Europeans know Donald Trump, his ideas and his political goals. Nonetheless, it is likely that he will surprise us in the next four years and, in particular, many are wondering what the relations will be between Trumpian America and a Europe which, in order to be able to defend its interests decorously, must be strong and unit.
The close relationship between the USA and Europe was an essential cornerstone of the world order in the twentieth century. In the two world wars, American intervention to the aid of European democracies marked history. Hundreds of thousands of young American soldiers lost their lives to guarantee the freedom of Europe which, without their sacrifice, would have been a land of conquest for Hitler.
Today the Euro-Atlantic alliance remains essential for the stability of the planet. Even before it is for economic and military reasons, it is for the values, culture and history that it has witnessed so far. If the principles of democracy and people’s rights still have citizenship in the world, it is largely due to the strength of the constitutional provisions in European countries and the USA.
If the alliance were to loosen, the consequences would be very significant and Putin’s prophecy about the end of liberal thought would risk coming true.
The isolationist decline
In a short-term vision, the USA could prefer a Europe without political unity, where individual states count. But, from a more strategic perspective, the US would need more to be able to count on a European ally that is economically strong and loyal in terms of security. Europe without the USA would be easy prey. The USA without Europe would accentuate its isolation and history teaches that being alone has always been the precursor to decline.
From this point of view, the quality of the new relationship between the Union and the United States takes on a geopolitical importance that goes beyond their specific interests. The type of Europe Trump will have to deal with will matter a lot. A federated or even just confederate Europe is one thing. Another a purely economic Union, ideal for Trumpian and Putinian “divide and conquer”.
The prolonged silence of European diplomacy on the Israeli incursions against the Unifil units in Lebanon and on North Korea’s entry into the war indicates what makes Europe weak: the lack of a true democratic government.
The 21st century began with war. China and the USA, NATO and the Brics, India, Iran, Turkey and North Korea, the Middle East, the Indo-Pacific, the military vocation of Russia, are profoundly changing the balance of Planet and no one can know how and when the new world order will settle. But the process is not peaceful: it is made up of wars, economic competition, mass migrations, increasingly destructive armaments. Europe, with its geopolitical marginality, matters little.
If Europe has an interest in influencing the processes of peace, economic development and social solidarity on the planet, it must start from here, knowing that it has three options before it.
The first is to not change anything and remain an honorable, predominantly economic Union. After all, until Putin’s aggression against Ukraine, the economic union seemed a more than sufficient result for 27 states held together by a single currency and important treaties.
But with the two wars, with the environmental, technological and industrial transition, history changed meaning and the economic nature of the Union showed its limits. With the logical consequence that it is Biden’s USA that gave the line to Western democracies in the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and it is Trump’s USA that will continue to give it from now on. And it couldn’t be otherwise given that Europe doesn’t exist.
Sleepwalking
A rich continent like Europe, if it renounces political unity, means that, like a true sleepwalker, it has chosen its own well-being which, when nothing matters in the world, can be very ephemeral.
The second option, therefore, is to transform the European Union from a predominantly economic entity into a political union, essentially making Europe a true state, a federation or a confederation. Among the “big decisions” that Mario Draghi talks about, this one is worthy of far-sighted thinking.
But major obstacles will have to be overcome, starting with the national and even nationalist spirit of the current 27 members of the Union. And then the extreme delicacy of the necessary institutional steps: end of the right of veto, a true parliament with full legislative powers, a democratic government with the trust of parliament and ownership, on behalf of the 27, of foreign and defense policy.
Only the will of all the individual states could give rise to the European Federation, but there is still no sign of this will. Nonetheless, the battle for the political evolution of Europe (or even just a significant part of it) remains the only step capable of giving it authority and voice. Preaching peace without having the necessary influence to be heard clears the conscience, but is of little use.
Nobody wants the third option, but the will of European citizens and even that of the States can be overwhelmed by events and it cannot be ruled out that the harmony between the 27 countries that make up the Union could degenerate to the point of making a word real today unpronounceable: disintegration.
We have to be careful. There has already been Brexit which to most people didn’t seem possible. And there is the casual use of the right of veto and the office of president of the Union which undermine its stability. And there is also the fragility of the political systems of the main European countries which weakens their initiative.
Europe knows that the risk of war looms over it too. But it may happen that these concerns, instead of pushing European states to strengthen the ideal cement that should unite them, accentuate their differences, push them towards opposing sides, determine clashes between those who invest more in defense and those who cannot do so. But Europe cannot go back, it can only move forward, under penalty of its own survival.
The disintegration of Europe can arise from events and from the prevalence of the interest of individual states over the common interest. Nobody wants it, but it can come from the incompleteness of a Union which, without political unity, cannot handle a challenge which is no longer just cultural and economic, but has also become military, of war and peace.
