In this episode of the Liberal Europe Podcast, we go to Łódź for a live recording of the panel with […]
In this episode of the Liberal Europe Podcast, we go to Łódź for a live recording of the panel with the title “Strategic Foresight: Identifying Risks, Threats and Opportunities for the European Union”, where Leszek and Ricardo are joined on stage by Jolanta Szymańska, the Head of the European Union programme at the Polish Institute of International Affairs, and Cátia Moreira de Carvalho, a Marie Curie Fellow at Dublin City University’s School of Law and Government.
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Ricardo: Welcome to the Liberal Europe podcast. I’m your host, Ricardo Silvestre, and thank you so much for listening to today’s episode. Last year, on October 9th to be exact, we brought you a special episode recorded live in Łódź at the amazing Freedom Games. Our constant listeners know that we often mention this fantastic festival of ideas, and we are already thinking about this year’s edition, which will have the title Tech for Humanity. As an appetiser, we bring you today the live recording of the panel from last year’s edition, titled “Strategic Foresight: Identifying Risks, Threats and Opportunities in the European Union.” In that panel, Leszek and I were joined on stage by Cátia Moreira de Carvalho and Jolanta Szymańska. Cátia is a Marie Curie Fellow at Dublin City University, with an interest in violent extremism, radicalisation, and disinformation. Jolanta is Head of the EU Programme at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. Now it’s my great pleasure to bring you a live recording at Freedom Games 2025: Strategic Foresight — Identifying Risks, Threats and Opportunities in the European Union.
Ricardo: We’re going to introduce ourselves. Let’s start with Cátia. Cátia, please tell our audience who you are.
Cátia: My name is Cátia Moreira de Carvalho. I come from Portugal. I work as a researcher for Dublin City University, and I’m also a board member of IPDAL — a Portuguese think tank — and an international politics analyst for CNN. I’m very, very happy to be here.
Jolanta: I’m Jolanta Szymańska. I’m the head of the European Union team at the Polish Institute of International Affairs. PISM is the biggest think tank in Poland covering international relations. Personally, I cover migration policies, European migration policies, and institutional issues. I’m also an academic researcher. I’ve worked throughout my career at the University of Warsaw, at the National School of Public Administration, and many others, so it’s a pleasure to be here.
Leszek: All right, and I’m Leszek Jażdżewski — Liberté, Freedom Games.
Ricardo: I’m Ricardo Silvestre. I’m a political scientist with a special interest in transatlantic relations, and also an Associate Fellow with the European Liberal Forum, which are our hosts today. With that, Leszek, we’re going to go into discussing what are strong ideas on the scenarios, because that’s part of strategic foresight. When we do strategic foresight, we have a group of experts, we throw ideas on the table, and then we discuss these ideas.
Ricardo: I think we’re going to see a full frontal attack on EU norms, laws, and regulations. There’s an alliance right now between the Trump administration and US tech oligarchs that is going to manifest on two fronts. One is the US government — from the State Department to the Commerce Department, from the White House, we’re already seeing it happen in multiple ways: coercion, blackmail, threats. Then there’s the other front, which is the digital companies. We’re talking about Twitter, we’re talking about Meta. Now TikTok, as you know, is also in the control of US oligarchs aligned with the Trump administration. It’s going to be done by algorithms, AI slop, synthetic politics. This is going to render our political and social debate online virtually meaningless, with no joint solutions. Imagine what we had during the 2016 election in the United States, the famous Cambridge Analytica scandal — imagine that on steroids. This leads to polarisation, it leads to radicalisation, and it also leads to more people being elected who are part of this post-truth, post-liberal new world order that the Trump administration would like to see here in Europe.
