That phrase has not lost its validity Ortega y Gasset pronounced more than a century ago, “Spain is the problem, Europe the solution”. Throughout the more than one hundred years that have elapsed since then, the reflection has been handled, used to argue, with interest, very different situations, depending on the ultimate purpose of whoever brought it up at each moment. Ortega showed his concern for the cultural decadence and education of our country. He stressed the urgent need for us as a nation to walk the path that separated us from Europe. So much time since then and we continue, to a certain extent, having a pending road ahead. Distance not exceeded.
Decades later, during the last years of Francoism and the upcoming Transitionthe idea of “Europe as a solution” it referred to, we used it, to point out the goals of democracy and freedom to which we aspired, and which we recognized with notable longing, enjoyed by the countries around us to which we yearned to become homologous. Today, saving all distances, Spanish and European societies need to strengthen their respective personalities from a clear position of convergence. Not as marked as at the beginning of the 19th century, but also not without its undeniable complexity. Perhaps, even though it might seem exaggerated, greater, in certain aspects, than at the time of Ortega’s concern.
Let’s go by parts. “Europe is the solution,” said Ortega. But the old continent It is no longer the economic power, political and cultural, above all cultural, which made it unique at the beginning of the last century. During the last two or three hundred years, European culture, that is, his sense of what was good or bad, his conception of economic, political and social relations, were the ones that dominated the world. Today the relational and cultural model imposed by the then prevailing Western society is still in force. With special prominence of that hegemonic Europe.
We must bear in mind that, at this time, money has more power than ever in history, to the point of imposing itself on governments, buying wills and the media
However, circumstances have changed, and they continue to do so. Europe cannot not recognize it. Changes happen very quickly. Not assuming it with determination can update the premonition of Philip Gonzalez about what “Europe can die of success.” Because, it is true that, looking for its own benefit, during the last centuries Europe, with its way of doing things, has stimulated the emergence of worlds, of consciences, different from its own. And those worlds that have awakened, and that are very powerful, both from a demographic and, above all, a cultural point of view, have questioned their hegemony, that is, their ability to continue imposing the rules of the game. These new worlds, these new cultures, have remarkable wealth. We must bear in mind that, at this time, money has more power than ever in history, to the point of imposing itself on governments, buying wills and the media, and being almost the sole driver of the changes that are taking place in societies.
Europe feels overwhelmed, with the need to reaffirm itself culturally. He has realized that it is no longer a question of maintaining his dominance over others, but of reaffirming what has been, in order to continue being a society with its own values, customs and beliefs. Those that have given meaning throughout history, so as not to be denatured, absorbed, by emerging cultures. and this is not happening
The EU is almost nothing. There is no unity, there is not a single president and Parliament, a single budget, fiscal unity is still pending, a single army, its own judicial system, and none of the 27 countries that form it wants to cede an iota of their sovereignty. We miss authentic political leaders as they were Margaret Thatcher, Willy Brandt, Conrad Adenauer, Winston Churchill, Helmut Kohl, Mitterrand or F. González. In short, its future is dark, or become a theme park for the rest of the world to visit, or, in the worst case, and God forbid, be the scene of the third world war between the West, led by the US and the East in front of China because both the EU and Russia are indifferent. An example of this is the war in Ukraine, which has the territory of Donbas as a dispute, which would allow the regime of putin have a corridor to unite Crimea with Russia giving access to the Black Sea. If the Russians were given that corridor, populated by Russians for more than a hundred years (and that has no economic or logistical value) in exchange for ending the war and allowing the Ukraine and Finland to join NATO, the death of so many innocents in the very heart of Europe could be put to an end.
Being “progressive” consists of promoting and financing, with public money, excesses, bad taste and the conversion of parties into shows
The European Union presents serious weaknesses and, within it, Spain suffers very significant deficiencies. Unfortunately we are led by some leaders, that is to say, social and political, with a kindergarten culture, and who, ignorant, but not innocent, identify “modernity” with “transgression” and “progressivism” with relaxation of the natural values and beliefs, which have been the guide of our society for millennia and which have made us who we are. Here “modernize” is to legislate to generalize the exceptions, and Being “progressive” consists in propitiating and financing, with public money, the excessesbad taste and the conversion of parties into shows.
The result is a social crisis, but also an economic one, without precedent or possible comparison with that of other European countries. The lack of training leads to indifference, corruption, excessive greed, easy money, contempt for values, all of which makes our economic and social crisis extraordinary. They have made us lose the sense of good and bad and have turned “belligerent secularism” into a new religion, which is not limited to providing moral norms, they do not have them, like all religions, but it is a “secularism of the State” that imposes its rules through legislation and the budget. All this aimed at the destruction of the middle class that is the foundation of democracy, replacing it with a subsidized class that always votes for them, an absolutely disproportionate Public Administration, an unjustified number of politicians and advisors. An unaffordable public debt, a GDP still below that existing at the start of the pandemic and excessive and uncontrolled underlying inflation, the highest in the EU.
