Brussels – ESI at European Policy Center strategic council meeting

Brussels. Photo: flickr/ barnyz

ESI’s Gerald Knaus attended the annual European Policy Center’s Strategic Council Meeting in Brussels. The European Policy Center (EPC) is one of Europe’s most important policy NGOs. This year’s meeting centred around the topic ‘Liberal Democracy under Threat’, for which Gerald delivered a speech on the politics of migration.

Gerald argued that Europe is facing a decisive moment. Far-right parties such as the AfD are gaining ground across the continent – leading polls from Germany to France as they peddle increasingly popular identitarian narratives about uncontrolled migration. They are supported by authoritarian nationalists including Putin, and leaders in Trump’s MAGA movement. To face this threat, democratic forces need migration policies which both address public concerns while remaining true to our democratic values. He pointed to the EU-Turkey agreement of 2016 as a humane solution rooted in the rule-of-law, noting that deaths in the Mediterranean fell by up to ninety percent after the agreement came into force.

Similar arrangements could be pursued today, Gerald suggested, with an EU-UK agreement serving as a starting point for responsible and humane migration partnerships. Europe’s democrats, Gerald argued, must also communicate our own narrative – indeed, we have the better story to tell. We can be proud, Gerald concluded, of the remarkable gain European integration has brought the continent in stability, peace, and prosperity.

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