“The world is made up of herbivores and carnivores, if we decide to remain herbivores, the carnivores will win », Warned Emmanuel Macron to his European partners this Thursday. This declaration, at the Summit of the European Political Community, sounds like a warning in the face of Donald Trump’s accession to power in the United States. The new tenant of the White House will not do any favors to the Europeans and will defend America’s interests. If Europe remains candid in the face of the upheavals of the world it will be ruined.
Today’s world is going through an unprecedented shift towards protectionism, a retreat that has not been so marked since the great wave of liberalism that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall. Globalization, which Europe still perceives as a promise of prosperity and peace, is today becoming an arena where everyone defends their interests, without illusion and without quarter. While the United States, China and Russia adapt their strategies to a world that has become uncertain and multipolar, Europe seems paralyzed.
Is it not high time for the Union to move from immobility to lucidity?
Donald Trump, re-elected president of the United States, embodies this tendency towards pragmatic withdrawal, with no moral attachment other than to the homeland. « America first » is not just a slogan; it is an implacable logic of national interest. And if this logic may seem cynical, it is nonetheless a strategy for survival in a world where multipolarity offers neither arbiter nor safety net. What is Europe doing during this time? It looks at the future with yesterday’s glasses, those of a world where free trade was only synonymous with reciprocal enrichment. This Europe, struggling with reindustrialization, digital sovereignty and defense strategy, seems lost in a world where idealism is no longer enough.
Europe chains Europe
Is it not high time for the Union to move from immobility to lucidity? The Chinese are no longer seduced by the discourse of a globalized world; they arm themselves, they protect themselves, they impose. Americans are relocating, putting up walls and building protectionist capitalism. Europe, for its part, continues to jealously monitor compliance with the deficit rules and public finances of the Member States, sometimes itself slowing down the development of its own forces. From there arises a paradox which seems to border on the absurd: Europe chains Europe. To wake up, perhaps it should, on the contrary, liberate the Member States and support their ambitious projects.
Europe must stop being a technocratic utopia and become an instrument of political power
Because sovereignty, after all, cannot exist without power. The history of empires teaches us that only power creates peace. Today, we must defend our freedom to remain actors in our destiny; our ambition is no longer a luxury. And this ambition requires a profound reorientation. The awakening of the European Union can no longer be limited to respecting budgetary rules. The European Central Bank, for example, could become the cornerstone of a new European ambition: that of investing in research, digital technology, defense and ecology. Rather than being a simple guarantor of budgetary austerity, Europe must become an economic engine to support Member States.
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Why wait for random aid from changing allies, when Europe itself could become a force for investment, prosperity and defense? Our collective memory remembers the tragedies caused by divisions; From the Thirty Years’ War to 14-18, European weakness often precipitated its fall. The United States is not there to save Europe from its own mistakes; they proved it as early as World War I by intervening late and putting a price on their alliances. But today the situation is even more precarious. With a more isolationist America, which sees Europe as a conditional ally and which puts forward its own interests, Europe finds itself isolated, vulnerable in a world that has once again become conflictual.
Some in Brussels still dream of a supranational, disembodied Europe, without deep links with its nations. They are wrong. Hobbes and Clausewitz remind us of a brutal reality: human nature, and especially that of nations, is based on force, interest and the will to power. Can Europe still afford to ignore this truth?
In order not to abandon itself to a slow and resigned decline, Europe must, paradoxically, restore power to the States that make it up. It is time to free them from the stifling oversight of deficit rules; these rules, by limiting investments in infrastructure, innovation and defense, have often slowed down our adaptation to modernity. That Europe becomes an actor in the production of wealth, and not a simple regulator.
Some will say that this proposal threatens the very spirit of Europe, that it flirts with national withdrawal. But independence is not a denial of peace and cooperation. If it wants to survive, it has no choice: Europe must stop being a technocratic utopia and become an instrument of political power. The election of Trump is a stark reminder that by relying for too long on the protection of the United States, Europe has disarmed itself. She must act, and act quickly. Because there is a price for candor, and this price, for civilizations, is often called decline.
Belgium
