At a time when the European Union was renewing its institutions – with the European elections, the investiture of a new Commission, the appointment of a President of the European Council - the world was hurtling on without it being possible to identify in which direction. Despite a few certainties, it was an erring world (Erraticus in Latin)!
We now know that environmental issues are fundamental to the future of humanity.
We are witnessing a demographic collapse in many parts of the world and an explosion in others, which is likely to be one of the causes of destabilization and unprecedented migratory phenomena.
We can't help but be amazed by the advances in science, which are overturning even the most established habits. In health, security and space, artificial intelligence is challenging ethics and the human condition.
Democracies are shaken by populist revolts, which contest elections...or win them. In the United States, but also in Europe when democratic culture is recent, but also when it is old, in Central Europe, but also in France and Germany.
Together these doubts are fuelling a decline, but above all they feed anti-Western dissent, championed and sustained by totalitarian powers - China, Russia – who in reality are incapable of offering the hope of a better political and social organization, which would put humankind at its centre and respect our inalienable rights.
The inexplicable self-flagellation of the rich countries, with Europeans at the fore, in no way diminishes the fascination and attraction they exert, despite hostile propaganda, despite the so-called “Global South”, the BRICS and their mirages.
But war is back. 2024 saw some sixty conflicts across the globe, a record high since 1946!
With its trail of suffering, it is a reminder of just how capable the human race is of horrors. The Russians are excelling in it under Putin, and the Africans are not to be outdone - in Sudan for example. In Yemen, as in the Middle East, fires have been rekindled with violence. And the ominous shadow of even more serious conflicts hangs over the planet.
We are discovering “cognitive” warfare, a hybrid that misinforms and deceives, spreading lies, burdening connected individuals with falsehoods and slander, leading them to believe in their own decline.
‘Erratic birds’, the dictionary tells us, ‘move without following a fixed itinerary and do not return to their point of departure’. Such seems to be the world of 2024, which is engaged in a frantic race, without any clear direction.
In this landscape, Europe, tossed about and battered, faces many challenges.
It must ensure and guarantee its high level of prosperity, and to do this, it must adapt its economic policies to competition and to the fact that it is lagging behind the major continents. This requires a great deal of budgetary, monetary and industrial rethinking.
Fond of legislation and restrictions, it imposes more and more regulations at a time when so many are breaking away from them.
Its generous solidarity between States, between regions, between generations, between rich and poor, is being undermined, and has become very costly.
The geopolitical challenge it faces is historic. It can choose to assert itself collectively, relying on the democratic nations of which it is composed and building on their strengths. It can also reject the obstacle of principles from another age.
Yet it remains a beacon, pointing the way to an attractive, safe route, a space we want to reach, a culture we want to copy. It inspires dreams from without, while some despair from within.
To stay attractive, will it deploy as much effort as it has assets? In these unstable, erratic times, will it regain its faith, its conviction of what it is, a unique exception in a troubled world? Will it draw the strength of enthusiasm needed to build a future as bright as its past?
These are my wishes for 2025!
