There are phrases that jokingly disguise what is a fundamental idea that inspires the work at ARA. Our mission statement is to practice free and committed journalism that connects with a conscious community. "We are a community, not a sect," and we expressed this at the beginning of Focus: The Solutions Forum, a conference where we brought together more than a thousand people at the CCCB for a day and a half. However, in these dark times, the difference is crucial. A sect only wants loyalty; a community wants critical thinking. A sect imposes a narrative; a community informs itself without fear, discusses, compares, questions, and—if necessary—corrects. And if anything is at stake today, it is precisely that: the collective capacity to maintain critical thinking and sound judgment. To keep a cool head when the world is overheating. To stay informed and not shy away from the truth when the values of liberal democracy and Europeanism are in danger.
Journalist Sylvie Kauffmann put it with disarming honesty: "There are things that keep me up at night." And in that statement lay a shared symptom. An entire continent is uneasy. The accelerated collapse of multilateralism and the decline of liberal democracy are, ultimately, two effects of the same earthquake: the feeling that the rules no longer protect, that the law is once again "the law of the strongest," and that, faced with this shock, our democracies seem slow and weary.
Kauffmann warns that the process is relentless and we don't have the "luxury" of time. European leaders cannot afford to be so late in responding to public opinion, which demands concerted action—if necessary, with multiple levels of agreement—to preserve our political and social model; in short, the European values that are under threat today. The round table moderated by Carme Colomina, with Cristina Gallach, Blanca Garcés, Xavier Vives, and Toni Roldán, delved into the same concern. The diagnosis: dependency equals vulnerability. Xavier Vives formulated it with an image that summarizes the epochal shift: we have gone from Hobbes to Orwell. In Hobbes's world, the state can be a necessary evil that prevents chaos; in Orwell's, the state can be organized chaos, the power that distorts language, that eliminates truth, and that turns the citizen into a fearful spectator. Therefore, the debate is not only geopolitical. It is political in the deepest sense: what do we do to prevent our model from collapsing before our eyes? Europe moves forward when it perceives vulnerability as a shared problem. The pandemic opened the door to Eurobonds and Next Generation EU bonds because, suddenly, everyone felt the same vertigo. Today, however, what is the main threat? Russia? Trump? China? Inequality? The internal fracture? The most honest answer is that they all are. But, if they all are, a hierarchy is necessary. And to hierarchize means to decide.
Deciding, in today's world, begins by accepting a truth that we in Europe struggle with because it doesn't fit our comfortable narrative: without hard power There is no sovereignty. Vives was blunt: if you don't have autonomous defense capabilities, you don't negotiate, you beg. Kauffmann provided empirical proof: "No, they are not prepared," he said about Europe. The war in Ukraine forced us to confront an idea that didn't fit our framework. But defense alone doesn't save a democracy. The second dependency is digital. Cloud computing, software, data infrastructure, payment systems, raw materials: Europe has left too many nails out of its own pocket. Now, the most important debate—and what explains why the far right is growing in so many places—is not geopolitics, but the everyday feeling of powerlessness. Kauffmann says it without rhetoric: democracies "no longer work well" and, too often, "we haven't looked people's everyday problems in the face." The best antidote to populism is effectiveness. Housing, health, energy transition, education: we can't just make ten plans and do nothing. If citizens see democracy as slow, expensive, and ineffective, populism enters the scene as a promise of speed. Against the far right, we must speak the truth and bridge the gap between reality and everyday political debates. This is the void that demagogues fill.
The conferences have outlined a roadmap for action. First, European defense as an industrial project: joint procurement, standardization, productive capacity, and common financing. Second, minimum viable digital sovereignty: European infrastructure for critical sectors, alternatives in payments and data. Third, a true single market, especially in services. Fourth, strategic diversification: agreements and alliances outside the mainstream. The world is large and is diversifying. Fifth, rebuilding the social contract: healthcare, education, housing, and social mobility. Not as a moral luxury, but as a democratic infrastructure. If the state doesn't protect, democracy cannot survive. And sixth, if we can't be 27, we'll start with those who are willing. Blanca Garcés called for unity and a positive narrative. Not for appearances' sake, but because without a promise there is no future. And the European promise is that freedom is possible, but it must be defended.
We, as journalists, can do several things: not normalize the absurd, not trivialize fear, not turn politics into a spectacle. And we can insist on what is countercultural today: that the truth is not a matter of opinion, that facts are sacred, and that democracy can only be defended if it is capable of functioning.
This is also what it means to be a community. To think together, to discuss together, and, above all, to decide that we will not resign ourselves.
