Let the Music Begin
By Jokin de Carlos Sola
Deputy Director for Communications @EU&U
In the second week of February 2025, I had the privilege of joining EU&U Executive Director Otilia Colceriu in a seminar for the Content Creators Seminar organised by the European Parliament during the Strasbourg Plenary week.
We were there to meet the newly founded Parliamentary Committee on Security and Defence and its members, and even have one-to-one meetings with some of them. Two of them stood out to us: the Spaniard Javier López MEP, Vice-President of the European Parliament, and the German Tobias Cremer MEP. Mr López stressed the importance of guaranteeing European security without compromising our welfare system, advocating for the creation of European defence bonds, while Mr Cremer focused on the urgency of building up our defence, insisting on the importance of investing at least 2% of GDP, and the unquestionable support for Ukraine.
During a meeting with Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), I made the analogy of an orchestra, comparing the EU to a group of musicians with some of the best instruments in the world, all playing different notes and different tunes. I insisted that Europe needs a conductor - a strategy to ensure that all the investment and fancy words don’t end up in a cacophony of short-term national interests.
That was a month ago. Ever since then, we have seen a more resolute Germany, the European Commission putting out a plan for rearming Europe, and even more divergence between the US and the European Union. It seems that the days of the Atlantic partnership are numbered. And so are the days of passive liberalism and passive democracy in Europe. We are wondering how the views of some MEPs, such as the German Christian Democratic Union’s David McAllister, will age in the coming months.
Ever since the confrontation with Zelensky, the withdrawal of American troops, and the growing Russian shadow looming from the other side of the Atlantic, a new era of Euro-American tensions is emerging.
