Experts from around the world gathered in Florence for the 14th edition of the State of the Union conference to discuss the priorities of the next European term.
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00:00 With only a few days left until the EU's next elections,
00:05 debating the most pressing issues Europe is facing has never been as crucial as it is now.
00:11 Economic policies along with both digital and green transitions
00:14 topped the agenda of the 14th edition of the State of the Union Conference.
00:19 Speakers from around the world flocked to Florence for the two-day event
00:22 to reflect on what has been achieved so far
00:25 and what Europe should focus on in the next political term.
00:28 Many of these panels are dealing with the technical issues involved
00:32 but what unites them is the sense that there must be some vision for Europe's future.
00:37 A vision that can bring Europeans together
00:40 because if Europeans are not united, not able to generate the kind of energy necessary
00:45 to tackle these challenges, then no technical solution is going to be enough.
00:49 Among the lessons learned, experts including former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta
00:54 warned that the call to competitiveness is something Europe cannot ignore.
00:58 As part of that effort, continuing on the path of the Green Deal
01:01 to make the EU economy more sustainable can be both an opportunity and a challenge.
01:06 We should be less worried because the Green Deal is much more than a Green Deal
01:10 and maybe some of the details might change because some politicians might prefer some aspects of the Green Deal
01:16 but I think the project will continue in the same direction that we started.
01:20 The need for European defence and the future of enlargement are some of the questions
01:24 being triggered by the new geopolitical order caused by the war in Ukraine.
01:29 But above all, more than anything, these elections are about defending European values and democracies
01:34 and the fight against misinformation.
01:37 Espionage, disinformation, AI abuse and so on.
01:42 They are targeting our trust and they seek to decrease the trust of people in democratic system.
01:51 It's dangerous.
01:53 So I hope we will not have some dramatically bad lesson to be learned from these elections.
02:01 But even if not, even if they will be more or less okay,
02:06 with only some portion of manipulation, it's inevitable.
02:12 We will have to do more in the future because trust is the most valuable value we have.
02:19 Whether or not some of the proposals discussed here will be implemented
02:23 greatly depends on what's going to happen after June 9th.
02:27 Giorgia Orlandi for EUROnews in Florence.
02:30 (whooshing)