Where are we, Europe?
In the month since Donald Trump’s election victory, the European political system has undergone a complete and – apparently – irreversible collapse. There are serious questions about the status of the government in France, and most serious concerns about how Germany would look like after the elections. In Italy, the last weeks may turn out to be the most encouraging period of Meloni’s political career. The European project, of which the individual republics are integral components, faces the most significant challenges. Just a few years ago, we were talking about Europe’s strategic autonomy, shared debt and EU’s enlargement into the Balkans and towards the East. Where are we now?
The French Fifth Republic, designed to prevent the ascendance of so-called extremist parties, is now facing one challenge after another from these very forces. Germany, the primary driver of the European economy, is already experiencing severe difficulties. Without affordable energy resources from Russia, and in the context of increasingly self-reliant Central European countries, Germany’s growth potential is constrained by numerous factors.
Just three months ago, I heard, along with a group of French students, from a major Brussels lobbyist fighting to reduce the impact of alcohol on the health of Europeans, that Mario Draghi’s report had already changed the continent. The very publication of it and the subsequent debate were going to change the mindset of Europe’s elites. I thought it would be really good if this was true, and for a moment, I forgot about the voice of German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who rejected the assumptions of the former European Central Bank chief’s project immediately after it went public.
Europe is currently facing several threats. First, a lack of investment and serious ideas for the future, secondly, the Russian threat, which is trying its best to delegitimise the concept of unified Europe internally and weaken its influence on the continent while attacking its neighbours, and thirdly, the threat of Donald Trump, who wants to gain as much as possible for himself.
After five years of the biggest pandemic in a century, after three years of a deadly war on the continent, after a year of genocide and an eruption in the Middle East on a scale not seen for fifty years, Europe does not know where it is going. After the reaction to the Draghi report, we saw it again in the meeting between Macron, Scholz and Starmer and Biden on peace in Ukraine, where the old colonial clichés came to the fore — just like it was 1938 once again.
Then, after the US election result, reality came knocking. Like a deer caught in the headlights of a car on a night road, Europe is not ready to deal with Trump. Within moments of Trump’s election, the governments of Germany and France collapsed. Instead, Giorgia Meloni has emerged as Europe’s leader, according to Politico. Why a leader? Because it is through her mouth that Europe will talk to Trump, who is a fan of hers.
As Politico’s articles states: “If you’re Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and a key adviser to United States President-elect Donald Trump — the number you dial belongs to Giorgia Meloni”. It seems that out of courtesy to European decision makers, they forgot to add, that the second number belongs to Viktor Orbán, who is now intending to work out a very different peace deal for Ukraine, liaising Trump and Putin through meetings and phone calls.
Where is Europe’s strategic autonomy? The Old Continent is left to look at how the peace process in Ukraine is being taken into his hands by Trump — or not.
The most serious European peace concept, created under the auspices of Germany, was the de facto Minsk Agreement 3.0. The idea was laughed at in Kyiv. Moments later, the government in Berlin collapsed, making the whole idea even more irreal. The whole of Central and Eastern Europe, but also of the until recently excluded and despised countries of the South, watched that with smile. Suddenly, it was clear that populism and economic crisis were not just the domain of the European periphery. The centre suffers from the very same illness.
What is more, the last few years have not been devoted to shoring up Europe, to creating new infrastructure, investments and thus forging the foundations of a potential autonomy. Instead, it appears that the European powers have been far more preoccupied with themselves, having shown during the pandemic that another, more developmental and decentralised direction is possible.
In Germany, the great Zeitenwende ended in the closure of nuclear power plants, creative accounting and strengthening of the army mainly on paper, and finally to the slow decomposition of the social contract based on cheap energy and the interventionist state. Scholz’s pathetic attempts at peace in Ukraine were just the cherry on the cake. All this after two years of antagonising almost the whole of Central Europe, after all, the countries east of the Oder have no place in German strategic thought. It still seems that they are only meant to be a source of cheap labour. Possibly they also could buy energy from Germany and stop the stream of irregular migrants. Nothing more.
In France, by contrast, there are three feuding tribes. Why? Because the prodigy child of the French elite — Emmanuel Macron — has decided to first destroy the left and then pounce on the right.
He has ended up with extremely polarising political groupings on both sides, and internally a national atmosphere of hatred and powerlessness. Instead of modernisation, his name means a policy of cuts and belt-tightening, with a pinch of constant polarisation and finding fault outside one’s political camp. And it was supposed to be so good after all, Europe was supposed to become great and independent again.
At the same time, other European countries struggle with political stalemates (Bulgaria, until recently, and now also Belgium) or unexpected new populist revolt movements (Romania). Others are governed by revisionists such as Orban or Fico in Slovakia. And one of the most important countries in the current geopolitical puzzle, Poland, is busy hunting down the opposition and abandoning infrastructure projects and scientific institutions. The only shining star is Spain, but it is difficult to imagine how it could now take the lead in the Union and come up with a vision acceptable for others.
In all this, apart from Meloni, another player is, of course, Ursula von der Leyen, who acted very boldly in the face of the war in Ukraine, finding support in Joe Biden when she could not find it on the continent. Now, however, she finds herself on the defensive. Her way of appeasing the threat from Trump is to bow to him with new LNG contracts, in order to stop him from imposing too high tariffs that could break the EU’s economy in the absence of its own investments.
However, will this work? As US diplomats said: ‘”He would like to see the EU break up”.
So, are we doomed to the slow paralysis of Europe in the face of these threats? With more challenges likely to appear?
With the first coming of Donald Trump, Europeans were able to mobilise and play to each other. We, the citizens, can mainly hope that we succeed again after these few years of stagnation. Simply because we could end up losing everything, and the big brother from overseas will no longer help us, but rather seek to profit from our failure.
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