JAVIER ZARZALEJOS AT THE FAES CAMPUS 2022: “WE SHOULD NOT BE AFRAID OF OUR SUCCESS AGAINST PUTIN”

Held between September 21 and 23, the FAES Campus 2022 has dedicated three days to reflecting on “Europe after the Russian invasion of Ukraine”. In the second of them, Javier Zarzalejos inaugurated the international area of ​​the campus. In his speech, he stressed that the invasion of Ukraine has “shaken our certainties” and that, presenting an “uncertain outcome”, the European Union and the United States must be decisive for Putin to fail; In this sense, he advocated that the West “not be afraid of its own success”. Zarzalejos explained how the invasion has brought new problems to the table and also discovered others that were latent (European strategic autonomy, energy policy problems). He warned that Putin seeks “the Chechenization of Ukraine and the neutralization of the EU” in an “existential” confrontation according to the Russian president’s own political design. He recognized the uncertainty of the future of the conflict, underlining -within such uncertainty- a certainty: that as spaniards, this concerns us not only as consumers, but as free citizens.

At the opening of the international area Zarzalejos was accompanied by Ivan Vejvoda, Permanent Fellow, Head of Europe’s Futures – Ideas for Action, IWM; and by Christoph Wolfrum, Minister Counselor of the German Embassy in Spain.

Participating in a subsequent conversation were the Senior Fellow of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute at the International Center for Defense & Security, James Sherr; the Senior Researcher, Monterey Initiative in Russian Studies, Jade McGlynn; and the Ukrainian journalist Anna Korbut. The day ended in the afternoon with a conversation between the director of International Relations programs at UFV, Florentino Portero, the director of the UFV Institute for International Politics, Ignacio Cosidó, and ambassador Nicolás Pascual de la Parte. During the day, the strategic autonomy of Europe after the war in Ukraine and the prospects for a lasting peace were discussed.