2025-2030 new mandate : speech of the president.
Date: 2025-03-14
Institutions: European Committee of the Regions
Subjects: EU activity, EU policy, EU regional policy, European Committee of the Regions, economic and social cohesion, elective office, president of an institution, regional and local authorities, speech

2025
2030

     NEW
MANDATE

SPEECH
OF THE PRESIDENT

©  art_of_sun - stock.adobe.com

Opening statement in the Plenary Session by Kata TÜTTŐ, 
President of the European Committee of the Regions.

Dear colleagues, dear guests, dear friends,

It is not so easy to talk here. It is very different from talking at home. Because when you prepare 
your speech for the European Committee of the Regions, you get kind advice. Like "Kata, you will 
be President, you can speak freely, but we advise you that you write it down, and give it to transla-
tion. Because otherwise, maybe some bits of your thoughts will be lost in translation".

So it's here, written down, because I want you to understand me. But remember this one thing: if 
you ever see me, without my papers, talking in my Hungarian native language, in my mother's 
tongue, with my grandfather's local accent, it means I don't want you to understand me. I just 
need  to  tell  something  to  my  friend  Jácint,  Mayor  of  Nagykanizsa.  The  other  kind  advice  I 
received, because they know me, is “Kata, you can do whatever you want, but please don't tell 
jokes, okay? No jokes.” I get it. But that's really hard for me, because humour is, for me, one of the 
most profoundly human things. It helps us navigate complexity, it brings understanding. Laugh-
ing together is like drinking together, it's like eating together. It builds social cohesion, and it also 
lowers tension.

Lowering tension, social cohesion, understanding, humanity: these are things that we are very 
much in need of these days. The year 2025 marks the birth of a new generation, it is called the 
Beta Generation. By definition, the Beta Generation – everybody born this year – will grow up in 
a world that is shaped by artificial intelligence, virtual reality, automation. The lines between real 
and unreal, human-made, machine-made, human and machine, it is getting very, very blurry.

So, we talk a lot about challenges, but I think one of our biggest challenges will be in the upcom-
ing decade: to hold on to our humanity, to fight for our humanity. There is an ongoing transfor-
mation, we all know that, we see that, the change is constant.

What is new? It is the speed, that's new. Because the transformation is happening so fast that we 
can almost feel the ground moving beneath our feet; and when the ground moves under your 
feet, that is very scary. You want to hold on to something stable, something strong. People want 
to slow down time, even reverse time, to go back to a place which they understand. And I under-
stand this need. I do. But going back in time, that is an illusion. And the longer we linger in that 
illusion, the higher the price we will pay for that. Because maybe, the past seems like a very safe 
harbor, but time only flows in one direction. So, okay, but how do we perceive the world today? 
Things are falling apart; it is very similar to looking into a kaleidoscope. I think all of us had a kalei-
doscope. You look into the kaleidoscope, you turn it, and you see stability breaking. It is constant-
ly shifting, fragmented, it is very unpredictable. But if you look into the kaleidoscope, you also 
know that change is not just destruction, it is also creation. Because from disorder, new forms take 
place, and from broken pieces, new patterns emerge.

What  is  the  question  for  us?  How  do  we  shape  this  transformation?  And  how  do  we  limit  the 
suffering that comes with every transformation? What is the story of the European Committee of 
the Regions here? To find our story, I had to go back to our common cultural past, into Greek 
mythology.

In Greek mythology, I found our story. It is the story of Antaeus the Giant. He was invincible, he 
could not be beaten in battle. He was very strong as long as he stayed connected to Earth, who 
was his mother Gaia, because he drew his strength from his mother Gaia. He could not be beaten, 
until one day, the mythological hero, we all know, Hercules came. He understood this connection. 

So, what did he do? He lifted Antaeus from the ground. He lost his connection to Earth, weak-

ened, and this way it could be defeated. This is our story.

