© REUTERS/Kevin Coombs

The Conference on the Future of Europe was supposed to kick off on Europe Day on May 9, 2020. It was French President Emmanuel Macron who first floated the idea to organize a conference to sketch out EU reform. Ursula von der Leyen picked up on this endeavor, in a move to appease a European Parliament critical of her nomination as Commission President. In her opening statement to the MEPs, she called for a “new push for democracy” and confirmed that the European institutions would organize the conference.

Recently, however, Dubravka Šuica, the European Commission Vice-President in charge of organizing the conference, announced in an interview with the Financial Times that the formal launch might be postponed at least until September due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is understandable. For practical reasons it is difficult to imagine how such a two-year reflection process with comprehensive citizen involvement would work in times of social distancing and confinement measures. And European leaders’ political attention is currently rightly focused on managing the immediate crisis.

Open Process

Either way, beyond the kick-off date and the general commitment from all three institutions, it is still unclear what the conference will look like. Before the EU switched into crisis management mode in March, the European Parliament, the European Commission, and the member states had not been able to agree on the composition, process structure, and mandate of the conference. The European Parliament was the first institution to set out its ideas for the conference, backing a rather ambitious resolution which “commits itself to a genuine follow-up of the conference with legislative proposals and possibly treaty change.”

The proposal foresees a Conference Plenary with representatives of the European Parliament and national parliaments, Council ministers, Commission Vice-Presidents, and representatives of other EU institutions, bodies, and social partners meeting on a regular basis. In parallel, citizens from all member states would gather regularly in several Citizens’ Agoras in different cities around Europe. At least two Youth Agoras are planned, too, whose members would be invited to present their findings at the Conference Plenary. A Steering Committee and an Executive Board would ensure a smooth functioning of the Conference.

The Commission’s response was relatively timid. It did not go into the same detail regarding the EU’s governance structure, nor did it refer to the possibility of institutional reform. Since then, all eyes have been on the European Council, where member states have so far shown little enthusiasm to push the Conference forward and have not even formulated a common position.

Thus, there are more questions than answers. To what extent will European citizens really be able to co-create the process throughout the duration of Conference? How often will the Conference reach out to stakeholders on the local, regional, and national level to allow for the widest possible participation and inclusion of views? How will the outcome of the Conference be translated into concrete policy proposals including legislative initiatives? Will treaty changes be an option?

The fact that the interinstitutional bargaining to define the conference’s approach and scope has not even taken place yet has lowered expectations significantly in the past months—despite initial excitement and push from the European Parliament to get the ball rolling. Even before the COVID-19 crisis management absorbed all attention, the focus had diverted from the debate on the Conference to other pressing issues such as the European Green Deal and the Greek-Turkish border crisis. Even in the Brussels bubble, where interest in such exercises is usually much higher than in the member states, it was no longer a top priority on the political agenda.

New Impulses Needed

In principal, the Conference on the Future of Europe has great potential. It can serve as an important new impulse to European democracy and bring the EU closer to its citizens, while at the same time also aiming to make progress with respect to the implementation of the EU’s key policy priorities. Yet its mandate and objectives must be made clear. Otherwise, the good intentions will backfire, eroding citizens’ trust in such exercises and more generally in the EU. There have already been enough fruitless ad-hoc or on-again-off-again participatory processes, pretending to give European citizens a say in the debate on the future of Europe. This time, the European institutions should get it right. Proper preparation is key.

Now that the formal launch has been postponed, the unexpected timeout should be used to prepare the ground for what would otherwise have likely become a “going through the motions” exercise. The far-reaching economic, social, and political consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for the EU will make the conference even more pressing.

Lockdown measures throughout Europe have already led to a sharp spike of unemployment; a deep recession looms. Cross-border solidarity has been once again severely tested as the countries most affected by the health crisis initially could not count on the support of their European partners, who instead turned inward and closed their borders. In the eyes of too many citizens, the EU played too small a role, particularly when coordinating the necessary restrictive measures and distributing medical equipment. Old conflicts between the North and the South have resurfaced, with even more intensity and emotion. And in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán has abused the COVID-19 crisis to undermine democracy, further strengthening his autocratic rule.

Push the Member States

The public health crisis has revealed the limitations of the EU’s capacity to act and has challenged the concept of European solidarity. At the same time, it has laid bare the already existing institutional shortcomings. The Conference on the Future of Europe will not only be an opportunity to jointly assess the EU’s crisis management and come to terms with the initial lack of European action as well as the reflex for national solutions. It will also allow to explore what should really be at the core of the EU, and which public goods it should deliver to European citizens. At the same time, it can serve as an important instrument to channel citizens’ feedback and to distill necessary reforms in order to strengthen the EU’s cohesion and capacity to act—on institutional reform as well as on political substance.

