Thank you for having me here tonight.
It's a good coincidence that at this difficult - perhaps even dramatic - time in the history of the European Union, I have the opportunity to address business people, entrepreneurs and managers. Because today Europe really needs the features that are typical of your environment: responsibility, pragmatism, common sense and numeracy skills. Your sense of practicality has told you to concentrate on the issues linked to your activity. And rightly so, because in fact it is you who decide about things that are crucial for ordinary people: employment, wages, the quality of our everyday environment. Today, however, we must all together think about the challenges of a more general nature. Whether or not we rise to these challenges will affect not only the economic future of Europe, but also its very existence as we know it. At stake is the liberal-democratic order, along with whole catalogue of values and principles, which have become a foundation of Western civilization.
Key to this civilisation was - and still is - a multidimensional notion of freedom as well as respect for rules established precisely to protect that freedom. The birth of that system was directly linked to the needs and desires of those who hundreds of years ago were creating European trade and entrepreneurship. It was for them the merchants, producers, the sailors for whom freedom and efficient law enforcement were vital. And it was the economy that determined the establishment of a liberal-democratic order, at the same time becoming its main beneficiary.
The history of this part of Europe with its trade centres of Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges and Amsterdam, is the best illustration of this. Please forgive me the historical remark: I am not mentioning this because I am a historian by profession, but because of the necessity of the moment. Simply speaking: from many angles - and for different reasons - the foundations of democratic capitalism as well as Europe's political and axiological position are being questioned. If we fail to interpret these threats accurately, if we make political mistakes or commit the sin of omission, we will not survive in our current shape. That's why it is so important that Europe's business circles do not leave politics to the politicians alone, because that would be gambling in its purest form. It is politics - whether good or bad - that will ultimately decide the future of our continent, including your fields of activity. Politics has returned to the stage. And whether you like it or not, you must also play a part in it, because it is also your right, your duty and your interest to keep a watchful eye on the politicians. Both here in the European institutions, and in national capitals.
Let us focus on two issues. One, we must at all costs maintain and strengthen the political unity of the West. I mean the West in a political - not geographical - sense. We discussed this at the G7 Summit in Japan, among other things. Today it is becoming increasingly clear that a new international order may not necessarily follow our rules. Above all it is about the rule of self-restraint of the most powerful. Today, respect for the rules, agreements, and the institutions which supervise those rules, is not entirely a common phenomenon. And in a world without rules, the most brutal and insolent will be the ones who win, while the weaker and decent ones will lose. If we want to globally and effectively counter events such as violations of territorial integrity, vide Ukraine and Russia, territorial claims at sea, as in South-East Asia, breaching world trade regulations, as in the overcapacity in the steel industry, to mention but a few issues discussed at the last G7 Summit, we must stand united. A world which respects the standards present in the EU and the US, in Canada and Japan, and this is not a full list, is a better world than the one defined by a lack of rules, the use of force and short-term interests. That's why it is so important that in our debate about TTIP, CETA (the agreement with Canada), or EPA (with Japan), we remember about the strategic and geopolitical dimensions of those agreements.
Two, we have to maintain the internal European order. I don't need to explain to anyone present here what dramatic consequences, also economic, would be brought about by Brexit. An interesting forecast was presented by José Angel Gurria, Secretary General of the OECD at the G7 summit. According to him, a UK exit would be a major negative shock to the UK economy, with economic fallout in the rest of the OECD, particularly in other European countries. By 2020, UK's GDP would be over 3% smaller than otherwise. And by 2030, in a central scenario, GDP would be over 5% lower.
It is even worse when we look at the effects of a possible break-up of Schengen. The European Commission calculates the direct costs of 'non-Schengen' to be between 5 and 18 billion euros per year. A study by the Bertelsmann Foundation is even more dramatic when it says that Germany alone would face additional costs of between 77 and 235 billion euros in total by 2025.
Such may be the economic costs of our political mistakes and omissions. But we know that there are more threats, and the migration crisis has shown how difficult it is today to agree a common European answer and foster common determination in the decision process. However, the greatest threat to Europe is self-doubt and a lack of energy in the pro-European mainstream, as opposed to excessive energy among the radicals and extremists. There is no worse prospect for the European economy than the omen of a triumph of anti-liberal and Eurosceptic political forces, whether left or right. We must and can avoid this scenario. The condition is to depart from utopian dreams and move on to practical activities, such as for instance reinforcing the EU's external borders or consistently completing the Banking Union. Forcing lyrical and in fact naïve Euro-enthusiastic visions of total integration, regardless of the obvious good will of their proponents, is not a suitable answer to our problems. Firstly because it is simply not possible, and secondly because - paradoxically - promoting them only leads to the strengthening of Eurosceptic moods, not only in the UK. As one of the key players of European integration Hubert Védrine recently said: "You see governments and parties all over jumping up and down asking for 'more Europe, more Europe!'” “If you want people to massively reject Europe, just keep on."
While remaining liberal, creative and brave in our social, intellectual and economic lives, in our political lives we should rather be guided by a conservative reflection. Radical and violent political changes will lead us towards entropy and chaos, not towards a better order. Europe in its present shape deserves more patience. An ideological drive forward can end in a disaster. That's why what we desperately need today is cool heads and warm hearts. Not the opposite.
And let us not forget: when you look too far ahead, you can easily trip over and fall. Thank you.
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