Let’s say it clearly: sending poor Ursula von der Leyen against Donald Trump with our bare hands is European suicide. Not because she is a woman, on the contrary; perhaps it was possible to field the most important European stateswoman of the last twenty years, Angela Merkel (the one of the previous twenty years, Margaret Thatcher, is unfortunately dead). And it’s not just a matter of names and leaders; although it is not clear how a Europe that has never been so weak and divided can afford to keep Mario Draghi on the bench.
The point is that any representative, with any role, will be called to deal with a tough nut to crack like Trump on the various dossiers (the most urgent are the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and the fight against climate change) will have to pay for two weaknesses. The first is the impasse of European construction. The second is the rise of sovereignisms, which are a candidate to be the Trumpian Trojan horse on the other side of the Atlantic.
European construction is at a standstill. The last two steps forward are linked to two emergencies. The debt crisis, imported from America in 2008, forced Europe to launch financial solidarity mechanisms. And at the time of the pandemic Macron, Conte and Sánchez convinced Merkel to finally make a joint debt. If today Italy can withstand a public debt that happily floats above three trillion euros, it is because it is effectively guaranteed by the Germans. Now, however, the German economy has stopped. The years of progressive or liberal governments in Berlin, Madrid, Paris did not bring any further steps towards a united Europe. And now a completely different season opens.
Trump’s clear victory confirms that a populist wind is blowing in almost all Western democracies, hostile to free trade, to global concertation, to the common governance of various issues, starting with wars and global warming. On the contrary, Trump denies the issues. He will stop the wars, as if by magic. And the rising waters mean that “we will have more properties overlooking the sea”, as he says, believing he is being funny.
Actually, we know that ending the war in Ukraine by cutting off aid to Kiev – “pocket money” as Trump’s son would say – means leaving the victory to Putin; and it is not clear why the Russian dictator should be satisfied with Donbass, giving up on putting one of his own men in Zelensky’s place, and then looking elsewhere, at the other countries once subject to Russian influence. And we knew, even before the Valencia catastrophe, that the climate in the Mediterranean is changing rapidlythe hot and calm summers of our youth have become an alternation of scorching heat and violent floods, and Europe must continue its green plan, taking care not to pass the cost onto businesses and workers, but rather by transforming measures necessary for public health in a business. So far, it has been China above all that has gained from our ecological transition.
To keep track of Ukraine, the Middle East – where the bellicose Netanyahu is certainly not weakened by his privileged relationship with Trump – and the fight against climate change, Europe must be united by a minimum of common solidarity. What we see these days in Brussels goes in the opposite direction.
The European government is in fact centre-left. Led by the People’s Party and the Socialists, open to the Liberals and now the Greens. But the electoral wind is blowing from the opposite side. At the European elections in June we saw an advance, although not uncontainable, of the new populist and sovereignist right. In France Marine Le Pen matters more and more. In Germany in three months the elections will be won by Friedrich Merz’s CDU, who is not Merkel (she is more to the right), but will not be able to govern alone, and will not even be able to make deals with the AfD extremists; in the end the German Christian Democrats will have to remake the increasingly smaller Grand Coalition with the Social Democrats. But in the meantime Cyclone Trump also blows in Europe.
The Commission opened to a representative of the Conservatives, the Italian Raffaele Fitto. Socialists point to him as an enemy of the people; the Democratic Party would do well to clarify to its own faction that this is not the case. The other problem is the commissioner indicated by Madrid, the socialist Teresa Ribera, who the Spanish popular people don’t want: officially because she was blissfully at lunch during the Valencia flood; in reality because in Madrid the Grand Coalition or even just the center-left has never been created and will never be created, as socialists and populars have their roots in the time of Francoism and even before the civil war.
Ma beyond the internal disputes of the various countries, Europe must decide what its path is. Orbán’s, who winks one eye at Putin and the other at Trump? Or that of Macron, who is in serious difficulty but isn’t he wrong to point out that a “herbivorous” Europe, incapable of defending itself and protecting its own interests, will be devoured by carnivores?
Part of the answer depends on Giorgia Meloni. The Prime Minister has so far remained with one foot here and one foot there. Pro-Atlantic on Ukraine, albeit with growing doubt. Eurosceptic in Brusselsalbeit with a good personal relationship with von der Leyen. Now Meloni must say clearly whether she believes in Europe or not. Whether Europe must go together to negotiate with Trump, or whether each country – you would say Nation – must decide for itself. If the friendship with Elon Musk can be an extra card to play at the table, or a pretext to join the other team.
The reality is that sovereignism must be able to afford it: if you find a sovereignist who is too bigger than you, he will decide, not you. Perhaps it is a good opportunity to realize that the nation of the future is Europe, true sovereignism is European, and having Putin in Kiev and high water on the windows is no business for anyone; much less for us.