The first task is to ensure that the conference will take place at all. The delay could tempt member states to scrap it entirely from the political agenda. Most of them had been rather skeptical from the beginning anyway, having expressed doubts about how effective the exercise might be and fearing it could open the door to talk of changing the EU’s treaties. As member states will have to fight the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic in the coming months, they might completely lose their appetite to engage in such an exercise.

Therefore, the European Parliament as well as civil society organizations across Europe should push the member states to ensure that the latter stick to their commitment of launching the conference once confinement and social-distancing measures are lifted. With its recent resolution on the subject, the European Parliament has already sent a gentle reminder for it to be convened as soon as possible. And the signs are encouraging: a group of five ministers of EU affairs from Austria, Ireland, Greece, Bulgaria, and Belgium followed the Parliament urging their colleagues to commit to the conference.

Furthermore, the Parliament and the Commission should find common ground for an ambitious mandate and process to be discussed with the member states in order for the conference to be ready in time. The upcoming German EU presidency could provide an important impulse to broker an agreement between member states and steer the way toward an interinstitutional agreement. Any compromise should address the following two aspects:

Strategic Priorities

First, the participatory dimension of the conference should build on similar experiences in the past, such as the European Citizens’ Consultations that took place last year. In fact, there is a long history of efforts by the European institutions aiming to better connect citizens with the EU, which offer valuable lessons that should be taken into consideration. Experiences from democratic innovations at the local, regional, and national level across Europe should also be harvested, such as the Irish citizens’ Constitutional Convention or the Ostbelgien Citizens’ Council in the German-speaking community in eastern Belgium. Success requires clarity and clear communication of the ultimate goal of the Conference in order to manage expectations, to enable citizen involvement at both the national and transnational level, and ideally a long-term participatory process that establishes a regular communication channel between citizens, civil society, and elected representatives that goes beyond a one-off exercise.

At the same time, all stakeholders should be aware of the risks that come with organizing such a participatory endeavor: euroskeptics will be keen to push forward their own agenda calling for returning competences back to the national level. Thus, pro-integrationists should be prepared to have a convincing communication strategy throughout all phases of the conference to counter misinformation and to deliver credible responses when being confronted with dissent regarding the European project.

Second, the point of departure should be an evaluation of the main consequences of the COVID-19 crisis for the EU and its member states. However, reducing the Conference to the health crisis debate would be shortsighted. It should also concentrate on strategic priorities such as the green transition, the digital agenda, the EU’s role in the world, and democracy and governance, based on the EU Strategic Agenda 2019-2024 defined by the European Council and the von der Leyen Commission. In addition, as the EU focuses solely on fighting the pandemic and its consequences, and certain policy fields face deadlock due to longstanding conflicts, the Conference could serve as an important tool to keep reform debates alive.

Debating the EU’s strategic priorities will also reveal the necessity of institutional reform, for instance the introduction of qualified majority voting in specific policy fields. Also, other roadblocks such as electoral reform or the Spitzenkandidaten process will need to be addressed. Thus, all institutions should clearly commit themselves to deliver concrete financial, legal, institutional, and policy reforms, and—if necessary—even treaty change.

In every crisis, there is an opportunity. Postponing the launch of the Conference buys time. In a post-COVID-19 period, the need for a comprehensive European soul-searching exercise will be greater than ever. European institutions should not waste the opportunity.

The post Extra Time appeared first on Berlin Policy Journal - Blog.

With the European Union facing an increasingly unstable world of hybrid threats, military interventions, terrorism, and organized crime, many politicians across Europe have repeatedly called for closer intelligence cooperation and even for the establishment of an EU intelligence service.
In fact, the EU Global Strategy in 2016 already emphasized the necessity of timely information sharing for security policy decisions being taken at the EU level: “European security hinges on better and shared assessments of internal and external threats,” it states. “This requires investing in intelligence… We must feed and coordinate intelligence extracted from European databases.”

Furthermore, the Implementation Plan on Security and Defense, which was published the same year, confirms that a “European hub for strategic information, early warning and comprehensive analysis” is a necessary security policy instrument. Yet with Britain leaving, the EU is losing a very powerful intelligence partner. As a result, the remaining member states should certainly think about cooperating even more closely.

