PANEL DISCUSSION 2024

Petr DRULÁK:
INTRODUCTORY WORD OF THE PANEL DISCUSSION

Ladies and gentlemen, let me open the conference "Central Europe at the Crossroads".

This is the third St. Adalbert international conference held in Prague by Patrimonium Sancti Adalberti. This is the first time we have the word "crossroads" or "intersection" in the title, but I think each of the two previous conferences could have been called "Central Europe at the Crossroads". Because when we talk about crossroads in geopolitics, they are not quite as clear-cut as the crossroads that we all know from roads or railways. When we enter an intersection, we are presented with a choice. Sometimes we find ourselves at a crossroads where we can't see all directions. And in the three years that we have been organising this conference, I dare say that some of those roads, some of those paths have been revealed to us and some of them lead to dead ends. I would follow up on one of the ideas expressed here yesterday in our laureate's speech – the laureate of the St. Adalbert Award, Mária Schmidt. She reminded us that the age of empires was over. There will be no more empires. We saw it in the Habsburg Empire after the World War I. We saw it with the fall of the Soviet Empire after the Cold War, and today we are witnessing the disintegration of both the American Empire and, I would say, the Brussels Empire. The countries founding Europe in the 1950s did not found an empire. They founded, let us say, a rather useful format of cooperation which, at a certain point, began to take on the characteristics of an empire. And I think it was very useful that Maria Schmidt pointed out to us yesterday that the age of empires was over.

What does that mean for us? What does it mean for our crossroads? At that crossroads, there are still roads that lead to empires. We still have plenty of political leaders and representatives who believe that the future of their state and nation lies in the embrace of some kind of empire. We have plenty of people who believe that the EU Empire is the future. And then you have people who are sceptical of the EU Empire, the Brussels Empire, and they would rather bet on the American Empire. Then there are more radical thinkers who say neither Brussels nor Washington will do. We need to focus on emerging empires. They think about China, for example. They're giving Russia a chance. I believe that if we really take seriously the claim that empires are over, that the age of empires is over, we know that this is not the way, these are dead ends. Then, of course, there is another path that is emerging, and that is the path of national independence, national sovereignty. That is a path that is basically correct. On the other hand, for states, nations, such as the Americans, the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians, perhaps even the Germans, this path is quite clear. They are large nations. Their populations are in the hundreds of millions, sometimes even exceeding a billion, or at least they are in the higher tens of millions. Here in Central Europe, we don't have that; our populations are smaller. Even the largest of our nations are in the lower tens of millions. Therefore, I believe the path forward for us lies in deep and intense cooperation between our nations. It's not that we want to build some kind of empire in Central Europe. Not only because we know that the age of empires is coming to an end, but also, we do not have this ambition for other reasons. Rather, our purpose is to establish a viable format for Central European cooperation.

One of the things that we have seen over the past three years is the potential for cooperation and strengthening of political forces that believe authentic, patriotic Central European cooperation is possible. Let us have a look at the outcome of the European Parliament elections. We have two significant forces in the European Parliament today. Two significant forces that represent, I would say, a healthy approach to international cooperation and to Central European cooperation. First, we have a faction which is called the European Conservatives. I would say, from our Central European point of view, that the most visible representative is our colleagues from the Law and Justice party. Then we have a new faction, the Patriots, which brings together figures like Viktor Orbán, as well as Czech and Austrian conservatives. That is the second fraction. And then we also have unaffiliated left-wing MEPs, such as Robert Fico's Směr party, such as Kateřina Konečná's Stačilo! movement. I would say that these three streams represent a foundation on which we can consider future cooperation. And if we look at the recent European Parliament results, they give us some hope. However, what is crucial is recognizing that these parties, these forces, must work together. If they don't, those declining empires will still be strong enough to push questions about our future another 10, 20, 30, or even 50 years down the road. That will then become a task for future generations. But we're not here to talk about tasks for future generations. We are here to address the tasks we own – specifically, the task of Central European cooperation. I believe that, as we have gathered here in the first panel, we have representatives of streams that give a good guarantee that we will be able to develop this Central European cooperation on a sound basis.