finland, Alexander Stubb, at the opening of the academic year at the College of Europe in Bruges.
In his speech on October 26, Stubb compared the present to the period after the end of the Cold War, which he described as an “age of light“. According to him, about 30 years ago there were much more reasons for optimism – The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union has collapsed, and democracy, capitalism and freedom have seemed victorious over communism, autocracy and control.
“Light has given way to darkness“, said the Finnish president. He pointed out that international rules are already being broken, and relations between states are increasingly built on deals and pressure, rather than on common rules and long-term cooperation.
Europe between Russia and the United States
According to Stubb, Europe is “perhaps more united than ever”, but at the same time it is facing pressure from two directions. “We are facing a security threat from the East - namely from Russia - and political pressure from the West - namely from the United States“, he said.
The Finnish president said that Europe is becoming more autonomous and more geopolitical. Trade, energy and technology are no longer just areas of economic development, but are also used as instruments of power. Thus, according to him, dependencies, markets and technological capabilities are increasingly directly influencing security and international politics.
Stub spoke to students starting their studies at the College of Europe – an institution where he himself studied in 1994-1995. He recalled that at that time the European debates were focused on the enlargement of the European Union, the euro, institutional changes and democratic reforms, and the main disputes were about politics, power and finance, not war.
Call to the new generation
Despite the gloomy assessment, Stubb did not call for pessimism from the students. He said that education gives them the opportunity to influence the future and change the direction of development.
According to him, the new generation will have to develop technological solutions for climate change, direct artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity and find ways to end conflicts. Stubb urged the students to be able to say in 30 years that they helped “turn the dark ages back into the light ages“.
Sources: 360livenews.com, lokaalnieuws.online