While Joschka Fischer complains in his new book “Welcome to the 21st Century” about Europe’s technological gap with the United States and China and calls for a half-baked European high-tech initiative, Walter Kohl, Helmut Kohl’s son, thinks in his book “What future do we want? “about an investment fund for high-tech, which is to be managed privately, but in cooperation with the state and the EU, which addresses more specific financial and organizational issues. The content, however, is still somewhat vague, even when it is formulated controversial among the various interest groups, capital fractions, parties and European states which has  to be taken into account. What would be necessary if Europe doesn´t want to face technological decline and  American and Chinese tourists visit Europe only for Neuschwanstein and the Industrial museum of ancient industries.

A European investment fund that promotes new industries and start ups, as well as existing national champions nationally and European, but as a new EU Los Alamos and Apollo project. A kind of Apollo project from cloud computing, quantum computing, AI, blockchain technology, robotics to nano and biotechnology and also such new developments in Silicon Valley as artificial meat. New ecological technologies would have to be also addressed, which can already be part of the current New Green Deal of the EU.

A European Silk Road Marco Polo 2.0, a project that in addition to the systematic development of a high-tech industry in research. Development and production also remove the investment backlog in the analogue and digital infrastructure in Europe, which are also prerequisites for the use of these new technologies, leaving the young generation with a well-functioning infrastructure for the future as the legacy of our generation, a common  interest project that unites today´s Europe, a vision and concrete material advantages, as well as jobs and economic growth then generated in multiplier effect. On the one hand as a counterpoint to China’s New Silk Road, an European infrastructure project that renews Europe’s promise of prosperity, makes it concrete and creates optimism again. Especially since every European also wonders: Why are the Chinese building a train route from Budapest to Belgrade and not the Europeans? It is also about getting the Chinese backyard in the form of the 16 plus 1 group back by connecting European non-EU members. The first serious supporters have already appeared. On the one hand, the FAZ already headlined: „Why not a European Silk Road?“ The idea is now gaining further supporters from three research institutes, albeit in the still rudimentary form of a high-speed long-distance train network for Europe – here from the Freitag newspaper:

„A recent proposal from the Düsseldorf Institute for Macroeconomics, the Austrian Economic Institute wiiw and the French Institute OFCE has shown that there is another way. In view of the EU negotiations on a reconstruction fund to deal with the Corona crisis, they are calling for Europe to build a network of four super-fast train lines that connect east and west, north and south. A route should run from Lisbon via Paris, Berlin, Copenhagen to Helsinki. At an average train speed of 250 to 350 kilometers per hour, the travel time from Berlin to Paris would be reduced to four hours. Those who travel the distance by plane today take longer. The researchers calculated that simply switching passengers from planes to trains would reduce CO2 emissions by four to five percent. Freight traffic would also be shifted to the new rail. The 18,250-kilometer network would cost 1.1 trillion euros – an amount roughly double the 500 billion earmarked for the EU’s reconstruction fund. But it would be worth it. What would a movement from below do to effectively to counter global warming? It would network across Europe to promote such a project. It is so exemplary. The politicians are waving away? This may show that our free elections are not as free as they seem. The movement from below would combine their struggle for an ecologically effective large-scale project with the struggle for an electoral system that does not, of all things, spare the economy – that is, leaves it to capital, on which everything else depends. The chances of getting a lot of approval would be great, also because the institutes propose even more. They consider the superfast train network to be the core of a “European silk road”, which would also include new ports. The continent’s borders, the Balkans, the Caucasus, would be better connected to the industrial regions in the west. The researchers expect 3.5 percent economic growth and two million new jobs. ”

https://www.freitag.de/autoren/michael-jaeger/klimarettung-im-superzug-von-lissabon-nach-helsinki-mit-350-hourskm

3) Furthermore, in addition to the civil infrastructure, military use for NATO should also be considered, which, like ecological aspects and more, should include the ecological promotion of regional public transport networks to overcome the urban-rural divide in the analog and digital infrastructure, in order to create a holistic concept for the greatest possible benefit. The whole thing should also be thought of with a future orientation in matters of Eurasia and the USA.