Abstract
The first quarter of 2018 was a time of anniversaries for me. The Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies celebrated its tenth birthday, and I celebrated my sixty-third. I was born in 1955, at a time when Europe and the world in general were dramatically different from today. Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, and my own country, then called Czechoslovakia, had just joined the Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance—or the Warsaw Pact, as it is more commonly known. Around the same time, a Broadway musical version of Peter Pan was broadcast on national television for the first time, and the American technology company IBM launched the first hard disk. The tectonic plates of politics and technology were in motion.
While I was still in school, the famous Canadian intellectual Marshall McLuhan coined the term ‘the global village’ to refer to the effect that electronic technology was having on the world. It was not until much later that I heard about McLuhan, but in the years that followed, I witnessed the evolution of technology as a student of the sciences. At that time the computers we were using were much larger and much more cumbersome than the ones available now. In fact, the dual processes of globalisation and automation have completely transformed our societies, the way we work, the way we communicate with each other and the way we live our lives.
This issue of the European View is dedicated to the important subjects of globalisation and the future of our societies in a world where technological innovation is the norm. Technological development represents the natural evolution of our human society. It has impacted all sectors of our economy and people from all walks of life. And it has done so at an unprecedented rate. Society needs to respond quickly to this transformation, and the adaptation to the process of change must be a positive one. We cannot allow ourselves to be steered by those who would turn their backs on change and pretend that it is not happening. Instead, it is our responsibility to look for answers to the common challenges posed by this process of adaptation.
The articles in this issue of the European View address many important questions that will continue to occupy politicians, academics, experts and ordinary people for years to come. How can the EU lead the fourth industrial revolution? What stance should the EU take on artificial intelligence? How should we approach robotisation from an ethical point of view? How are we to respond to the social challenges brought on by technological development, such as the increasing number of elderly people and the changing labour market? What role should the EU play in shaping globalisation and its consequences? How should we relate to our neighbours and partners abroad? How should we tackle migration? How should we defend ourselves from those who would do us harm? And still others.
I invite you to join me and the contributors to this issue in reflecting on these matters. It is our responsibility as political leaders and citizens to look positively upon change, and to harness its potential with the aim of increasing our shared prosperity. We live in a globalised world in which we can access Peter Pan and trillions of other human works instantaneously, at our leisure; where artificial intelligence and robots have started to surpass some of the brightest representatives of humankind; and where people are increasingly becoming afraid and anxious.
While the world around us may be changing, I am confident that the centre–right and Christian Democratic values of the European People’s Party and the Martens Centre will not: democracy, solidarity, freedom, responsibility, pragmatism and faith in tradition. In this globalised world of unprecedented technological change, our values remain unshaken. It is only through them that we will be able to pass on to our children and their children after them a world that is better than the one we have inherited.
Footnotes
Author biography