Our strength, the strength of Europe, is being grounded in our local realities. And when Europe 

loses this connection with the ground, when policies feel too complex, too abstract, when people 

feel disconnected from all the major shifts and decisions, we weaken and we risk being defeated. 

Here, we, the European Committee of the Regions, are the body that connects complex European 

policies to the ground.

We are very important vertical stabilisers here. How do we do that? We make all the complex poli-

cies real, but it's not just a one-way direction. We also bring our common sense and the big inno-

vation capacity to the European decision-making. And I know not everything can be understood 

from the ground, we all know that. Sometimes you need distance to understand problems, to see 

the patterns, to grab the bigger picture. But we also know that there are some problems and 

there is pain that can only be understood when you are close to the ground. And many problems 

can only be fixed by those who are on the ground.

Here, in the European Committee of the Regions, we are problem solvers. This is what we do at 

home. And from time to time, we come to Brussels, to see if our problems that we are dealing with 

at home are local problems or systemic problems. We connect to each other, we exchange our 

experiences, we support each other. And with this energy, with this network, we strengthen the 

very  fabric  of  the  European  Union.  We  are  very  important  horizontal  stabilisers  in  the  time  of 

growing uncertainty.

What else do we do as leaders? We balance. How do we balance? It's like balancing on the edge 

of  a  cliff  on  one  feet.  Because  we  have  to  balance  between  emotional  connections  with  our 

citizens and rational, complex policymaking. We balance short-term goals, putting out fires, and 

balance  long-term  goals.  Centralisation,  decentralisation,  regulation,  deregulation,  flexibility, 

stability, fight or flight by choosing our battles. I have been balancing on cliffs for a while. I don't 

make many promises, but one promise I will make: I will never dismiss real-life experience, real-life 

suffering of people or any territory. Because as a woman over forty, I experienced firsthand how 

women's  pain  and  health  concerns  are  gaslighted,  dismissed,  overlooked,  not  just  in  medical 

research, but in healthcare policies and practice. This systemic neglect led to the unnecessary 

suffering of millions of women in Europe. I'm not talking about the past, it's about today. So, you 

will understand that as a President, I will also have to do something for women.

I talked about our role as stabilisers. What tools do we have? There is one very important tool that 

was  designed  for  stabilising,  it  was  designed  for  it,  it's  called  Cohesion  Policy.  That's  the  most 

important stabilising tool of the European Union. It is a powerful tool, but it must be calibrated 

and recalibrated all the time.

It cannot be over-centralised, it cannot be over-regulated, because when it's over-centralised, it 

becomes rigid. And when it becomes rigid, it is not useful in this running of adaptation. Hence, 

Cohesion Policy must be flexible, must be decentralised, and must be innovative.

But does Cohesion Policy work? We get this question. We can prove it. You have been presented, 

I have been presented with all the facts and figures and graphs. Why don't our citizens feel it? 

That's a very good question. And with this question, we will go from Greek mythology to Alice in 

Wonderland, the second book, Alice Through the Looking Glass. In that story, Alice entered the 

looking glass, went to a different world, and there she met the Red Queen. And the Red Queen 

told her, “Here you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in one place”. That is what people feel 

today. Constantly running, constantly adapting to change, and they are very exhausted by the 

speed of transformation. And you cannot ignore those who are tired, but at the same time, we 

know we cannot stop running.

So the EU must adapt, has to run, but we have to make sure that no one runs alone. The mayor of 

Budapest who is here today, he usually says that if you want to go fast, you go alone. But if you 

want to go far, you go together. This family, we go together.

We see the clash of centralised machines, this is what we see outside. But the European Union is 

not a centralised machine, we are not, it's a network. And just as the Internet depends on highly 

connected nodes, the EU depends on well-connected leaders on all levels. National level, region-

al level, local level. And when we put energy into these networks, into these connections, we rein-

force the very fabric of the European Union. Because the future of the European Union will not be 

decided in Brussels alone. It will be shaped city by city, region by region, leader by leader.

