Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that the “time of comfort is over” for the European Union and called for significantly higher allocations for defense, deregulation and securing borders against illegal migration.
“The time of comfort is over, we all know that. If today the president of the United States of America talks about the need for Europe, for American allies to take greater responsibility for their own security, let’s treat it as a positive challenge”, said the Polish Prime Minister, presenting the priorities of his country’s presidency of the European Union in the European Parliament.
His country’s six-month presidency of the EU began on January 1 this year, after Hungary’s presidency, and the emphasis was placed on the issue of security.
“Europe is not lost while we live”, Tusk paraphrased the first words of the Polish national anthem in his speech to MEPs at the plenary session in Strasbourg.
The European Union must believe in its own strength, said the Polish Prime Minister.
Tusk believes that the EU can stand by the world’s biggest powers, recalling that it has 450 million inhabitants and the same share in the world GDP as the United States of America.
“We have to believe in our strength again. We are strong and equal with the great world powers, the only thing we have to do is believe in it,” he said.
In his address to the MEPs, Tusk called for the allocation of five percent of GDP for defense, deregulation in order to strengthen competitiveness, including by abandoning parts of the Green Plan, and securing borders against illegal migration.
The Prime Minister of Poland, the country that spends the most on defense among its members, about five percent, called on other EU countries to do the same.
“Europe must be armed if it wants to survive”, he warned and said that Poland perhaps understands this best as one of the biggest victims of European wars.
“We must radically increase defense spending, but not forever.”
The Polish Prime Minister believes that Europe is in a “crisis of negative emotions” and “spiritual decline”, but that “it should not be afraid because there is no reason for that”.
“Raise your heads Europeans – Europe was, is and will be great”, he then paraphrased the slogan of his namesake, who became the 47th president of the USA on Monday.
Tusk said that Donald Trump’s victory is a “leap into the unknown”, but that Europe has never been afraid to do so. He cited examples of individuals from European history such as the Vikings, Alexander the Great and Christopher Columbus.
He warned of the dangers of illegal migration and called for securing European borders so that “democracy and European values” survive because democracy must not be associated “with helplessness”.
“You can deal with illegal migration without nationalist and xenophobic slogans,” said the former president of the European Council.
He emphasized that the EU must be able to protect itself from “Russian disinformation factories of lies”, but at the same time “not fall into the trap of censorship”.
Regarding the economy, Tusk wants a “big deregulation campaign” on which European competitiveness will depend. He believes that part of the European regulations, apart from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, is the reason for high energy prices.
“Nobody rejects the fact that we need to protect the environment and the climate, but we cannot afford not to be competitive.”
Tusk wants a revision of the Green Plan and “courage” for changes to its regulations because “the political cost of excessively high energy prices is too high.”
(Vijesti.ba/HINA)
