Η ομιλία μου σε Συνέδριο στη Σλοβενία, όπου εκπροσώπησα
τον Δήμο Δερύνειας.
EU
3WILL Project “The Future of Europe in the Polycrisis era”
Novo
Mesto / Slovenia 20 – 24 April 2023.
Ladies and gentlemen, dear delegates!
I am Victor Karayiannis from Cyprus and I represent
the Municipality of Deryneia which is located in the southeast of the island,
very close to the Turkish occupied city of Famagusta.
The military invasion of Turkey in Cyprus in the
summer of 1974 is the worst crisis Cyprus has experienced in its modern
history. A crisis that continues to this day, since 37% of the island is still
under Turkish occupation, thousands of people are still refugees and hundreds
of people are still missing.
In Europe at that time things were different. European
states were at the height of their prosperity and European citizens were
enjoying their prosperity in peace and security.
It was with the outbreak of the Global Financial
Crisis of 2008 and the Wars in Iraq and Syria a few years later that Europe
began to enter a protracted period of multifaceted crises and to feel their
consequences. That's when Europe started making political decisions that were
not always in the interest of the local communities, thus falling into a
political trap that it will hardly be able to get out of.
Political decisions to solve economic crises and
populist approaches to dealing with humanitarian problems, pushed citizens
towards Nationalism, Racism and Euroscepticism. With the same neoliberal
policies they divided Europe into North and South, into Rich countries and Poor
countries.
To deal with the crises of that period, strict
memorandums and austerity measures were implemented that brought the economies
of the southern countries to their knees and impoverished their inhabitants, while
in the countries of the north they found fertile ground for the implementation
of neoliberal policies.
With the outbreak of the Covid19 pandemic, neoliberal
policies and strict austerity measures were set aside and policies of support
for the popular strata took their place.
The Pandemic crisis that touched the economies of all
the countries of Europe, brought to the fore, the need of applying policies
strange to the dogmatic political line followed in previous years.
With Russia's invasion of Ukraine, this policy change,
became more necessary and its implementation imperative. So we see that Europe
today is not as sensitive to environmental issues as it was in the years before
the war in Ukraine. We see European countries turning to the use of Coal and
various Fossil Fuels instead of Renewable energy sources, which were the
ultimate goal of Europe in the previous years.
With the political paradoxes of the leaderships and
the extremely conservative views of a lot of people of Europe, it seems
difficult to deal effectively with the multiple crises that are plaguing the
world at this time. Such crises are the following:
1)
Cost-of-living
crisis.
2)
Rising
inflation.
3)
Food
supply crisis.
4)
Energy
supply crisis.
5)
Erosion
of social cohesion and societal polarization.
6)
Biodiversity
loss and ecosystem collapse.
7)
Geo-economics
confrontation.
8)
Widespread
cybercrime and cyber insecurity.
9)
Large-scale
involuntary migration.
10)
Large-scale environmental
incidents.
In order to effectively deal with these crises, the leaders of
the countries of Europe should review their general philosophy and their
decisions should take into account the interest of all countries, following the
guidelines below:
1st Take lessons from the past.
2nd Fix what we can control.
3rd Together we Stand, the Stronger we
are.
Empathy, adaptability and resilience are the
keywords to success.
Ladies and gentlemen
Thank you for your
attention Victor
Karayiannis.
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