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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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important as moving towards an integrated energy market. Digitalisation
is transforming the way we produce, consume and communicate. The
European Union must therefore ensure that it does not lag behind the rest
of the world in adapting to this revolution and develop the means to chan-
nel it constructively and protect European citizens from the fraudulent or
unethical use of digital technology.
The current crisis, the toxic effects of which have seriously compro-
mised our economic productivity, social fabric and political institutions,
was provoked by financial speculation and malpractice in the banking sec-
tor. The only way to avoid a repetition of the same tragic scenario is to
undertake a fundamental reform of our financial system and implement
an effective system of supervision and control that will guide the financial
sector back to its authentic role of facilitating credit to families and busi-
nesses. A chapter of this report deals with this issue.
Another of the social and economic issues we considered important
enough to address in this report is the Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) agreement between the EU and the United States. Busi-
ness transactions between the EU and the United States account for a
large share of world trade, and a successful conclusion to the negotiations
underway would have a positive impact on the future of partners on both
sides of the Atlantic. However, it must also be kept in mind that an agree-
ment reached at any cost would have negative consequences for both.
Another pending challenge is the open question of economic and po-
litical migration. The harrowing fact that the Mediterranean Sea has be-
come a vast graveyard attests to the failure of current EU policy and un-
derlines our inability to date to cope with this human drama. Chapter VIII
of this report approaches this issue from a Mediterranean perspective.
We believe that Europe’s greatest security risk today is radical jihadism,
which from its base in the recently proclaimed Islamic State has spread like
a cancer throughout a vast area that extends from the Sahel to the Middle
East. The deadly attack on the offices of
Charlie Hebdo
in Paris, a never-
ending succession of hostage situations in scores of other countries and
the deaths of hundreds of innocent people that occur daily in Syria, Iraq
and Libya underscore the serious nature of this problem. The EU needs to
develop a security policy that focuses on this threat in concert with its allies
and Arab countries. We have devoted an entire chapter to this issue.
Although the idea that Europe is teetering on the edge of a new Cold
War might at first appear to be a gross exaggeration, if the Ukrainian
conflict is not cautiously and intelligently addressed and resolved, such a
premonition could well become a real situation that quickly degenerates
–and to some extent has already degenerated– into a “hot” war. Ukraine