I know, I heard you yesterday, that there is a little bit of gloom in the air. Uncertainty about the 

future grows, with it, anxiety emerges. Pessimism crawls in like cold November mist. But what do 

I think about it? Not just now, in the past decade, in Budapest I have been relying on the thoughts 

of  Hungarian-born  scientist  Ede  Teller,  who  understood  entropy,  that  naturally  all  complex 

systems go from order to disorder, if there is not enough energy invested in it to keep it order.

Okay, what was he saying about this? He said, who is a pessimist? A pessimist is a person who is 

always right, but he's not happy. He has no joy in being right. So who is an optimist? An optimist 

is a person who thinks that the future is uncertain. So she does everything in her power to change 

the future for the better. That is our duty, that is our path, to be the optimists of Europe, to be the 

glue  that  strengthens  the  fabric  of  the  European  Union  by  investing  energy  in  city-to-city, 

region-to-region  cooperation,  staying  in  touch  with  the  ground,  bringing  common  sense  into 

decision-making, building on the trust we hold, and this way we shape our common European 

future for the better.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your trust.

Y ahora, invito a mi compañero en este camino, el Presidente de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno 

Bonilla.  Juntos  formamos  un  equipo  para  estos  cinco  años  que  está  basado  en  comunicación 

sincera, en confianza, en cooperación y nuestra pasión por Europa. 

Opening statement in the Plenary Session by Kata TÜTTŐ, 

President of the European Committee of the Regions.

Dear colleagues, dear guests, dear friends,

It is not so easy to talk here. It is very different from talking at home. Because when you prepare 

your speech for the European Committee of the Regions, you get kind advice. Like "Kata, you will 

be President, you can speak freely, but we advise you that you write it down, and give it to transla-

tion. Because otherwise, maybe some bits of your thoughts will be lost in translation".

So it's here, written down, because I want you to understand me. But remember this one thing: if 

you ever see me, without my papers, talking in my Hungarian native language, in my mother's 

tongue, with my grandfather's local accent, it means I don't want you to understand me. I just 

need  to  tell  something  to  my  friend  Jácint,  Mayor  of  Nagykanizsa.  The  other  kind  advice  I 

received, because they know me, is “Kata, you can do whatever you want, but please don't tell 

jokes, okay? No jokes.” I get it. But that's really hard for me, because humour is, for me, one of the 

most profoundly human things. It helps us navigate complexity, it brings understanding. Laugh-

ing together is like drinking together, it's like eating together. It builds social cohesion, and it also 

lowers tension.

Lowering tension, social cohesion, understanding, humanity: these are things that we are very 

much in need of these days. The year 2025 marks the birth of a new generation, it is called the 

Beta Generation. By definition, the Beta Generation – everybody born this year – will grow up in 

a world that is shaped by artificial intelligence, virtual reality, automation. The lines between real 

and unreal, human-made, machine-made, human and machine, it is getting very, very blurry.

So, we talk a lot about challenges, but I think one of our biggest challenges will be in the upcom-

ing decade: to hold on to our humanity, to fight for our humanity. There is an ongoing transfor-

mation, we all know that, we see that, the change is constant.

What is new? It is the speed, that's new. Because the transformation is happening so fast that we 

can almost feel the ground moving beneath our feet; and when the ground moves under your 

feet, that is very scary. You want to hold on to something stable, something strong. People want 

to slow down time, even reverse time, to go back to a place which they understand. And I under-

stand this need. I do. But going back in time, that is an illusion. And the longer we linger in that 

illusion, the higher the price we will pay for that. Because maybe, the past seems like a very safe 

harbor, but time only flows in one direction. So, okay, but how do we perceive the world today? 

Things are falling apart; it is very similar to looking into a kaleidoscope. I think all of us had a kalei-

doscope. You look into the kaleidoscope, you turn it, and you see stability breaking. It is constant-

ly shifting, fragmented, it is very unpredictable. But if you look into the kaleidoscope, you also 

know that change is not just destruction, it is also creation. Because from disorder, new forms take 

place, and from broken pieces, new patterns emerge.

