“The lesson we should learn from the war in Ukraine is that we must stop compromising: we have done this for too long with Putin, and we are doing this among us, Member States”. Slovak Prime Minister Eduard Heger said this at the round table on “European Unity in a Disordered World?” at the Davos Forum today. “If Ukraine loses, we will be next”, he added, admitting that his country has so far “bartered its values for cheap oil and gas”. “We need to flex our muscles. We do have collective incredible muscles” in so many areas where we are united – competition, trade, monetary policies”, said ECB President Christine Lagarde, but we can be powerful in many more areas if we only “overcome the self-interests of nations”. For Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin, being a superpower makes sense if we fight for “very precise values”, the same values that have been “transformative” for Ireland since it joined the EU fifty years ago. Martin therefore called for “more active support” for countries applying to join the EU, that it may be “a transformative event” for them, too, provided that they are “upholding fundamental rights, without compromise”. EU Parliament President, Roberta Metsola, also stressed: “We must be ready to open our doors for countries that are fighting for the principles that we share. The crucial decision now is whether we want to stay united and become a global democratic power: we cannot risk instability now because of our inability to act”.