The EU needs a new geopolitical compass

Unlock White House Clock Bulletin Free

Your guide on what Trump’s second term for Washington, Business and the World means

The writer is co-head of the Itinera Institute, a Think-Tank of Brussels and the author of “Superpower Europe: the Silidora Revolution of the European Union”

The EU faces the challenge of a new world order. May 9 marked its official “Europe Day”: an celebration of peace and unity that is a strong contrast to the world beyond. Europe is strategically alone: ​​Russia is an enemy, China, an adversary and a partner, and the United States of Donald Trump are a threat or a liability.

The block has three important options essentially. One: Making a America in Europe geopolitically. This means developing what is needed to project European power, linking third countries to a European PAX built in a large market with integrated technological and safety capacities, eventually flanked by a reformed NATO.

To get there, Europe should make an economically: rebuilding a strong industrial and technological base. Not only would he dominate his Eurasian theater, but also an adversary Russia, while also gaining a degree of geopolitical independence in the wider world.

The second option is to go down to position the EU as the last bastion of globalization. It would follow the United States steps under the administration of Joe Biden, participating in similar ideas countries while arming strategic industries with a high protectionism fence.

This strategy would finally involve China or the United States as security security. However, whenever Trumpism is indifference or worse, the EU may have to consider making its own “inverse Kissinger”: to offer Beijing a ramp in its trade war with Washington on the condition of neutrating their collaboration with Moscow. The position of Europe with respect to Russia would, therefore, be one of the normality and the diplomatic standardization limited instead of the adversary domination.

The third option is for the EU to continue to play the second fidd in the United States. In the short term, this would re -establish the blog as a strategic asset for a first agenda in America: hitting a Trump trade agreement with Trump, paying stability bills in Ukraine, while allowing U.S. business interests to reconstruct and mining and the United States line in China.

In return, Europe will benefit from the minimum security guarantees of the United States as long as it remained integrated into the financial and technological markets led by Americans. In the medium term, as long as the United States becomes less isolation, maintaining its rivalry with China, deeper collaboration could reappear, reflecting both geoeconomic realities and a mutual need to share loads in the new world order.

Which of these options is taking the EU currently? The short answer: all the previous questions at the same time. It is developing the common capacity of defense and security while pursuing industrial policies. He continues to promote international trade, including EU-XINA trade with more Chinese production in Europe. The protection of the United States, not less important, in relation to Ukraine, while exploring the art of a trade agreement with Trump.

This shows remarkable political creativity. But Europe does not intelligently cover its bets in a world of increasing disorder. Instead, it clings to a status quo ante, while only able to reactions separate to external shocks.

If Europe cannot be proactive and strategic, geopolitical transversal currents will eventually divide it politically and will marginalize. European nations face the challenge of a new world order as a matter of need, not choice. Either they can channel a response through the EU, or the individual answers of the countries gradually gives off the blog. The appearance of ad hoc “Surrounding coalition (s) It is a benign environment of what could become an existential threat.

If Europe returns to become the master of its own destiny, establishing its geopolitical compass should be simple. Keeping Russia in control on our own requires significant power and autonomy capacity with respect to the United States, as well as sufficient economic independence from China. The latter guarantees that Europe will be able to explore a transatlantic reset with a post-trump US, a scenario that would be minted in deepening commercial relations with China in the short term.

European nations need to be aware that the “European project” is now a hard power project that needs a geostrategic footprint beyond its current limits. We have been here before. In the early 1950’s, postwar Europe tried and could not institutionalize political and defense cooperation. At that time, it was the protection of the United States and a European economic community that allowed peace and prosperity. Today we are defending ourselves for ourselves. With the subservative economic development of geopolitics, failure is not simply an option.