Lecture by Michaloliákos in Delft
At the invitation of the VGSD, Michel Don Michaloliákos gave a lecture at the Immanuelkerk in Delft on the theme of. What made this lecture special was the audience: technical students. It was remarkably refreshing to see that science students were interested in social and humanities perspectives – especially after the Education Debate the day before, in which such knowledge was dismissed as “fröbel knowledge”.
In his lecture, Michaloliákos shared his vision of Europe’s role in a fragmenting world order. His central question:
👉 Is Europe not the perfect “Architect of the multipolar world order”?
Europe is (as yet) lacking in military strength, but Michaloliákos emphatically called for attention to be paid to other forms of strategic capability: innovative power, regulatory power, cultural and administrative capital, and well-educated populations.
He also addressed the often underestimated power of a Europe that does not speak with one voice. According to him, the diversity of historical, colonial and strategic experiences is not a weakness, but a geopolitical advantage.
An important point in the lecture was the call for Europe to actively pursue a coalition of middle powers — countries such as India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea and Brazil. Not only to anchor Europe’s place in the world order, but above all to influence the rules of that new order.
Michaloliákos’ proposal for the fundamental principles of that world order:
- Non-intervention & Sovereignty
- Belief in progress
- Regionalisation: leverage Europe’s administrative experience
- The rise of civilisational identities & the digitisation of identity perception: people-to-people contact increasingly determines the geopolitical leeway of politicians
- Strategic dependence instead of autonomy: consciously decide who you want to be dependent on — complete autonomy or self-sufficiency is an illusion
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