2024-02-15 23:36:46
Print isn’t so dead following all: a few months following Turquoise-Green ordered the end of the world’s oldest daily newspaper, a magazine with European standards saw the light of day in Vienna: an ex-president, two ex-prime ministers and three ex- Foreign ministers were the sponsors when the magazine “European Voices” was presented at the Theater Museum on Thursday evening. “In the biggest media crisis of all time, we are going on the offensive,” said co-editor-in-chief Thomas Seifert.
The former editor-in-chief of the “Wiener Zeitung” designs the English-language medium together with his long-time editorial colleague Martyna Czarnowska. The project (target circulation of 50,000 copies) is supported by the daily newspaper “Die Presse” and the Austrian Society for Foreign Policy and the United Nations (ÖGAVN), whose president Wolfgang Schüssel (ÖVP) spoke of a “historic moment”. The quarterly publication is intended to serve as a discussion platform, especially for experts and practitioners from the Central, Central Eastern and Southeastern European region, which is usually undervalued in European policy debates.
“Enlargement, the distribution of financial flows between net contributors and net recipients, military security, the migration issue, the quality of democracy and the rule of law: all of these questions are decisively shaped and co-decided in this region,” said Schüssel, who wrote the first edition of the issue had a quite controversial conversation with the Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.
The content of the magazine is “very simple: pro Europe, pro market economy, pro subsidiarity, pro democracy and pro rule of law,” said Schüssel. “We want to be an open platform.” The deputy editor-in-chief of the “Presse”, Christian Ultsch, made a similar statement. The “Presse” foreign policy chief told the high-profile audience, including, in addition to numerous editors-in-chief and top diplomats, Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg (ÖVP) and the former chief diplomats Ursula Plassnik and Benita Ferrero-Waldner that he believes that such a debate must be carried out from Austria (ÖVP) and Peter Jankowitsch (SPÖ).
Schüssel revealed that Plassnik was the “mastermind” of the project and also came up with the name of the magazine. She then discussed the current European political situation at a high level with three other members of the magazine’s advisory board, the Slovenian ex-president Danilo Türk, the Bulgarian star sociologist Ivan Krastev and the Slovakian ex-Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda.
Plassnik made it clear what she thinks of the Austrian obsession with neutrality. When international colleagues ask her regarding it, “I tell them: Don’t ask me, ask Professor Sigmund Freud.” Security policy, protecting one’s own territory is “a serious matter” and one should not deny the facts. “I would like Austria to wake up and face the challenge” instead of constantly “dreaming it away,” said the former foreign minister. Although she is happy that the federal government is taking “steps in the right direction” in terms of security policy, there is also a need for a public discussion regarding it.
Dzurinda lamented the complacency of citizens in the new EU states 20 years following enlargement. “How can it be that 60 percent of people in Slovakia say that NATO, the EU and the USA are responsible for the war in Ukraine? Something has gone very wrong,” he called for a return to a “positive development “. Projects like “European Voices” in particular might contribute to this because they also allow people from the new EU states to have their say. “I will happily read ‘European Voices’ before ‘Politico’ every day,” he said, referring to the most important EU online medium in Brussels. Dzurinda identified the “complete incompetence” of many politicians as the reason for the disillusionment with politics, but he hoped for a return “to normal political development.” In this regard, the recent change of government in Poland was “a strong encouragement”.
“We live in a time in which the European Union is confronted with the real danger of stagnation and possible dismantling,” said Türk. The international system is also falling apart without a new leadership structure emerging. That’s why an open discussion without simplifications is important, said the former top UN diplomat, expressing his discomfort with the prevailing opinion in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, for example. Nobody writes regarding the “complexity” of Ukraine “for fear that it would justify Russian aggression.” There is also a lot of talk regarding Kremlin boss Vladimir Putin being “paranoid” regarding his actions. “But maybe there is paranoia elsewhere too?” said former deputy of ex-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Currently, peace is thought of as the result of a Ukrainian victory in the war, said Türk. “But what if that doesn’t happen?” Krastev gave a clear answer to this. “If Ukraine loses, it will be difficult for Europe,” said the influential Bulgarian thinker. Only in the USA and Europe is the idea widespread that it is purely a war between Moscow and Kiev. “Outside Europe there is the impression that this is a war between Russia and the West,” said Krastev.
Europe is only at the beginning of a “very rapid change” without really being aware of it. “Nothing is worse than defending a status quo that no longer exists,” said the sociologist, who gave a vivid example of this. At the start of the war, Ukraine had enough ammunition to defend itself for six weeks. In contrast, Germany would have lasted just six days with its ammunition arsenal, according to Krastev. And alluding to the discussion regarding a European atomic bomb, he said that seven new nuclear powers will emerge in the next few years – outside of Europe.
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