For the first time in decades, Europe is facing a wide-scale war.
It does, however, also highlight failures of our previous policies, none greater than our very failure to remain consistent with our values.
For too long we were naïve, falsely believing that by engaging with authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, we can change them. Today, we see the consequences of this naivety.
Instead, these regimes have been seeking to corrupt our democratic processes; degrade our economic strength; divide our society; undermine our alliances and rewrite international norms to suit their malign interest, and even worse they seek to subvert the very notion of truth.
How we respond will determine the world in which we will live.
We must remain united and, above all, to seek and defend the truth and the very values on which our Union has been founded, because truth and our values make us stronger and are the best weapon we have to fight back against those wishing to subvert our freedom.
Photo: https://www.eppgroup.eu, Source: GettyImages
