The American website Project Syndicate published George Soros's article titled "Europe, Please Wake Up" on February 11, in which he warned that "Europe is sleepwalking into oblivion, and the people of Europe need to wake up before it is too late. If they don’t, the European Union will go the way of the Soviet Union in 1991." Soros believes that ahead of the elections to the European Parliament this May "neither our leaders nor ordinary citizens seem to understand that we are experiencing a revolutionary moment."
The reason for this statement is that anti-European forces among which Soros places primarily nationalistic parties will enjoy a competitive advantage in the elections which will let them increase their presence in the European Parliament. This situation has been brought about by an outdated party system in the majority of European countries, practical impossibility to change the Treaty on the European Union, and the absence of legal tools of disciplinary sanctioning the states that breach the founding principles.
As for pro-European, from Soros's perspective, party alliances, they are drowned in political quarrels and they don't care much about strengthening the EU. For example, the European People's Party, one of the largest in Europe, showed its absolute expedience allowing the Fidesz party led by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, whom it considers a nationalist, remain in its ranks for the sake of keeping parliamentary majority and control over the distribution of supreme posts in the EU. That is why Europe in order to counter anti-European forces both inside and outside Europe, as Soros thinks, needs to identify its enemies, wake up the sleeping pro-European liberal majority and raise it to protect European values making it put Europe's interests above its own national interests. But Soros doesn't believe that the incumbent European authorities are capable of doing so.
Noteworthy, Soros made similar calls to Europe back in 2016, when again on the Project Syndicate website urged European leaders to understand that Europe is on brink of collapse, to unite and make last resort.
Both in the today's and in the 2016's articles George Soros points at the need to boost protection from "external enemies" who can profit from the present-day weakness of the EU. He doesn't name the enemies but back in 2016 speaking about the protection of the EU from external enemies he said that Ukraine, whose citizens are ready to die defending the country, are the biggest Europe's asset. Defending themselves they are protecting Europe, which, as Soros said, is quite a rare thing nowadays. He thinks that Ukraine was lucky to get the government that was created with his active support and that was conducting reforms that were demanded by both citizens of Ukraine and the country's external supporters. However, he reproached the EU leaders as the EU in general and its members in particular were not, unlike the USA, providing support to Ukraine that it deserved.
He gave recommendations to pro-European forces as to how they should act during the electoral campaign caring little about his advice having looked like interference in EU electoral processes. Soros's foundations were many times accused of organizing coups in several states, and he himself was accused of interfering into domestic affairs of foreign states under the pretest of campaigning for "universal panhuman values." Soros doesn't deny that he sponsored in particular the first "orange revolution" in Ukraine in 2004 and the Euromaidan in 2014. Petro Poroshenko, the president of the "independent" Ukraine, even bestowed the Order of Freedom on Soros for "personal merits in strengthening the international authority of the Ukrainian state."
But Soros's activities to promote "universal panhuman values" have made more and more states especially in Eastern Europe and in the post-Soviet space negatively view his activities and consider this zealot of globalism as an enemy of their national interests. Reaction to the activity of foundations linked to Soros got harsher in 2017-2018. For examples, Prime Minister of Hungary Viktor Orban repeatedly criticized the billionaire, noting that public groups funded by Soros meddled with electoral processes in Hungary and promoted support to migrants. In spring 2018, he called Soros "the American financial speculator attacking Hungary," "an open enemy of Euro" who "destroyed lives of millions of Europeans by his financial speculations" and wants to flood Europe and Hungary with immigrants in attempt to convert "Christian" countries into multicultural chaos of left-wing globalism. Last June, the Hungarian parliament took practical steps and passed a number of bills known as "Stop Soros." The bills impose restrictions on non-governmental organizations and criminalize assistance to illegal immigrants.
In May 2017, the Polish government protested against various projects in Poland funded by the Stefan Batory Foundation that sought to overthrow the Polish government by 2020. The foundation has more than 800 million Euros provided by organizations directly linked to George Soros. Since 2014, the Stefan Batory Foundation has distributed about 31.7 million Euros to various associations and organizations in Poland aiming to change the government. According to Bloomberg, the ideological roof of these organizations is the promotion of parliamentary democracy. They attack conservative (Catholic) values shared by the majority of Poles and the ruling Law and Justice party.
Former Prime Minister of Macedonian Nikola Gruevski called for "de-Sorosization" of Macedonia's society, labelling opponents of the idea as "sorosoids" and inspiring the Stop Operation Soros movement in January 2018.
The activity of Soros-related foundations resulted in conflicts between the "philanthropist" and the authorities of Romania, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Serbia, and Azerbaijan.
As for the essence of Soros's reproaches, they are ungrounded. There are quite a lot of "glowing spots" in Europe that can weaken the EU. A vivid example here is the deterioration of relations between France and Italy after a meeting of the Five Stars Movement leader, Italy's Minister of Economic Development, Labor and Social Policies Luigi Di Maio with representatives of France's "yellow vests" movement that addressed possible interaction during the election campaign. Spain announced snap parliamentary elections that will take place on April 28. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez dissolved the current parliament after its members failed to vote for the kingdom's budget. The situation in two Europe's largest economies, Germany and the UK, is also shattering EU foundations. Germany cannot cope with the migration crisis while the UK is looking for ways to "divorce with the EU."
But Soros's fears are not linked to these problems. Many European experts predict that the influence of nationalistic forces will grow after the European Parliament elections in May, which may lead to changing European policies actors in Brussels. And this nation-oriented Europe "intimidates" Soros with its uncontrollability and possibly a partial refusal from the system of values that the Americans imposed on the Europeans. And he thinks that only pro-American Europe with its pseudoliberalism, Europe that is strong in terms of supremacy of law and values but nowadays impotent as a geopolitical player, should be kept.
Changes in the current structure of governing the European Union into which the Americans have invested billions of dollars through various mechanisms pose threats not only to national interests of the USA but also projects and ideals of Soros that he promoted in the Old World and for the sake of which he organized protests and toppled tenacious leaders. So, his fears about the future of Europe are related not his caring about its welfare. They are explained in terms of worries about losing American influence on key European institutions through which Washington previously successfully lobbied decisions that it needed ranging from imposing sanction to military coups, as well as in terms of losing his own investments.
