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After a tumultuous and troubling 2021, with instability and fear returning to the Balkans, with a European Union seemingly lost and bereft of ideas for its neighbours, and with the very real threat of a Russian aggression looming over Ukraine, the vision, expressed since 1990 by Vaclav Havel and Madelaine Albright, remains as urgent and relevant as ever.
Time is not on the side of the rule of law in Poland. Justice minister Zbigniew Ziobro no longer pretends to care about European law and courts. It is time for European institutions to prove that European law and institutions are stronger than the chaos that he has already brought to his country’s courts. But time is running out.
Poland has become a test case today whether it is possible to create a justice system in an EU member state without independent courts. The Commission should propose, and the ECJ impose a fine of € 880 million every two months until the Polish government implements the 15 July ruling.
There is a possibility that the current consensus in Australia – that only pushbacks and the harshest deterrence reduce irregular migration, which is both morally and politically desirable – will be embraced elsewhere, in Asia and in Europe. If this happens refoulement will be normalised around the world.
Adherence to the global refugee protection system has always been fragile. And yet, today the system risks collapse, as pushbacks are carried out routinely across the world, including in Europe, in Australia and in the US. How to protect the Geneva refugee convention today?
If the Russian state is allowed to ignore the European Court of Human Rights, again, and to kill another critic of the government, it will have shown that the Council is a club of states for whom the respect for fundamental rights is wholly optional.
In recent weeks, the unbelievable story of corruption of parliaments across Europe by the Caspian autocracy of Azerbaijan has created big waves in Germany. For the Aliyev regime, almost two decades of efforts to aggressively undermine democratic institutions remained without consequences.
The EU has a strong political and economic incentive to offer to any interested Western Balkan nation the chance to join its Single Market as an interim goal in a reformed two-stage EU accession process. Countries and economies can catch up. For this it must be credible, merit based and serious. It has happened before. It can happen again.
It is crucial to have a rule of law protection mechanism that unambiguously and concretely protects national judiciaries and the effective application of EU law at the national level.
Why should Germans, Dutch, Swedes and their leaders care about a possible tragedy on distant Greek islands where more than 40,000 refugees and migrants live crammed together in dismal sanitary conditions?
The EU and Turkey have a common interest to support more than 3.5 million refugees now in Turkey; to control mobility in the face of the biggest public health crisis in a century: and to provide humanitarian assistance to more than 2 million displaced near the Turkish border in Syria.
It is in The Gambia's interest to see its diaspora thrive in Germany. It is not in its interest to see it disappear. It is The Gambia's interest to help those in Germany who want an agreement.
EU Balkan enlargement is only possible if it is deeply transformative. None of the current candidates and potential candidates have a chance of joining without a deep transformation.
What is needed is a process that does not replace accession and yet is different; a process that promises EU influence and is also attractive and credible to Balkan publics and leaders.
Nobody in The Gambia wants a return to the tragedy of recent years, when tens of thousands were captured and mistreated in Libya and huge numbers died on the "backway" to Europe.
The European Commission needs to take Poland to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) as soon as possible for infringement of the EU's fundamental values and principles, focusing on disciplinary procedures and the executive's control over judges.
