If we use our imagination and fast-forward to the 2050s, we will see an image shaped by six phenomena of critical importance, some of which we can already see and experience now.

1)There will be an irreversible change in the ethnic make-up of most of the “Old Europe” countries. The population of this territory will comprise unassimilated but well-settled and established minorities (although they may no longer be minorities) of immigrants, in the continuing South-to-North migration.

2)The countries of “New Europe,” Poland in particular, will be populated at a fast pace by migrants from the East, particularly from the declining and dismembered Ukraine.

3)The states that were united in the 19th century – especially those that formed Italy and Germany – will be subject to a gradual decomposition: social atomism will be seen as a means of partly reserving their identities and welfare.

4) Twentieth-century supranational formations designed to bring about economic, political and military integration will become a thing of the past or will remain a facade only, as the UN is today.

5) China-dominated eastern Africa will become the world’s largest economic organism.

6) The US dominated internally and externally by the Latino communities of the Americas will limit its interest in Europe – both “Old” and “New” alike – to a minimum, strengthening instead the anti-China alliance with Russia. Russia, for its part, will reduce its interest in Central and Eastern Europe, once it restores its influence over its “historic lands” that it lost in the last decade of the 20th century.

Now, let us take a brief look at each of these factors.

Factor number one is critical to the future of Old Europe. In 30-odd years’ time, a new generation of the descendants of African immigrants will have grown up, considering the region their own, with no need to assimilate with the indigenous people. Partly taking over the local languages, they will speak German, French, English, or Italian, but the language will no more cement them within the rest of society. Some immigrants and their children will continue to use their own languages and adhere to their cultures – their diaspora to be bound, primarily, by a common religion and the will to take revenge for past and current humiliations. Attempts at assimilation by intellectual elites of immigrant circles will lead to the formation of an internal opposition (a long-recognized phenomenon), which will, in turn, form a leadership class in the immigrant circles. Their victory will be based on – a particularly banal thing – the still-functioning democratic procedures, and the inclination for compromise in order to keep social peace.
“New” Europe countries will resist immigration from Africa and Asia but will supplement the dwindling labor force with mass immigration from the territory of what is today Ukraine (within the borderlines inherited after the Soviet Union). The Baltic countries will be re-Slavised, the largest “absorber” of immigrants being Poland – a country which is capable of peacefully, though shallowly, assimilating newcomers, not only from Ukraine but also from Belarus and Lithuania.
Factors three and four, described as a gradual decomposition of 19th-century European unifications, will come as a defensive reaction aimed at preserving the existing cultural and ethnic identities. Germany and the UK will see the process happening the soonest, turning them into very loose federations of small nation-states. New independent states such as Bavaria, Catalonia, Piedmont, or Scotland will reappear on the map of Europe, which will be considered the only reasonable solution. The design for a new, “pro- European” Eastern Europe once involved splitting the existing states into smaller areas which were expected to “regain their independence.” This is how Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, and the Soviet Union were destroyed. At the same time, countries of Western Europe were unified and formations such as a united Germany emerged; there was an idea to turn the West of Europe, in its entirety, into a single federative state under Germany’s protectorate. These projects will not survive until the middle of this century; perhaps they will be even more short-lived, not even capable of surviving into the very next decade. Why? The answer is quite simple: political integration forms organisms that are incapable of solving even the problems they have themselves created. The only chance for the military alliance to persist – which is true for NATO in particular – is the belief in a threat from Russia, which is not believed even by those who adopt it as part of their political agenda. Again, the age-old truth is at work: if a country is ruled by people who believe their neighbor is a threat, the country will either gradually slip into a confrontation – or even an unwanted war – or replace the people in power with those who are able to eliminate the threat. For disarmed – and indeed defenseless – countries with prevalent patriotic attitudes, the choice is more than obvious.
China will finally win its cold war against the US and will form the biggest integrated economic area in the east of Africa, which will by then have become the world’s largest factory. Increased internal consumption and demographic growth will deepen the autonomy of the Chinese economic area, which will take the upper hand over the European nook. The area may house a population of some three billion people, whose consumer demands will be satisfied by China itself. Before it happens, though, China will economically dominate Europe as well, through recreating a new version of the Silk Route.
Poland will never again be the axis of any international dispute, and the country’s location will become an asset. Polish politicians will be able to strike a balance between Berlin and Moscow: the former will be economically weakened, and the latter will be akin to Alexander Dugin’s vision, with nobody bearing in mind anti-American resentments anymore.
To sum up, the vision of Poland in 30-plus years is rather optimistic. With 100 years of peaceful existence behind us, the debilitation of potential enemies or opponents – who will have to focus on their own problems – will as always, be the best bonus from destiny. The must, in this context, is to support – as covertly as is practicable – any process that would take us far away enough from the conflicts of tomorrow.

Witold Modzelewski

Professor, University of Warsaw,

Tax Studies Institute (Instytut Studiów Podatkowych)