In Bucharest, Romania, on 26-27 April 2024, politicians, think-tankers, businessmen, writers and influencers from across Europe, the United States, Canada and South America gathered for a conference on defending European values and freedom and restoring national self-confidence. In other words, “Making Europe Great Again”. It was organized by the Romanian conservative political party, Alliance for the Union of Romanians (AUR), ahead of elections for the European Parliament to be held in all 27 countries of the European Union during the period 6-9 June 2024. Once elected, some 700 new members of the European Parliament (MEPs) will travel to Strasbourg on 16 July where most of them will join one of 8 trans-national political groups spanning a spectrum from Left to Right, from communist to extreme nationalist. The AUR aims to join the center-right group of European Conservatives & Reformists.

On 27 April, Geoffrey Van Orden CBE, Gold Institute Distinguished Fellow, Former British Army Brigadier-General, and leader of the British Conservatives in the European Parliament (before the United Kingdom left the EU in 2020), delivered a speech based on the following.

“30 years as a British Army officer taught me to keep my eye on the main aim, not to bring problems but solutions, and to understand the enemy. This also proved useful in my 20 years in the European Parliament, where I stood up for the sovereignty of our nations and against the drive for political integration, led the opposition to the EU’s misguided defense policy, demanded revitalization of NATO and rigorous counter-terrorism policies and sounded the alarm over mass immigration.

Today I see our values and our way of life are under threat and yet we are like rabbits caught in the car headlights, unable to make the right move. We face massive external and internal challenges, but we seem to have lost our way.

There is no doubt that the Covid pandemic inflicted the most enormous economic and social costs on all of us. There are worries about climate change and about conflict. But we have been through worse.

What is different is the widespread mood of pessimism and the undermining of confidence in our nations and our institutions, particularly among young people. This mood is spread by social media and fed by deliberate disinformation coming from Russia and its allies.

This is the backdrop to the most immediate and urgent threat that unfolded just a few miles from here with the Russian attack on the Ukraine, aiming to recreate the failed Soviet Union and that old Russian sphere of influence that embraced eastern Europe and the Black Sea. Romania’s commitment as a vital NATO ally was never more important.

Not only must we give every possible support to Ukraine in her defense against aggression, but the West needs to rearm – to upgrade national military capabilities, and strengthen the NATO alliance and our defense industries.

I am reassured that the United Kingdom is leading the way in Europe with the announcement, just a few days ago, of increasing defense expenditure and a massive replenishment of weapons for Ukraine.

Romania is enhancing its naval capabilities with four new surface combatants and three submarines for operations in the Black Sea. It is deepening its relationship with NATO and hosting NATO’s newest regional headquarters, Multinational Division Southeast.

Russia, with a GDP smaller than Britain’s, is single-minded in its objectives, seeking to recover its great power status and aggressively trying to restore its control of the post- Soviet space. Its people are used to hardship. The citizens of the democracies, meanwhile, seek a world of stability and just want peace, comfort and the good life.

Moscow’s strategy is two-fold. Firstly to convince Western public opinion to appease Russia in order to avoid conflict. Secondly, to separate Europe from the United States – to break the transatlantic alliance that has been our saviour and protection for over 80 years.

This is why I believe that EU Defense Policy, essentially a 70-year old French project, aiming to create an autonomous EU defense structure, separate from NATO - is not only wrong-headed but dangerous.

We are constantly being told that America is turning its back on Europe, pivoting to Asia, and that Donald Trump, in particular, wants to take America out of NATO. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Every American president since Eisenhower has wanted the Europeans to contribute more to their own security. Trump just speaks in more brash language. The fact is, he has been a major incentive for the Europeans to do more – two-thirds of NATO’s 32 members now spend at least 2% of their GDP on defense. Ten years ago, only 3 NATO allies met that meagre target.

The United States now has more troops and equipment stationed in Europe than since the end of the Cold War. It is investing some $5 billion in the European Deterrence Initiative, and in the last few days, the US Congress has approved a $60 billion defense assistance program for Ukraine. It has deployed a rotational Brigade Combat Team to Romania in addition to air and air defense assets. That’s a massive, continuing, and reliable commitment to European security by the United States. And it’s what Russia fears most.

What we need across Europe is more military capability backed by political will, not fanciful EU structures.