Jolanta: I can go next, because I’ll try to be positive. In my positive scenario for the European Union, the EU strengthens its efforts to protect its digital sovereignty and to reduce dependency on foreign technology. The EU continues to set its own standards for data governance and platform regulations, to foster European digital innovation, support start-ups, and promote expanding digital skills among citizens of the European Union member states. The EU also developes what is called the European Democracy Shield, which was announced in the latest State of the Union address by Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and also sets up a new European Centre for Democratic Resilience — an institution created to allow us to better fight disinformation and manipulation of information. A little bit stronger instrument: the EU uses the long-term budget negotiations to put pressure on the United States government, but also on tech companies. I think the potential introduction of a digital tax in the EU, introducing it into the next MFF, may reduce the US’s ambition to interfere with European democracy. On the level of member states, in a positive scenario, I expect democratic opposition taking power in Hungary — which gives a very positive impulse for other member states and democratic forces, especially in France, Germany, but also in Poland, and makes them a little bit more brave in promoting European values.
Cátia: Thank you. Just imagine a world where the United States is dismantling the very systems that once prevented and countered terrorism and extremism. These changes right now aren’t staying only in the United States — they are spreading to Europe through governments that are ideologically aligned with the United States. And the result? The EU is being weakened from within, and they are creating threats that didn’t exist before. These new vague categories of what is “terrorist” or “extremist” — like, for example, targeting groups labelled as Antifa, or drug cartels — are emerging. They are causing confusion and fear. Meanwhile, far-right movements, despite posing real threats and risks to our society, are largely ignored and downplayed by these ideologically aligned governments, because they identify themselves with these movements. So Europe, once confident in sharing intelligence with the United States, now faces a partnership that the EU can no longer fully trust. Our collective resilience as the EU is eroding because this transatlantic safety net is now decaying. Institutions like the Heritage Foundation — I’m sure all of you have heard of it — are actively building European networks to import Trumpist ideology to Europe. This ideological influence reshapes policies and sadly undermines the security frameworks that have kept Europe safe for decades. The list of uncertainties is long: who defines the threats? Which alliances will hold? And how will internal mistrust evolve? The potential implications are serious: weakened coordination, selective focus on dangers, and a European Union more vulnerable to internal fragmentation and fear-driven decisions because of Trumpism and the Trump administration.
Leszek: Thank you. The relationship between the US and the EU — speaking on three different fronts. On the economic front, I would expect that in this scenario we will see rhetorical attacks, perhaps trying to either force or contain the EU to maintain the concessions it already made. There is, I think, a possibility of Trump undermining certain deals that were done, but nothing serious really happening. On the perhaps most interesting-for-us security front, there will be continuation of the war. Trump one day will support the talks, the other day he will promise Tomahawks, on the third day he will tell Europeans to buy them, on the fourth day he will say that Ukraine cannot use them. This is what I think is the reality of the security relationship with the Americans right now, but with no major troop withdrawals or signals that would seriously undermine NATO — except perhaps occasional posts on Truth Social bashing those who, like Spain, pay less than 2% to the budget. But importantly, Trump will also contain any serious support for a permanent Gaza ceasefire from Europeans. I think that pressure on Europeans to maintain a relatively balanced or withdrawn politics vis-à-vis the Gaza tragedy will force Europeans to hold the line, despite the domestic willingness to be engaged in the subject more openly. And the last front, the political front: I think the major European powers will abuse Trump, as they do — telling him that he is basically the best president that this planet ever had, and supporting his fight for the Nobel Peace Prize. I hope that’s not necessarily the Nobel Peace Prize but the Nobel Literature Prize, because that might end up really, really bad.
Ricardo: Well, Leszek, so why don’t we start confronting those strong ideas. Let’s have a rapid-fire discussion here, and I’m going to start with you, Jolanta, because you mentioned timeframes, and I’m sure you’re very experienced in this. Tell me, what are those timeframes for you? When I say 6 months, 8 months, 12 months — do you think in your opinion that this doesn’t affect these kinds of scenarios easily, because the EU is too slow, too cumbersome? Go a little bit into that — I was very curious.
Jolanta: Traditionally, the European Union is not the fastest decision-maker in the whole world, as we have 27 member states, and reaching agreement is sometimes extraordinarily difficult. Although — I need to be still in my positive scenario — I mentioned that Trump actually changed the European Union a little bit, speeding up the process. I still hope that some decisions, at least, could be made — at least some symbolic decisions — and that we as Europeans should be creative in using the tools we have in our hands. That’s why I mentioned in my positive scenario the budget negotiations: we should not give up before the fight. We should really think about the instruments we really have. Maybe we are not super serious, and we are aware that using them is still extraordinary, because we have differences of opinion between member states — but we can play this game at least. Because without playing, you are not able to win, and sometimes we give up too early. So six months is not much, but for the diplomatic game, it’s still a lot.
