Costa on Iran: “Our prosperity is under pressure”

Brussels – “We must be realistic: our prosperity is under pressure.” The President of the European Council, Antonio Costa, views with concern the war in Iran and a world order in shambles, with new logics that risk burying what has been achieved so far. “We have entered an era of instability, where the rules-based order is being undermined,” constantly and repeatedly, and, as the European Union, “we are facing challenges that test our competitiveness and our resilience,” he said at the European Investment Bank (EIB) Annual Forum.

 In this context, “the war in Iran has revealed new levels of instability and disintegration in the international order,” and, in this context, “the European Union must respond with determination.” This does not mean a military response, even though Costa calls for boosting the twelve-star defence industry. Instead, it means pressing ahead with reforms. “Only a competitive and resilient economy can protect us” from the current turmoil. For the EU, this means “completing the single market,” and, more specifically, “integrating the energy, telecommunications, and capital sectors,” the President of the European Council explained.

More importantly, Costa insists, “the energy transition remains the best long-term option,” to escape oil price rises and protect against an increasingly unpredictable situation. Because “what is happening in the Middle East demonstrates the importance of becoming energy independent.” From this point of view, “we must strengthen interconnections” between Member States, Costa suggested, in what is a clear call to complete the Energy Union. 

And then there is trade. Faced with this European and global prosperity under siege, free trade agreements remain the best way forward. “We must continue with our trade policies with the aim of diversification.” Only in this way, according to Costa, can the EU save itself and avoid being dragged into the abyss of recession. A word that has never been uttered, but that is beginning to enter the vocabulary of the twelve-star policy.