What  is  the  question  for  us?  How  do  we  shape  this  transformation?  And  how  do  we  limit  the 

suffering that comes with every transformation? What is the story of the European Committee of 

the Regions here? To find our story, I had to go back to our common cultural past, into Greek 

mythology.

In Greek mythology, I found our story. It is the story of Antaeus the Giant. He was invincible, he 

could not be beaten in battle. He was very strong as long as he stayed connected to Earth, who 

was his mother Gaia, because he drew his strength from his mother Gaia. He could not be beaten, 

until one day, the mythological hero, we all know, Hercules came. He understood this connection. 

So, what did he do? He lifted Antaeus from the ground. He lost his connection to Earth, weak-
ened, and this way it could be defeated. This is our story.

Our strength, the strength of Europe, is being grounded in our local realities. And when Europe 
loses this connection with the ground, when policies feel too complex, too abstract, when people 
feel disconnected from all the major shifts and decisions, we weaken and we risk being defeated. 
Here, we, the European Committee of the Regions, are the body that connects complex European 
policies to the ground.

We are very important vertical stabilisers here. How do we do that? We make all the complex poli-
cies real, but it's not just a one-way direction. We also bring our common sense and the big inno-
vation capacity to the European decision-making. And I know not everything can be understood 
from the ground, we all know that. Sometimes you need distance to understand problems, to see 
the patterns, to grab the bigger picture. But we also know that there are some problems and 
there is pain that can only be understood when you are close to the ground. And many problems 
can only be fixed by those who are on the ground.

Here, in the European Committee of the Regions, we are problem solvers. This is what we do at 
home. And from time to time, we come to Brussels, to see if our problems that we are dealing with 
at home are local problems or systemic problems. We connect to each other, we exchange our 
experiences, we support each other. And with this energy, with this network, we strengthen the 
very  fabric  of  the  European  Union.  We  are  very  important  horizontal  stabilisers  in  the  time  of 
growing uncertainty.

What else do we do as leaders? We balance. How do we balance? It's like balancing on the edge 
of  a  cliff  on  one  feet.  Because  we  have  to  balance  between  emotional  connections  with  our 
citizens and rational, complex policymaking. We balance short-term goals, putting out fires, and 
balance  long-term  goals.  Centralisation,  decentralisation,  regulation,  deregulation,  flexibility, 
stability, fight or flight by choosing our battles. I have been balancing on cliffs for a while. I don't 
make many promises, but one promise I will make: I will never dismiss real-life experience, real-life 
suffering of people or any territory. Because as a woman over forty, I experienced firsthand how 
women's  pain  and  health  concerns  are  gaslighted,  dismissed,  overlooked,  not  just  in  medical 
research, but in healthcare policies and practice. This systemic neglect led to the unnecessary 
suffering of millions of women in Europe. I'm not talking about the past, it's about today. So, you 
will understand that as a President, I will also have to do something for women.

I talked about our role as stabilisers. What tools do we have? There is one very important tool that 
was  designed  for  stabilising,  it  was  designed  for  it,  it's  called  Cohesion  Policy.  That's  the  most 
important stabilising tool of the European Union. It is a powerful tool, but it must be calibrated 
and recalibrated all the time.

It cannot be over-centralised, it cannot be over-regulated, because when it's over-centralised, it 
becomes rigid. And when it becomes rigid, it is not useful in this running of adaptation. Hence, 
Cohesion Policy must be flexible, must be decentralised, and must be innovative.

But does Cohesion Policy work? We get this question. We can prove it. You have been presented, 
I have been presented with all the facts and figures and graphs. Why don't our citizens feel it? 
That's a very good question. And with this question, we will go from Greek mythology to Alice in 
Wonderland, the second book, Alice Through the Looking Glass. In that story, Alice entered the 
looking glass, went to a different world, and there she met the Red Queen. And the Red Queen 
told her, “Here you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in one place”. That is what people feel 
today. Constantly running, constantly adapting to change, and they are very exhausted by the 
speed of transformation. And you cannot ignore those who are tired, but at the same time, we 
know we cannot stop running.