Ricardo: I’ll add — before the two of you jump in — that we are also going into a cycle where the Trump administration is going to be very worried with internal issues. Cátia, I’m wondering: along which lines do you think this cohesion in your scenario might break? Because I think that could be really essential. What sorts of blocks or issues do you expect might be crucial for this potential division in the European Union vis-à-vis the US — in terms of extremism and terrorism?
Cátia: The United States has dismantled various systems and mechanisms that used to prevent and counter extremism efforts — in civil society organisations and also in collaboration with academia, not only in the United States but also elsewhere. They have dismantled this, and they now rely on the fight against terrorism and extremism only through police officers, police forces, and security services. So everything that’s behind — everything that’s behind a terrorist attack or an extremist attack — is not being prevented or countered right now. I speak from experience. For example, at my previous university, we had a study to try to understand and analyse what are the most effective interventions to tackle disinformation, misinformation, and malinformation in relation to terrorism. But with this new Trump administration, this funding has been cut. The people we were working with at the Department of State and the Department of Homeland Security have all been fired. This has, of course, tremendous consequences for the United States, but also for us — because this is a study that would be useful not only for the United States, but worldwide. And in terms of the European Union, these very ideas — that it’s not worth fighting extremism, that the far right is something that doesn’t exist — are being imported by governments aligned with Trumpism and the Trump administration. We see that in our civil society organisations in Europe, and also at European Union level, we have people trying to fight them. But I don’t think we are strong enough yet to fight them with the right words and the right tools to show that we are strong enough to defend our democracy against extremism. But I have a question for you, Ricardo. I saw your speech on Friday. You were making a clear statement for the people in the audience that we cannot be complacent. You were referring that mostly to the internal. But in a status quo scenario, how complacent can the European Union be when we have these threats coming from Washington? What do you think?
Ricardo: I think there is no limit on the complacency front with the EU. We were good at it. In my personal opinion, I think that in politics, weakness is simply unacceptable. You have to speak softly and carry a big stick, as Theodore Roosevelt, the US president, always said. I think that would be the wrong strategy — showing weakness means that in very transactional negotiations, which is currently the practice of dealing with the US and Trump, you are already in a losing position when you start from the thinking that you actually have to offer concessions. But if you’re asking me about the reality of the process — and Jolanta mentioned this — trying to find common ground between 27 countries with different, especially security, interests means that it’s going to be extremely hard to fight with a united front on the many important issues against the US.
Ricardo: Okay — more questions from the audience. Please introduce yourself.
Audience member: I will introduce myself as a Ukrainian national that happened to come here. I have a question about the big corporations in Europe. Is there any negotiation done with them? Because I’m pretty sure they will say they prefer money, first and foremost, and contacts with Silicon Valley. So it’s good to have talks with them, to see how they are investing in AI as fast as possible before the legislation is made. So are they involved, and how is it going?
Jolanta: Actually, all the companies in Europe have access to EU institutions, and they influence the decision-making process in the European Union. But the problem is that we don’t have so many European companies — strong companies that will really compete with the US tech giants. So we should also know that US companies are present and very involved in European debates about EU regulations. Not an easy topic. And I’m not really sure that in this regard, companies should be the main reference point. I think that we should first think about societies.
Leszek: I think I will start wrapping up the way I always do on our Liberal Europe Podcast with Ricardo Silvestre. It’s all for me from today. I thank our guests, Jolanta Szymańska and Cátia Moreira de Carvalho. Thank you. Good night and good luck. See you next year.
Ricardo: This is all for now. I’ll be back soon with more podcasts. You can always visit the website liberalforum.eu to know more about the activities of the European Liberal Forum. Until the next episode, let’s keep making the world a better place.