Annual Report 2025 - Report - Page 71
Greetings from Brussels
Freedom, Prosperity,
and the Power of Ideas
Magnus Brunner, European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and
Migration and former Austrian Finance Minister
At the Foundation Dinner with Paul Lerbinger, Gabriele and Peter
Haid, as well as Nikolaus Turner
As you all know, the first Lindau Nobel Meeting in Economic Sciences was held in 2004.
It was just three months after the European
Union experienced its greatest accession, with ten new
member states entering our single market. For eight of
those countries, the memory of communism and planned
economies was still fresh and the sense of optimism for a
better economic future was quite strong.
Europe was a promise that all Europeans can be the
masters of their own destiny. The promise of freedom
and stability, of peace and prosperity. In the 20 years that
followed, this promise has actually been fulfilled. And
sometimes at least, it has been forgotten. During this
time, however, it has also become clear that we live in a
world where nothing can be taken for granted.
The European Union is not only the largest area of
free movement – we are also the world’s biggest trading
power and the highest investor abroad. But we cannot
rest on our laurels. We can rightfully be proud of what
we have achieved, and we should look to the future with
both confidence and the right degree of self-assurance.
But first, we must do our homework. We must further
develop our single market, even if this perhaps means
setting aside particular national interests in favour of a
stronger European Union. And as Mario Draghi showed
in his report and recalled again last week in Rimini, this is
extremely urgent. In this respect we must also strengthen our international ties, and we are in a unique position
in Europe today, while other countries are becoming less
reliable, less predictable. We must also address migration,
where we must differentiate between legal migration
and illegal migration. We desperately need legal migration for more competitiveness. Also, within the European
Union we must, of course, ensure humanitarian protection for those in need.
This eighth edition of the Lindau Meeting of Nobel
Laureates in Economics represents a unique opportunity to draw on the best minds in economics, young and
not so young. Maybe some of us help shape our geo-economic agenda in the years to come. Particularly, as one
thing has not changed, and that’s the importance of
evidence-based policymaking. This is not always the
case in politics, but it should be the case in everyday life.
And that, of course, is what you do best.
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