Toomas Hendrik Ilves, a former president of Estonia, has joined Volt Europa, a federalist European centre to centre-left political movement that promotes progressivism and social liberalism.
According to the movement, “Ilves shares with it the primary goal of building a Europe that is resilient, thriving and capable of leading sustainable change in these times of uncertainty and turmoil”.
“I have had no party affiliation for almost 20 years and have explicitly avoided any for the past decade after leaving office. But the challenges the European Union faces today have changed dramatically. First with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and its openly hostile and threatening attitude toward Europe and now with an antagonistic US administration that has upended the transatlantic relationship of the past 80 years, we need to ask ourselves, will our European way of life survive?” Ilves said in a statement.
“To do so, Europe needs to get its act together now. It needs to overcome 35 years of neglecting defence and its security; it needs to create a Europe-wide capital market to allow the kind of investment that has propelled the US to its leadership position in technology that is far, far ahead of Europe, where we need to catch up in leaps and bounds especially in AI. If we do not address these issues, we will become the impoverished backwater it was last in the Middle Ages,” he added.
According to the former president, the European Union needs to overcome its own lethargy, its unwillingness to address difficult reforms and its internal bickering. Europe also needs, according to Ilves, a turning post across all domains – defence, foreign policy, finance, the single market, its self-defeating innovation and tech regulations, the continent’s costly and debilitating energy policies, and its own decision-making.
“Europe is under attack”
“With an international environment increasingly hostile toward the continent, especially with regard to the fundamental values of the Enlightenment: respect for fundamental rights and freedoms, the rule of law, free and fair elections, Europe finds itself under attack from abroad as well as by its own populist extremists,” Ilves pointed out.
“Born in Europe some 250 years ago, the fundamental values of the Enlightenment have brought prosperity and dignity to people all around the world. Yet today, these values are under attack. Today, Europe is under attack. It is time to take all these threats seriously. It is time to carry out fundamental reforms that will enable Europe to prevail in the turbulent environment we face at home and abroad.”
The Enlightenment Ilves is referring to was an intellectual and philosophical movement taking place in Europe from the late 17th century to the early 19th century. It valued knowledge gained through rationalism and empiricism and was concerned with a range of social ideas and political ideals such as natural law, liberty and progress, toleration and fraternity, constitutional government, and the formal separation of church and state.
“For all these reasons, I have broken with my promise to avoid all party politics and have opted to join Volt, a party that today is still small yet to my mind stands for all of what I believe is vitally needed for Europe to make it through the multiple existential crises we face today. To join a political party means you share its values. I share the values embodied in Volt,” Ilves said.
Advocating for a stronger, more integrated EU
Volt Europa, founded in March 2017, is a transnational pro-European and federalist European political movement. It operates as a pan-European umbrella for subsidiary parties sharing the same name and branding. It currently doesn’t have an Estonian subsidiary; it has one in Finland.
It aligns its political positions across Europe, presenting a common, pan-European manifesto. In the 2019 European Parliament elections, Volt ran in eight member states with a shared platform, emphasising solutions to supranational challenges, such as climate change, defence, energy policy, migration, economic inequality, terrorism, welfare and the technological evolution of the labour market.
The party advocates for a stronger, more integrated European Union, with the long-term goal of creating a federal Europe. Additionally, Volt endorses the formation of a European army, joint European debt and taxes, nuclear energy including the construction of new nuclear power plants and stronger economic solidarity between the EU member states.
Volt is generally perceived as centrist or centre-left, with a core focus on evidence-based policy and best-practice sharing among EU countries and municipalities. It campaigns on these principles in both local and national elections.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves served as the fourth president of Estonia from 2006 until 2016. Before being elected president, he served as foreign minister and a member of the European Parliament.
