Costa warns that Europe “cannot promise too much and deliver too little”

This Wednesday, the Portuguese Prime Minister described former European Commission President Jacques Delors as the founder of the current “deeper and enlarged” European Union (EU) and warned that “Europe cannot promise too much and give too little.”

“Jacques Delors is the founding father of the EU, and to him we owe today’s deepened and enlarged Europe. From the Single European Act to Maastricht, through concrete achievements, Jacques Delors led us along the path to an ever closer union. With Jacques Delors, Europe has also expanded, uniting south and north, integrating the young democracies of Portugal and Spain, which today pay tribute to it by declaring a day of mourning,” said António Costa in Brussels.

Speaking at a European Commission memorial for Jacques Delors, who died in December aged 98, the Portuguese prime minister said the memory “and the success of his legacy should not make us think that these years were in vain.” .

“Europe cannot promise too much and do too little,” António Costa warned in a speech on the eve of a crucial European Council meeting in Brussels to promote financial support for Ukraine, which could be threatened by a possible new Hungarian blockade.

For the Portuguese prime minister, Delors’ legacy is “still relevant” and should serve as “an opportunity to find inspiration.”

“Firstly, to complete what he started, to create a single market, an Economic and Monetary Union and a Social Europe. […] and secondly, as with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the Russian invasion of Ukraine makes further expansion necessary,” he said.

When it comes to expanding the community bloc, the EU “has a decisive role to play as a geopolitical and global player,” according to António Costa.

“As Jacques Delors understood, for enlargement to be successful, the EU must prepare, and that means reform. It must be a common home, with our common values ​​as a deep and strong foundation where all member states can feel comfortable, and to be clear, we need a Europe that continues to make no concessions on issues of democracy, fundamental rights and the rule of law law,” he said.

At the same time, it is necessary to “maintain our unity by accepting and respecting the fact that different member states desire different levels of integration,” he added.

António Cosa also said that since the alliance was “at the heart of the success of the reforms” of the former leader of the Community Executive, the EU should not “afford to reduce common ambitions” and should therefore “increase the capacity for joint investment in the digital and climate transition, in security and defence, to migration, to expansion and, not forgetting Jacques Delors, to social cohesion.”

“It means making difficult choices, it means finding the right balance, but new resources of our own have to be part of the solution,” he said.

The European Commission today paid tribute to the organization’s former president, Jacques Delors, at a ceremony in Brussels attended by heads of government and EU states.

The ceremony, held at the European Commission headquarters in Berlaymont, was presided over by the organization’s current president, Ursula von der Leyen, and was attended by EU leaders, as well as their families, former staff and members of the diplomatic corps.

A crucial extraordinary meeting of the European Council will take place in Brussels on Thursday, threatened by a possible new blockade by Hungary of the 50 billion euro financial reserve for reconstruction and modernization of Ukraine provided for in the long-term budget review. 2024-2027.

Several senior European officials have acknowledged that an agreement is not guaranteed, leading to consideration of harsh reprisals against Hungary, such as the possible loss of voting rights.