Navracsics: EU at crossroads

Circumstances inside and outside the EU have changed in recent times such that the bloc must confront momentous decisions, the former EU commissioner said at the opening of a three-day international conference at Archiepiscopal College of Veszprem.

Navracsics said the EU could be seen as an economic community, a federative unit or a cultural community, and the question had emerged: how should the EU move forward.

Noting the war under way on the EU’s eastern borders and challenges to the bloc’s economy in the aftermath of the pandemic, he said Europe’s economy was sagging.

The first model sees the EU as an economic community, focusing on the common market and does not raise political expectations of its member states, Navracsics said.

The second sees it as a federative unit, in a process of development and increasingly poses political requirements to member states, he added.

“The third model, my preferred one, views the EU as a cultural community,” he said. Promoting better understanding of nations and the enrichment of European culture, it would operate as a “community of communities” tied together by a European cultural identity, he added.

The conference is attended by 70 young theologians from 16 countries throughout Europe to discuss new ideas about the continent’s future.