By Necva Tastan Sevinc
ISTANBUL (AA) - Europe is not in decline and must instead reinforce its defenses and global role, the EU’s foreign policy chief said on Sunday, rejecting criticism that portrays the continent as weakened.
"Contrary to what some may say, woke decadent, Europe is not facing civilizational erasure," Kaja Kallas said at the Munich Security Conference, arguing that global interest in the European project remains strong. She was speaking at the "Europeans Assemble! Reclaiming Agency in a Rougher World" panel.
"People still want to join our club and not just fellow Europeans."
"When I was in Canada last year, I was told that over 40% of Canadians have an interest in joining the European Union," she said.
Kallas stressed that citizens inside the 27-member bloc “want their union to take a stronger role in the world, to defend our values, to take care of our people and to push humanity forward.”
Speaking of Russia, she said it "already seeks to cripple economies through cyberattacks, disrupt satellites, sabotage undersea cables, fracture alliances with disinformation, coerce countries by weaponizing oil and gas, and, of course, there is also the nuclear threat."
But, she argued, Russia’s military performance has exposed its limits.
"Russia is no superpower after more than a decade of conflict, including four years of full-scale war in Ukraine. Russia has barely advanced beyond the 2014 lines, and the cost is 1.2 million casualties today. Russia is broken. Its economy is in shreds."
On potential peace terms, Kallas stressed that any settlement must apply equally to both sides.
"If Ukraine's military is to be limited in size, Russia should be too," she said.
Kallas also underscored that transatlantic ties remain essential despite disagreements. "America and Europe are intertwined, have been in the past and will be in the future,” one said, while acknowledging: “It is also clear that we don't see eye to eye in all the issues.”
Latvia’s president, Edgars Rinkevics, highlighted Ukraine’s potential role in Europe’s future defense architecture, saying: "If Ukraine becomes EU member state, I think that clause is going to be a very, very real one, because Ukraine has now such military capability, like it or not, most of our countries do not have."
He pointed to concrete progress in military coordination across the continent. "Europe has moved very well on military mobility issues," he said, describing advances as "almost like creating a military Schengen."
Still, he warned against building parallel security structures that could weaken existing alliances.
"We have been, particularly in Latvia, always very cautious that we do not duplicate NATO, because that's important," he said, expressing skepticism toward calls for a unified EU army. "I have been always skeptical about putting a political slogan, but then having completely different answers what we understand."