Go slower, or at least differently. How to build a story about the Union after the pandemic?

Abstract

To build the story of the post-pandemic Union, we seek to understand change and its impact on our lives. The year 2020 has eroded faith in a future conceived as a better version of the present. The pandemic has provided the arguments for the assumption that the project of modernity is running out of steam. We now know that we need to slow down, and look for other ways. The EU is trying to read these signs of the times through the Green Deal and the multi-annual budget, which is supposed to be an investment in change. The Community draws strength and oxygen for solidarity from overcoming its own weaknesses. It is moving towards a Union of closer cooperation. It does not only want to equalize differences between the rich and the poor, but also to create a different economic model. It seeks a new role in the world because it knows that it must rely more on itself. Out of this transformation emerges the contemporary European imaginary, a set of perceptions and emotions that guide human actions. They are particularly important for younger generations who have “stopped seeing” Europe. The pedagogical challenge is to explain the contemporary sense of being together. Poland has a chance to make the ongoing changes, including the green transformation, a strong developmental impulse. This is not helped by fostering anti-EU sentiments in the country.