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Notes for Marmara Forum 2026: The Illusion of European Unity in Times of a Changing Global Order

English Pages, 11. 5. 2026

Dear Dr. Suver, Distinguished Colleagues, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Many thanks for inviting me to the 29th Eurasian Economic Summit. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to come to Turkey and Istanbul again and for letting me address this distinguished audience, where I can meet some of my former friends and colleagues.

We usually begin our speeches here at the Marmara Forum by stressing the complicated state of the world, of Europe, and of the Middle East, but this time it is different. And undoubtedly worse. The title of my last year’s presentation here was “Türkiye as a Pillar of Stability in the Troubled Waters of the Current Era”. The waters close to Turkey are really troubled now. Much more than a year ago. Most of us feel a real danger of a major war.

The current fighting is not taking place in a remote part of the world. It is occurring in one of the crucial and at the same time extremely vulnerable parts of the world, where the geopolitical interests of main superpowers intersect. It is also an area of key economic, especially energy deposits and transport routes. This has been discussed repeatedly during the Forum.

The title of this session is, however, different: “The European Union in the Light of Changing Global and Economic Values”. I am not sure that what is changing are “values”. Value is a modern, widely overused, if not misused term. Almost anything can be put and lost in it.

What is most importantly changing is the real distribution of political, economic and military power in the world and with it the ambitions of individual countries and their behaviour.

There is no doubt that Europe is losing its significance, its political weight and its economic position in the world. European elites do not want to hear this but are doing everything possible to accelerate the undergoing undeniable fall. The Europeans, the ordinary people living in Europe, are aware of it but continue to believe in a miracle. The miracle will not happen. The change of the existing tendencies would ask for something more than a political change. It would ask for a paradigm shift, for a cultural revolution. But this is not on the horizon. European elites will do anything to avoid it.

We should say it clearly. Europe is not a political entity. Europe is a continent, and to some respect, a specific cultural space. It includes a non-homogeneous bundle of countries. Most of them are, however, authentic nation-states (with non-negligible minorities). If we want to speak about a political entity, we must refer to the political construct known as the European Union.

Looking at the list of this afternoon’s speakers, we find that most of them are from countries that are European but not EU member states. This is an important characteristic of this composition of speakers. The Czech Republic, the country where I live, is situated in Central Europe, and I am surprised to find that I am from the most northern and the most western country present here. We who are here have different historical experiences and different interests. We have also very different big and ambitious neighbours – Germany, Russia, Türkiye. We are – due to it – exposed to different challenges.

When speaking about the European Union, I don’t want to be entirely negative, even though I am one of the long-time critics of the evolution of European integration – from the EEC and the EC to the EU. This change of acronyms symbolises a fundamental shift from a community of nations, from cooperation of sovereign countries, to the political unification of the European continent. I consider this development wrong, unnecessary and counterproductive. It may be in the interest of European elites, not of the people of Europe, of the citizens of individual European nation-states.

It is fair to raise the question whether this development has been an authentic, autonomous evolution which came from the inside, or rather a part, or a consequence of global changes, of the world-wide victory of the doctrine of globalism, of the growing belief in global governance. I am convinced that domestic political developments have been decisive.

As a result of it, more and more political decision-making power in Europe has been concentrated in the hands of the proponents of its political unification and centralization, at the expense of those Europeans who see the emptiness of governing at a distance, who keep defending the concept of Europe of nation-states, who would be satisfied with enhanced, friendly, authentic cooperation of European nation-states. The ambition to politically unify Europe is usually justified as an attempt to make Europe strong, more efficient in decision-making and more important. I don’t believe in this project.

Strength does not come from putting together countries that don’t naturally belong together, countries that are economically non-homogeneous, countries that have different histories and different interests. Such countries are neither ready nor able to act as one. This reality inevitably makes the EU weak and ununited in any global talks and negotiations. We should be aware of it.

Václav Klaus at the 29th Eurasian Economic Summit, Istanbul, May 13, 2026