Islamist terror is spreading across Europe and has also reached Austria. At the same time, Europe is also under threat from other sides. The European Parliament has therefore set up a special committee against disinformation and for freedom of expression, in which we are looking for ways and means to arm Europe’s citizens against disinformation campaigns. The intensity of so-called “hybrid warfare” activities is increasing. This refers to a combination of measures that are almost imperceptible and usually have an indirect effect, but are all the more profound. These include, for example, the weakening of critical infrastructure, cyber attacks, distraction from the relevant by attracting a lot of attention to the irrelevant; undermining trust in democratically legitimized institutions or in our fundamental values such as human dignity, liberal democracy, which includes the rule of law and freedom of the press; partly through concerted disinformation to irritate us. The central motive of all these processes is to divide our societies. It is obvious that Europe’s greatest strength by far is its unity. We may settle day-to-day political disputes democratically, but that is precisely what underpins this strength. For the first time in history, Europe, from South to North and East to West, has a structure that makes it possible to resolve conflicts without violence and on the basis of shared fundamental values. Those who do not like our way of life, those who want to exhaust us, those who see their own opportunities in global competition as competition rather than cooperation, want to divide our Europe and its societies. We must recognize the dangers we will face in the future and that we are already exposed to pinpricks in the present. We also need to understand who in the world is friendly to us and interact much more with our partner countries. We also need to understand what is at stake: in addition to the security of future generations, the global significance of values such as those mentioned above; of priorities such as tackling climate change or preventing people from being uprooted through genuine development cooperation in the form of “helping people to help themselves”. “Strategic autonomy” is the technical term for an elementary, essential strength that Europe must develop: the ability to help itself in crises. The pandemic and, in its wake, the economic crisis show how quickly we can become self-reliant in a crisis. The pinpricks are smouldering crises. The next big crisis could be a blackout or a new wave of migration. We have to take precautions. And we can do it: the fact that the EU’s new “Multiannual Financial Framework” provides for a European Defense Fund (EDF) for the first time is nothing less than a paradigm shift. In addition to the existing permanent structured cooperation between EU member states in military projects (PESCO), where our armed forces contribute a great deal of excellence in the area of NBC defense, for example, the EDF will provide a powerful instrument for joint innovation funding for defense-related research and production.
This can generate a wealth of collateral benefits for domestic production and jobs and create sales opportunities for European technology products on the European consumer market, where products from America and Asia have tended to be sold for years. Not least because of our position as a net contributor, we are required to bring as many targeted returns as possible to Austria from every EU budget. In this way, in addition to the economic benefits of the internal market – which cannot be expressed in simple comparative figures on member contributions or EU budgets – we also leverage benefits through the clever use of EU funding. Austria can turn the EDF into a success story similar to that of the security research program as part of EU research funding under Horizon 2020. A total of 1.6 billion euros was spent on security research under Horizon 2020. The return rate to Austria was an outstanding 158 percent compared to the Austrian share of the total volume. In absolute figures, this amounts to 35.2 million euros. A continuation of this successful red-white-red path can be expected for the follow-up program Horizon Europe. The successful path can also be continued with the EDF, as already mentioned in the government program. Due to the excellence of domestic companies, the added value here will also exceed the use of public funds. This creates and secures high-quality jobs. The medium and long-term benefits for Austrian companies, for example in the form of new sales opportunities for innovative everyday products, are not even included here. This will make it possible to strengthen Europe’s strategic autonomy, strengthen Austria’s ties with the other member states – and within the framework of PESCO also with European states outside the EU – and at the same time secure high-quality jobs in Austria in the long term – in the midst of a veritable economic and labor market crisis. But we can rise to the challenges and recognize and take advantage of opportunities even in times of crisis.