So the EU must adapt, has to run, but we have to make sure that no one runs alone. The mayor of 

Budapest who is here today, he usually says that if you want to go fast, you go alone. But if you 

want to go far, you go together. This family, we go together.

We see the clash of centralised machines, this is what we see outside. But the European Union is 

not a centralised machine, we are not, it's a network. And just as the Internet depends on highly 

connected nodes, the EU depends on well-connected leaders on all levels. National level, region-

al level, local level. And when we put energy into these networks, into these connections, we rein-

force the very fabric of the European Union. Because the future of the European Union will not be 

decided in Brussels alone. It will be shaped city by city, region by region, leader by leader.

I know, I heard you yesterday, that there is a little bit of gloom in the air. Uncertainty about the 

future grows, with it, anxiety emerges. Pessimism crawls in like cold November mist. But what do 

I think about it? Not just now, in the past decade, in Budapest I have been relying on the thoughts 

of  Hungarian-born  scientist  Ede  Teller,  who  understood  entropy,  that  naturally  all  complex 

systems go from order to disorder, if there is not enough energy invested in it to keep it order.

Okay, what was he saying about this? He said, who is a pessimist? A pessimist is a person who is 

always right, but he's not happy. He has no joy in being right. So who is an optimist? An optimist 

is a person who thinks that the future is uncertain. So she does everything in her power to change 

the future for the better. That is our duty, that is our path, to be the optimists of Europe, to be the 

glue  that  strengthens  the  fabric  of  the  European  Union  by  investing  energy  in  city-to-city, 

region-to-region  cooperation,  staying  in  touch  with  the  ground,  bringing  common  sense  into 

decision-making, building on the trust we hold, and this way we shape our common European 

future for the better.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your trust.

Y ahora, invito a mi compañero en este camino, el Presidente de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno 

Bonilla.  Juntos  formamos  un  equipo  para  estos  cinco  años  que  está  basado  en  comunicación 

sincera, en confianza, en cooperación y nuestra pasión por Europa. 

Opening statement in the Plenary Session by Kata TÜTTŐ, 

President of the European Committee of the Regions.

Dear colleagues, dear guests, dear friends,

It is not so easy to talk here. It is very different from talking at home. Because when you prepare 

your speech for the European Committee of the Regions, you get kind advice. Like "Kata, you will 

be President, you can speak freely, but we advise you that you write it down, and give it to transla-

tion. Because otherwise, maybe some bits of your thoughts will be lost in translation".

So it's here, written down, because I want you to understand me. But remember this one thing: if 

you ever see me, without my papers, talking in my Hungarian native language, in my mother's 

tongue, with my grandfather's local accent, it means I don't want you to understand me. I just 

need  to  tell  something  to  my  friend  Jácint,  Mayor  of  Nagykanizsa.  The  other  kind  advice  I 

received, because they know me, is “Kata, you can do whatever you want, but please don't tell 

jokes, okay? No jokes.” I get it. But that's really hard for me, because humour is, for me, one of the 

most profoundly human things. It helps us navigate complexity, it brings understanding. Laugh-

ing together is like drinking together, it's like eating together. It builds social cohesion, and it also 

lowers tension.

Lowering tension, social cohesion, understanding, humanity: these are things that we are very 

much in need of these days. The year 2025 marks the birth of a new generation, it is called the 

Beta Generation. By definition, the Beta Generation – everybody born this year – will grow up in 

a world that is shaped by artificial intelligence, virtual reality, automation. The lines between real 

and unreal, human-made, machine-made, human and machine, it is getting very, very blurry.

So, we talk a lot about challenges, but I think one of our biggest challenges will be in the upcom-

ing decade: to hold on to our humanity, to fight for our humanity. There is an ongoing transfor-

mation, we all know that, we see that, the change is constant.