The Limits of EU Law

So, why not shoot for the moon and establish an EU intelligence service? Since intelligence services are regarded as the heart of a nation state, the EU member states traditionally have been highly reluctant about institutionalized forms of cooperation and set themselves clear legal boundaries.

Article 4 of the Lisbon Treaty states that national security falls under the “sole responsibility of the individual member states.” The relevant regulatory areas “Area of Freedom, Security, and Justice” and “General Provisions on the Union’s External Action and Specific Provisions on the Common Foreign and Security Policy” do not refer to intelligence cooperation at all. However, Article 73 states that member states are free to set up—on their own responsibility—forms of individual cooperation and coordination between their national security authorities. That means that, while a European intelligence service is not an option right now, closer cooperation is legally possible, politically necessary, and practically useful.

In fact, within the clear limits of EU law, two different forms of intelligence cooperation at EU level have developed: on the one hand, there are rather informal bilateral and multilateral forms of cooperation. For instance, the Club de Berne is a forum between the domestic intelligence services of all member states (plus Switzerland and Norway), based on a voluntary exchange of information, experiences, and point of views. Given the high level of trust, flexibility, and independence, those informal intelligence coalitions are probably regarded as the most effective ones.

On the other hand, there are two important institutionalized forms of cooperation within the EU structures. First, the EU maintains a military intelligence unit with the Intelligence Directorate of the EU Military Staff (EUMS INT), which is part of the EU’s foreign and diplomatic body, the European External Action Service (EEAS). It provides military analysis/assessment for the decision making and planning of civilian missions and military operations under the Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP). Second, there is the EU Intelligence and Analysis Centre (INTCEN), established in 1999 with the CSDP, and another intelligence body of the EEAS. Its mission is to provide intelligence analysis and “situational awareness” to the High Representative, to various EU decision making levels as well as to the EU member states. Neither EUMS INT nor INTCEN generate its own intelligence; rather, they are dependent on information delivered by national foreign and domestic services of the member states and by internal EU bodies.

INTCEN and EUMS INT are linked in the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC). This is a purely virtual hub within the EEAS but one that works very well. Its products provide significant added value to the member states and to the EU itself. The Implementation Plan on Security and Defense defined SIAC as a central hub for the generation of strategic information and threat assessments: “Improving CSDP responsiveness requires enhanced civil/military intelligence…, through the Single Intelligence Analysis Capacity (SIAC) as the main European hub for strategic information, early warning, and comprehensive analysis.”

Rocket-Fueling SIAC

By shooting for the moon, the EU will land among the stars. The establishment of a supranational intelligence service would require a substantial change of the EU treaties. Given the results of the European elections and the rising euroskepticism in some of the member states, this, however, seems light years away.

But with the EEAS and the integrated SIAC, the EU actually already has a strengthened role in the analysis of internal and external security threats. The SIAC could be used more efficiently by the member states and optimized by investing in a higher number of staff and in the quantity and quality standard of intelligence products delivered. That would eventually make its added value more visible and would further build trust among member states, encouraging them to cooperate even closer.

But that’s not all. In times of increased global insecurity, two members of the Five Eyes and the EU’s most trustworthy intelligence allies are going down an unforeseeable political path. Both the United States and United Kingdom will surely remain partners in security policy, but in the long term, their respective political isolation might also affect the sharing of confidential information with the EU member states.

What Germany Should Do

Altogether, it is an undeniable fact that in foreign and security terms, the EU will increasingly have to rely on itself. This has already triggered ambitious reactions from 25 member states that committed themselves to “permanent structured cooperation” (PESCO) in defense policy. PESCO could serve as a model for strengthening intelligence cooperation. Closer cooperation would continue to take place in coalitions of small numbers of those member states willing and, more importantly, able to share confidential information with selected partners. Although Article 42 of the EU treaties does not provide a legal basis for a permanent structured cooperation of the intelligence services, Articles 328/329 generally provide a legal basis for enhanced cooperation and maybe for the future creation of Five (preferably six, seven or even more) Eyes of the European Union.

As Germany is taking over the Presidency of the European Council in 2020, the government in Berlin should start focusing now on how flexible cooperative solutions between EU member states could be advanced, leading to deeper integration and toward a real Security Union. This is actually a unique chance for Germany to demonstrate its ability to put innovative policy priorities on the agenda—including a better exchange of intelligence information and coordination at the EU level.

