With all its national economies combined, the European Union is a €19 trillion economy and the second biggest economy in the word after the United States, even bigger than China. With a population exceeding 450 million, the EU is a gigantic consumer market. The EU’s national armies combined comprise of up to 1.5 million personnel but this figure could reach up to 2.5 million when Ukraine joins the EU. Moldova is also on course to join the EU.
2025 was the year of reckoning for Europe and it took some time for European leaders to become aware of the gravity of the situation. Up until the EU Commissioner accepted a 15% tariff deal with US President Donald Trump, the EU was still wallowing in the illusion that the US government is our friend. With the US Strategic Security Policy it is very explicitly clear that the US is actively working to undermine EU whilst backing the pro-Russian far-right political parties in Europe.
The approval of the ReArm programme and the renewed work to improve and further unify European security (military Schengen) and the defence industry are crucial steps required to deter the existential threat of Russia’s belligerence. Europe will also have a new digital monetary rail with the digital Euro, ultimately removing our dependence from international money rails that are not European such as VISA and MasterCard. The banking union is also set to remove some internal capital barriers.
Despite these latest measures that will greatly improve Europe’s cohesion, sovereignty and strength, European leaders are not doing enough to meet the expectations borne unto them by this brave-imperial new world. Mario Draghi is warnings are falling on deaf ears, but in the streets, the youth are coming to this conclusion by themselves. Things are changing in Europe and seismic shifts will start but it depends upon us to make sure that Europe takes the right direction. The window for change is now open.
The far-right in Europe is at its peak and there are not enough new voters to sustain it. The privileged strata of home-owners and older generations who are supporting the pro-Russian and far-right parties in Europe are not going to increase in number. Neither are the farmers who have businesses and assets that depend on the sustenance of EU subsidies. On the other hand, there is an ever more growing disenfranchised youth due to economic conditions but the youth are more open for better and European alternatives to the far-right. It is also clear that the far-right in Europe, just like in the US, has a growing strand of backers of young disenfranchised men who believe that bringing the far-right in power will finally enable them to sleep with a woman: the exaggerated reaction to feminism.
European politics has never been unidirectional. The reaction to the far-right’s current peak is a growing support for the EU in many different ways. The youth want and support the EU and many of them want it to be better and stronger. Federalism is also growing as an idea and all these rejuvenating ideas are in line with the growing political trend in EU legislate to strengthen European cohesion in several key sectors. The political battle lines are being drawn. There are those in Europe who are working in the interests of foreign states such as Russia and the United States, while the other side is fighting for Europe, its democratic values and its unity. The idea that “national sovereignty” is in direct contradiction to the EU is empirically incorrect: we no longer live in the era of 1990s WTO and international diplomacy and the age of imperialism is back with a vengeance. By themselves, European Union member-states are unable to challenge and compete against the world’s rising powers.
Essentially, this means that we live in an era when sovereignty is guaranteed by strength and not international treaties and strength in Europe is found in the European Union. Weakening the European Union will ultimately weaken our national sovereignty and put us more vulnerable and dependent on exterior powers such as the US and China. This is the future that Europe faces: either it strengthens itself into a cohesive superpower capable of independently determining trade and peace agreements, or it will be forced to sign agreements dictated by Moscow.
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Historian and Publisher
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