"Sanctions are starting to bite. But we must go further. This must become too costly for Russia to continue. Ultimately, Putin is staring down the world hoping that we will blink first. But we cannot do that." This was the main message of the President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola as she gave a keynote address during the Copenhagen Democracy Summit.
© European Union | The President of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola addressing the Copenhagen Democracy Summit 2022
Thank you for having me here today. The future of global democracy is a theme that may have seemed almost abstract a few months ago. “Democracy” is an issue that so many of us have taken for granted for so long that we were almost taken by surprise that there are still those who call it into question. Who think, in fact, that there are people who think that there should not be a future for democracy at all.
Mine is the last generation in the European Union and across the Atlantic to vaguely remember a world when democracy was under constant threat. Anyone younger than me only knows peace. And perhaps we did grow complacent - comfortable - with the idea that our way was here to stay.
We take voting for who we like for granted. We take being able to read independent journalism for granted. We know that we can assemble, we can disagree, we can pursue our happiness, we can dissent, we can live and love as we choose without consequence. That is our way and we are being called to stand up for those freedoms and values once again. Because if we do not, those who believe in a very very different world, in a very different way, will.
This debate on democracy took on a new reality on February 24th, when President Putin’s tanks rolled into Ukraine. The world changed, and suddenly we realised that everything we took for granted was being brutally upended. Of course, the warning signs were there. The Baltics, Finland, Poland have been warning us for years. We saw what happened in Crimea, what they did to Navalny, how they tried to crush democracy in Belarus, and yet when Putin’s revisionist ideology was matched by his army, we let it be surprising. It should not have been surprising.
And now Ukraine and its people are looking to Europe for support. They are looking to the United States. They are looking to the United Kingdom. They are looking to us to match our rhetoric, our values, with action.
How we have responded to the invasion and how we must continue to respond is the litmus test of our values. The unity and resolve of our response has held. The defiance, the everyday acts of extraordinary heroism of the Ukrainian people has meant that Putin’s three-day war is now entering day 106.
As we speak here, as we’ve just heard from President Zelenskyy, Ukraine is still being invaded. Bombs are still killing indiscriminately. Women are still being raped. Children are being forcibly deported. Millions have fled and will continue to do so. The world’s grain and cereal supply is being held at ransom while Russia fills its silos.
Europe, the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom have remained united in responding, in helping Ukraine with military, humanitarian, financial and political aid.
Our response has been pushed by our public. Public opinion has twisted in a good way politician’s arms and ensured that that this cannot ever become another forgotten war. But my fear remains. What happens when the so-called CNN effect starts to fade? What happens when war fatigue could inevitably set in? When, as one Kyiv based journalist described it yesterday “the west grows bored of the war”? When prices rise, are we ready to say that democracy is worth a cost?
That is when the real test of our resolve, of our leadership will occur. That is when we will need to stand up when it becomes far more comfortable to sit down. And that is why we must keep our focus on Ukraine. On the real, clear and present danger that our entire way of life is in.
Europe must continue to show resolve.
At the ceremony of the Charlemagne Prize last month, where Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was awarded the prize, Helmut Dieser put it ever so eloquently when he said “The European Union does not need to conquer or destroy anyone in order to be and to remain itself, but it is now having to learn in deep and brutal distress how seriously jeopardised its values and achievements are, and how many people who are also striving for these values are dying or being robbed of their happiness”.
We must continue to help Ukraine. Their fight, your fight for freedom, for democracy, for the values that bind us, is our fight.
Democracy requires effort. Democracy deserves bravery. But ultimately, democracy needs leadership.
So we, in the European Union, must continue to strengthen our security and defence mechanisms. We need a new security framework in the EU - one that complements rather than competes with NATO.
And that means precisely, putting our money where our mouth is.
Sanctions are starting to bite. But we must go further. This must become too costly for Russia to continue. Ultimately, Putin is staring down the world hoping that we will blink first. But we cannot do that.
Our economic sacrifices today are an investment in our and our children’s ability to live in a free and democratic world. We must disentangle ourselves from Russian energy.
We also need to be prepared to support Ukraine beyond emergency help. Supporting Ukraine is also about investing in its reconstruction and in the reinforcement of its institutions.
We will help Ukraine with ambitious reforms to maintain a real system of democratic governance with resilient, effective and accountable institutions. This is not only about safeguarding Ukrainian democracy but also about preserving European - and global - democracy too.
On European ambitions, I get asked this by every journalist I meet. Ukraine is already part of our European family, but it is high time that it is also given the real opportunity to join our European project.
This is about hope. This is about an acknowledgment of the price that Ukraine has been forced to pay. And it is as much about strengthening Europe as it is about strengthening Ukraine.
So let me be clear: the European Parliament, which I have the honour and responsibility to preside, stands firmly behind Ukraine’s bid to receive EU candidate status.
I am a politician. I understand real politik. I understand the art of the possible. But I also understand that Putin did not stop in Crimea. He would not have stopped in Kyiv. So while we will keep pushing for peace, it must be a real peace. A peace with liberty. A peace with dignity. A peace with justice. A peace with accountability. In Europe, we know the cost of appeasement, we know the weight of walls and iron curtains, we know that turning away is paid in lives crushed and generations lost.
This is our moment. This is Europe’s time. How will history judge our actions? Will future generations read about the triumph of democracy over authoritarianism? Of multilateralism over isolationism? I don’t think so.
That is up to us and the decisions that we take now.
Thank you.