The EU is not “Europe”.

The fact is EU defense policy has never been about more military capability – it is a political project to take forward European political integration. Brussels now wants the national veto on EU defense policy to be lifted and to introduce majority voting so that it can impose its political will. And it wants to insist on exclusive EU defense procurement, which by definition would complicate and exclude non-EU providers like the US and UK. You may recall Madeleine Albright’s warning way back in in 1998, against EU Defense Policy. She saw that it would lead to “diminution of NATO, discrimination and duplication” – the famous 3 “Ds”. Unfortunately all of them are hallmarks of EU Defense Policy. This needs to be opposed.

The transatlantic alliance needs to be strengthened, not chopped in half.

We also face an enemy within. The hard Left has never lost its loathing for our nations, for our great histories, culture and traditions, for all that has made us who we are. It will do all that it can to disrupt our economies, target vital industries, and create fear and despair.

We see it in action on our streets with the demonstrations ostensibly about Gaza. Noticeably absent is any condemnation of the Hamas terror organisation, any demands for the release of Israeli hostages, or even puzzlement at the abject failure of successive Palestinian leaders to deliver peace for their people.

And we have another problem. We are incapable, it seems, of securing our borders. Week after week, year after year, we allow countless thousands of strangers into our countries from cultures entirely different to our own. Their sheer numbers make integration into our societies increasingly difficult and now, with the promotion of multiculturalism, we seem to have given up on that possibility.

Last year, net migration to the UK was 672,000. In 2022, net migration to the EU countries was over 4 million.

The EU, wrapped in faulty human rights legislation, has been a massive magnet for migrants. Its mind-set is to continue to lay our countries open but to impose migrant quotas on its member states. Quite rightly, many EU countries have refused to accept this. But it is national governments that have been complacent over mass immigration or have sat at the EU Council table in Brussels and agreed on rules that merely encourage more migration.

At the same time, new laws have been introduced which give unprecedented protection to imported sensitivities and beliefs so that it is now hardly possible to criticize the arrival of people from entirely different cultures and backgrounds in case we are called racist or Islamophobic.

Not surprisingly we now have a generation of young people who know little about their own countries and are being indoctrinated into shame over our great national stories through social media, schools and universities as well as public institutions such as our art galleries and museums.

Let us be clear, most migrants come because they want to integrate into our societies, earn a living, and leave behind the system they grew up with. Many have made a great contribution to our societies and are proud of the country that has adopted them. But the pressure on so many to retain their old cultural baggage and loyalties is enormous.

We have to put a stop to mass immigration before it gets worse. Within the EU, national governments need to regain control over asylum and immigration policy. We need to change welfare and employment systems and human rights legislation that is a massive magnet for migrants. Those that enter our countries illegally or engage in serious criminality must be removed.

One of the biggest obstacles to an effective removal system across Europe has proved to be the European Convention on Human Rights – or rather its overreach and inflated interpretation. Its workings, along with the Refugee Convention, impact on all of our countries.

Neither the United States, nor the United Kingdom nor so many other countries, have any need of an external court in order to protect their very long-standing and positive record of human rights. International laws were drawn up in entirely different circumstances over 70 years ago, after the atrocities of the holocaust and with the communist iron curtain falling across eastern Europe. We now need a concerted effort to change these Conventions and their interpretation.

Increase in defense expenditure, enhancement of NATO, control of our borders and an end to mass immigration – these are policies that our center-right parties should campaign for.

15 years ago, I was instrumental in the creation of the European Conservatives & Reformists political group in the European Parliament. I want to see it again becoming the third largest group in the parliament and a decisive force. It is time the sensible, reasonable, center-right reasserted itself.

We must strengthen the cohesion of our nations, educate our young people about the reality of the threat we face, and carry out a moral rearmament to restore confidence and hope. Our democracy and prosperity, has been hard won over many centuries, but can be easily lost. It would take many generations to recover.

Europe – the United Kingdom, the Nordic countries, the Black Sea nations, the continental European countries – have much in common and have contributed so much to the world. We are a bastion of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law. We have been an engine of global creativity and prosperity. Let us show that we are proud of who we are and that, along with our great kindred allies, the United States, Canada, and so many others, we have the resolve and the resources to protect our precious inheritance of freedom and to make a better world.”