What is new? It is the speed, that's new. Because the transformation is happening so fast that we 

can almost feel the ground moving beneath our feet; and when the ground moves under your 

feet, that is very scary. You want to hold on to something stable, something strong. People want 

to slow down time, even reverse time, to go back to a place which they understand. And I under-

stand this need. I do. But going back in time, that is an illusion. And the longer we linger in that 

illusion, the higher the price we will pay for that. Because maybe, the past seems like a very safe 

harbor, but time only flows in one direction. So, okay, but how do we perceive the world today? 

Things are falling apart; it is very similar to looking into a kaleidoscope. I think all of us had a kalei-

doscope. You look into the kaleidoscope, you turn it, and you see stability breaking. It is constant-

ly shifting, fragmented, it is very unpredictable. But if you look into the kaleidoscope, you also 

know that change is not just destruction, it is also creation. Because from disorder, new forms take 

place, and from broken pieces, new patterns emerge.

What  is  the  question  for  us?  How  do  we  shape  this  transformation?  And  how  do  we  limit  the 

suffering that comes with every transformation? What is the story of the European Committee of 

the Regions here? To find our story, I had to go back to our common cultural past, into Greek 

mythology.

In Greek mythology, I found our story. It is the story of Antaeus the Giant. He was invincible, he 

could not be beaten in battle. He was very strong as long as he stayed connected to Earth, who 

was his mother Gaia, because he drew his strength from his mother Gaia. He could not be beaten, 

until one day, the mythological hero, we all know, Hercules came. He understood this connection. 

So, what did he do? He lifted Antaeus from the ground. He lost his connection to Earth, weak-

ened, and this way it could be defeated. This is our story.

Our strength, the strength of Europe, is being grounded in our local realities. And when Europe 

loses this connection with the ground, when policies feel too complex, too abstract, when people 

feel disconnected from all the major shifts and decisions, we weaken and we risk being defeated. 

Here, we, the European Committee of the Regions, are the body that connects complex European 

policies to the ground.

We are very important vertical stabilisers here. How do we do that? We make all the complex poli-

cies real, but it's not just a one-way direction. We also bring our common sense and the big inno-

vation capacity to the European decision-making. And I know not everything can be understood 

from the ground, we all know that. Sometimes you need distance to understand problems, to see 

the patterns, to grab the bigger picture. But we also know that there are some problems and 

there is pain that can only be understood when you are close to the ground. And many problems 

can only be fixed by those who are on the ground.

Here, in the European Committee of the Regions, we are problem solvers. This is what we do at 

home. And from time to time, we come to Brussels, to see if our problems that we are dealing with 

at home are local problems or systemic problems. We connect to each other, we exchange our 

experiences, we support each other. And with this energy, with this network, we strengthen the 

very  fabric  of  the  European  Union.  We  are  very  important  horizontal  stabilisers  in  the  time  of 

growing uncertainty.

What else do we do as leaders? We balance. How do we balance? It's like balancing on the edge 

of  a  cliff  on  one  feet.  Because  we  have  to  balance  between  emotional  connections  with  our 

citizens and rational, complex policymaking. We balance short-term goals, putting out fires, and 

balance  long-term  goals.  Centralisation,  decentralisation,  regulation,  deregulation,  flexibility, 

stability, fight or flight by choosing our battles. I have been balancing on cliffs for a while. I don't 

make many promises, but one promise I will make: I will never dismiss real-life experience, real-life 

suffering of people or any territory. Because as a woman over forty, I experienced firsthand how 

women's  pain  and  health  concerns  are  gaslighted,  dismissed,  overlooked,  not  just  in  medical 

research, but in healthcare policies and practice. This systemic neglect led to the unnecessary 

suffering of millions of women in Europe. I'm not talking about the past, it's about today. So, you 

will understand that as a President, I will also have to do something for women.

