JAVIER ZARZALEJOS TAKES PART IN THE CLOSING SESSION OF THE FAES CAMPUS 2025
The Member of the European Parliament for the Popular Party and Director of the FAES Foundation, Javier Zarzalejos, took part on September 19 in the closing session of the FAES Campus 2025, alongside the President of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the former Prime Minister and President of FAES, José María Aznar.
In his speech, the MEP addressed the state of transatlantic relations, recalling that “the international order encouraged by free trade and the convergence of democratic systems is gravely compromised, if not irreversibly damaged.” In this regard, he warned that “if that order has fallen into crisis, it is because it has been repudiated by the great power that, to a large extent, brought it into being.”
He also warned about the cultural and political background that has fueled phenomena such as “Make America Great Again”: “The culture of grievance, the claim of a threatened identity, and mobilization around a collective narrative of grievance are no longer found only among minorities nurtured by the left, but now give life to that MAGA in which the Republican Party is less and less recognizable each day.”
Zarzalejos stressed that Europe is facing a scenario of uncertainty that requires deep reforms: “Things are not going to return to the way we knew them. Europe will have to do more, accept changes and with them new responsibilities, and mobilize its capacities.” He added: “It will have to accept that the world is much more conflictive, much more competitive, much more uncertain than we would like.”
The MEP argued that the future of the European project depends on a new refoundation: “Europe has managed to refound itself many times; otherwise, we would not have the euro nor would it have 27 members. Surely, it is time for that refoundation to happen again—not at the expense of what Europe is, but so that it can continue to be fully a community of law, democratic values, freedoms, and progress.”
Earlier, Zarzalejos joined Esteban González Pons, Vice President of the European Parliament and spokesperson of the PP in the European Parliament, in the roundtable discussion “Future Challenges of the European Union: The Parliamentary Perspective.” The meeting addressed the major challenges that will shape the new legislature: on the budgetary front, with the debate on the multiannual financial framework; on the strategic front, with investment needs in security and defense; and on the geopolitical front, with the redefinition of the world order. At the strictly political level, the rise of populisms and illiberal autocracies as alternative models to Western liberal democracy is emerging as both an internal and external challenge.