Dutchman Rob Roos, former MEP and vice-president of the ECR group, was among the guests of honour at the two-day ECR event in Cluj, where Europe’s conservatives gathered to discuss how to build a new and stronger Union, where it is finally the institutions that work for the citizens, no longer demanding huge and often unreasonable sacrifices from them.
Roos seems to have a very clear idea of what needs to be done in Europe to revive it: to collaborate more and more so that our freedom is not crushed by the ‘new communism’, as he called it, because only then can Europe be truly reborn.
Here is what he revealed in an interview with La Voce del Patriota.
In your opinion, what are the fundamental principles on which to base the reconstruction of the EU today? And what is the role of conservatives in this process?
The European Union in its beginnings was meant to serve to improve the lives of the citizens of those member states that wanted to join the EU. But today we see that the EU no longer serves the citizens. On the contrary, this institution too often asks citizens to serve it, which is not what it was meant to be. I think it is right that there should be cooperation, both economic and in other fields where it is needed, but unfortunately we have moved away from that principle whereby the EU was supposed to make its citizens happy. Now life has become very expensive, mainly because of this crazy energy policy, this obsession with climate. And then we have an energy transition that is not sustainable. This is basically an ideological project, it is something dogmatic, which is based neither on facts nor on science. It is pure ideology.
It is precisely because of this ideological approach that much time has been lost in the EU. How can this be remedied?
The only way is to grow as a movement of conservatives, at European and world level. The fact is that today we are increasingly facing a drift that undermines our own culture. Indeed, unregulated immigration has changed our culture, as have gender politics and the crazy Green Deal. And all this has and does control us to some extent. We need a different path. So in order to make up for this lost time, it is necessary that as Conservatives we work to return to the foundations on which the Union was founded. We need to stop the censorship of language and the green deal eco-foolishness. We must protect our borders. We must, in short, make people happy again, and make Europe great again, and, most of all, a safe place to live and work.
These days in Cluj there is a lot of focus on fundamental issues for the future of Europe. A Europe that must “go back to working for its citizens, and not expect its citizens to work for it”. What does this mean in practice?
We conservatives, from all member states, must work together, with a long-term vision in mind. The problem of the European Union, but also its beauty, is that all states are different. Each one has its own culture, its own language, its own problems and positive aspects. And above all, each nation has its own interests. That is why it is often complicated to work together. What is important, however, is that we must focus on the main issue, which is the defence of our freedom and the fight against wokism. Because we are moving towards a new type of communism, which is taking away people’s freedom by imposing pre-imposed solutions. And we, as conservatives, must focus on cooperation and taking back our freedom, our prosperity, and we must implement a project of deregulation.
You mentioned the issue of censorship and freedom. In this sense, a striking case was in Romania, which suffered an attack on democracy itself with the cancellation of the last elections. What do you think of this situation?
It is terrible. In a word, what happened in Romania was terrible. Democracy is based on the will of the people. And when the people choose someone, it is always right. No matter what, because it is the will of the people. You may not like the result, you may not agree with it because you have another preference. But it must be remembered that democracy is based on the will of the people. It is simple. If you delete someone because you did not like the result, then there is something wrong with the system. And that is what happened in Romania. And if we don’t act now, in the future this oppression will take hold in other states as well. And this is a very worrying vision. People in many countries now believe that democracy and freedom is something that has always existed. Yet this is not the case, we should always remember this and then really fight to maintain this, and defeat the tyranny woke that wants us neither free nor autonomous.