I talked about our role as stabilisers. What tools do we have? There is one very important tool that 

was  designed  for  stabilising,  it  was  designed  for  it,  it's  called  Cohesion  Policy.  That's  the  most 

important stabilising tool of the European Union. It is a powerful tool, but it must be calibrated 

and recalibrated all the time.

It cannot be over-centralised, it cannot be over-regulated, because when it's over-centralised, it 

becomes rigid. And when it becomes rigid, it is not useful in this running of adaptation. Hence, 

Cohesion Policy must be flexible, must be decentralised, and must be innovative.

But does Cohesion Policy work? We get this question. We can prove it. You have been presented, 

I have been presented with all the facts and figures and graphs. Why don't our citizens feel it? 

That's a very good question. And with this question, we will go from Greek mythology to Alice in 

Wonderland, the second book, Alice Through the Looking Glass. In that story, Alice entered the 

looking glass, went to a different world, and there she met the Red Queen. And the Red Queen 

told her, “Here you have to run as fast as you can just to stay in one place”. That is what people feel 

today. Constantly running, constantly adapting to change, and they are very exhausted by the 

speed of transformation. And you cannot ignore those who are tired, but at the same time, we 

know we cannot stop running.

So the EU must adapt, has to run, but we have to make sure that no one runs alone. The mayor of 
Budapest who is here today, he usually says that if you want to go fast, you go alone. But if you 
want to go far, you go together. This family, we go together.

We see the clash of centralised machines, this is what we see outside. But the European Union is 
not a centralised machine, we are not, it's a network. And just as the Internet depends on highly 
connected nodes, the EU depends on well-connected leaders on all levels. National level, region-
al level, local level. And when we put energy into these networks, into these connections, we rein-
force the very fabric of the European Union. Because the future of the European Union will not be 
decided in Brussels alone. It will be shaped city by city, region by region, leader by leader.

I know, I heard you yesterday, that there is a little bit of gloom in the air. Uncertainty about the 
future grows, with it, anxiety emerges. Pessimism crawls in like cold November mist. But what do 
I think about it? Not just now, in the past decade, in Budapest I have been relying on the thoughts 
of  Hungarian-born  scientist  Ede  Teller,  who  understood  entropy,  that  naturally  all  complex 
systems go from order to disorder, if there is not enough energy invested in it to keep it order.

Okay, what was he saying about this? He said, who is a pessimist? A pessimist is a person who is 
always right, but he's not happy. He has no joy in being right. So who is an optimist? An optimist 
is a person who thinks that the future is uncertain. So she does everything in her power to change 
the future for the better. That is our duty, that is our path, to be the optimists of Europe, to be the 
glue  that  strengthens  the  fabric  of  the  European  Union  by  investing  energy  in  city-to-city, 
region-to-region  cooperation,  staying  in  touch  with  the  ground,  bringing  common  sense  into 
decision-making, building on the trust we hold, and this way we shape our common European 
future for the better.

Thank you very much. Thank you for your trust.

Y ahora, invito a mi compañero en este camino, el Presidente de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno 
Bonilla.  Juntos  formamos  un  equipo  para  estos  cinco  años  que  está  basado  en  comunicación 
sincera, en confianza, en cooperación y nuestra pasión por Europa. 

QG-01-25-005-EN-N
ISBN 978-92-895-3686-8
doi: 10.2863/5346134

Unless otherwise noted, the reuse of this document is authorised under a Creative 
Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence 
(https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This means that reuse is allowed 
provided appropriate credit is given and any changes are indicated.

For any use or reproduction of elements that are not owned by the European Union, 
permission may need to be sought directly from the respective copyright holders. 
Accordingly, you are required to clear additional rights if a specific content includes 
third-party works. Where permission is obtained, such permission shall cancel and replace 
the above-mentioned general permission and shall clearly indicate any restrictions on use.

Created in 1994, the European Committee of the Regions is the EU's political assembly of 329 regional and local representatives 
such as regional presidents or city-mayors from all 27 Member States, representing over 446 million Europeans."

© European Union, 2025

president.cor@cor.europa.eu