The High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice President of the European Commission, Josep Borrell, assured this Friday that the world is living in the “greatest geostrategic risk”. since the missile crisis of 1962 in the middle of the Cold Warwhich reminds him of the political situation before the Second World War.
Borrell explained this during his speech at the solemn investiture ceremony at the proposal of the Institute of European Studies as an honorary doctor of the University of Valladolid, an institution that also highlighted his “remarkable teaching projection” as well as his research. with a “geostrategic dimension in Spain and the EU”.
Precisely in relation to this international panorama, Borrell has assured that the current moment is characterized by the discovery in Europe of “the harshness of a harsh, conflictual and dangerous world for which we were not prepared,” because essentially “the EU is based.” “in the rejection of violence. In their denial.”
Is this a violence that Europe “was not prepared for” and that “will mark the most immediate future,” such as the “war of aggression against Ukraine and the war between Israel and Palestine with the tragedy of Gaza.”
“Europe is a herbivore in a world of carnivores”illustrated Borrell, who has warned of the geostrategic implications of the transition from interstate conflicts to “asymmetric” conflicts between powers and states and terrorist organizations.
And as for the future of the European Union, he compared the two existing models: one made up of member states that see the Union as a “club” where it is only a matter of “knowing how much donated and how much will be received”. “ and another from the States. who believe in a “federal and common destiny” for which he “always fought.”
In his speech, the High Representative of the European Union addressed the two main conflicts that, as he stressed, will shape Europe's immediate future, such as the war between Ukraine and Russia and that between Israel and Palestine.
Regarding the conflict affecting European soil, Borrell has summarized it as a war between a “sovereign power against an imperial one” of a country (Russia) that is “unable to break away from its colonial vision and its identity as an empire “which also elected the Tsars, the Soviets and now Putin.”
“As long as Russia continues to choose this imperialist path, it will continue to be an authoritarian, nationalist, violent regime and a threat to its neighbors and Europe,” he warned.
Hatred is passed down from generation to generation
On the other hand, with regard to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, Borrell has spoken out in favor of “imposing from outside” the creation of a Palestinian state despite Israel’s current refusal and thus ending the conflict, because otherwise the “spiral of hatred” threatens generation after generation carry on.
“Hamas has been funded by Israel for years to try to disempower the Palestinian Fatah authority.”said Borrell, who has “urgently” called for a humanitarian pause in which the situation in Gaza “stabilizes,” the Israeli hostages are “released,” and Israel “withdraws from Gaza” as soon as that happens.
The trade dispute between the USA and China, local conflicts such as that between China and Taiwan or who will be the future president of the USA are other topics that Borrell addressed in his speech, in which he warned at the end “The supremacy of the West in the world is coming to an end” in a world where history is “no longer measured in years but in weeks and months,” he added
