On Monday 2 March, the former President of the European Council, Donald Tusk, visited the European Investment Bank (EIB) in Luxembourg on a joint invitation from the Bank, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the Court of Auditors.
Welcomed by EIB President Werner Hoyer, the President of the Court of Auditors, Klaus-Heiner Lehne, and the Managing Director of the ESM, Klaus Regling, the outspoken Polish politician gave a speech to EIB staff and invitees from the other Luxembourg-based institutions on the state of European affairs, also touching upon shared values and the safeguarding of the European project.
Mr Tusk addressed current themes and the difficult situations that a united Europe faces, ranging from Brexit, the crisis of the EU enlargement idea, the anti-European turn in US politics, the issue of big data and IA … to the Coronavirus. Although Europe faces a multitude of challenges, Mr Tusk was positive, saying “I believe that things become irreversible only when people start to believe that they are irreversible. In other words, everything is still in our hands.”