The Cleveland Congress of the Grand Old Party in Ohio will make the history books. Not only because Donald J. Trump, the alleged outsider, real estate mogul and reality TV star, was nominated as the Republican presidential candidate – it was also a Congress of internal disunity, blunders and anger.
It is not only mutual military support and the common market that unites EU and NATO Members States. Our cooperation is and has to be based on common values – democracy and the rule of law. Barack Obama very clearly made Polish politicians aware of this fact during the press conference at the NATO summit.
After the Brexit referendum more and more people started to realize how little we know and care about the political activity of the youth. The results made it clear: the youth have significantly different views on certain issues, but their absence from voting resulted in the victory for Brexit.
If Law and Justice manages to reach an agreement with the broadcasters, I see no problem. Needless to say, it is not a big sum if we compare it with European standards. Polish public media are still going to be much poorer than those in Germany, Great Britain or France and it will still be an uneaven cultural competition.
Currently, we have completely different social stratification and the term “working class” is very obsolete. When we look at the rebellions in the times of the Polish People’s Republic, the years 1956, 1970 and 1976 are protests of the workers. But 1980 was such an immense threat because then the energy of the workers coincided with the energy of the intelligentsia.
Nowadays, caring only about national interests, sovereignty of the one and only Homeland, hostility towards other nations, all become the defining features of a “European” attitude. This is also why xenophobia comes into the light, encouraging many people of a similar mono-ethnicly or mono-ethnic mindset to do the same.
As for the parliamentary elections, I felt much more uncertain. Like many others, I took the possibility of a coalition around the Law and Justice Party into account. In this variant, the president’s office in the hands of Komorowski became strategically important to prevent various anti-reforms (e.g. lowering the retirement age). I also did not rule out a weak coalition around the Civic Platform.
The sigh in the title refers to my experiences from my trip to Brussels back in March and to Paris in April. More specifically it takes me back to a Paris restaurant, Paris streets and to Brussels meeting rooms. Even though they took place in different environment, they are a perfect display of the current state of Europe.
I can already see the ironic grins, since I suggest creating new bureaucracy to fight bureaucracy. By applying this suggestion, however, no new administration would be created. The existing one would be reorganized so there would be a clearly assigned authority and responsibility to accomplish this important priority.
Brexit can start a crisis the likes of which the EU didn’t get the chance to experience so far. For the first time, the process of economic integration, which went on continuously since the year 1951 when the European Coal and Steel Community was established, will stop. The result of the Brexit referendum sends a clear message that the EU has to start solving its problems, otherwise there may be other referendums in the future.