In the end, that might also give a fresh impetus to the concept of a European intelligence service, and make it not quite so many light years away after all.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

In the run-up to the European Parliament elections, none of the German political parties has shown quite as much ambition as the Free Democratic Party (FDP). In its election program, adopted at the end of January 2019, the pro-business liberal party calls for the convening of a (second) European Constitutional Convention by 2022 at the latest. And it also clearly defines such a convention’s mandate: to create a Europe that is democratic, decentralized, and federal.

The noble aim of transforming the existing association of states into a single federal state has rarely been invoked in recent years. Back in January 2012, in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Chancellor Angela Merkel outlined her vision of a federal future for the European Union: in the course of a long process, the EU member states would transfer more competencies to the European Commission, “which will then work like a European government. This requires a strong parliament. The European Council, which brings together heads of government, will form the second chamber. Finally, we have the European Court of Justice as the supreme court. That could be what Europe’s political union looks like at some point in the future, as I say, and after many interim steps.”

One and a half years later, during the Bundestag election campaign in August 2013, Merkel set a starkly different tone in an interview with the Phoenix television station, arguing “More Europe is more than just a transfer of competencies from the nation state to Europe, rather I can also have more Europe by getting involved more strictly and intensively in coordinating national action with others. That is also a form of more Europe.”

Fourteen years after the introduction of the euro, the German position on European policy began to converge with that of the British. The desire to keep the United Kingdom in the EU was one of the main reasons for Merkel’s commitment to intergovernmentalism. The chancellor’s change of course was also a signal to then French President François Hollande, who was elected in May 2012 and with whom no agreement had yet been reached on political union and the reform of the EU. It was not by chance that Merkel referred in the interview to the example of the Netherlands. In June 2013, its Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans had declared in a letter to the Dutch Members of Parliament that the time of an “ever closer union” in every possible policy area had come to an end. In the future, the motto should be: “European where necessary, national where possible.”

The EU’s Democratic Deficit

Timmermans, who is now vice-president of the European Commission and the European Social Democrats’ Spitzenkandidat for the European elections, was saying what most European governments thought. If one interprets the formula of “ever closer union” in the sense of a federal deepening of the European Union, today there may still be some approval for that notion in Luxembourg and Belgium and in parts of the German public, but hardly anywhere else. Anyone who, like the FDP in their election program, wants to commit EU member states to this goal won’t bring Europe closer together, but will instead divide it. This is not a consequence of the growing national populism throughout Europe. It is rather a consequence of the EU’s democratic deficit or, to put it another way, of the progressive independence of the European executive power—a development which was accelerated with the Maastricht Treaty at the end of 1993 and which gave populist, anti-EU parties a significant boost in many member states.

One frequent suggestion for tackling the EU’s democratic deficit is to strengthen the European Parliament and thus gradually turn the European Union into a parliamentary democracy. What speaks against this is the fact that the European Parliament has far less democratic legitimacy than national parliaments. If it were composed according to the democratic principle of “one person, one vote,” it would need to comprise of several thousand MEPs in order to provide adequate representation for the population of small member states. There are therefore good, even compelling, reasons for favoring the smaller member states at the expense of the larger ones. Given the parliament’s still limited rights, this lack of democratic legitimacy is acceptable. But it should not be denied. Dieter Grimm, a former judge on the German constitutional court, was right when he wrote in 2015, “The EU does not have sufficient resources for self-legitimation. For some time to come it will depend on the legitimacy it receives from the member states. A full parliamentarization, however, would immediately put a stop to this. It is therefore not in the democratic interest.”

“More Europe” even if the price is less democracy: to pursue such a policy is to harm the European project. Those who want to further develop this project according to the basic principles of democracy must therefore strengthen the “responsibility for integration” of the national parliaments. (It was Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court that introduced this term into the public debate with its ruling on the Lisbon Treaty in June 2009). The European policy decisions of the national parliaments can be better coordinated and synchronized; a joint committee could be helpful here. The democratic legitimacy of the EU relies on the support of the states that make up the bloc. Those who think that the European Parliament can replace the national parliaments in the longer term are chasing an ahistorical utopia and inadvertently promoting what they believe they are fighting against: nationalism.

Shifting to “Ever Closer Cooperation”

Europhiles have grounds for self-criticism. The nationalist parties would not be so popular if the proponents of European integration had not for so long stubbornly avoided fundamental issues such as the future of nations and nation states in a united Europe and with it the finality of the unification process. The paradigm shift from “ever closer union” to “ever closer cooperation,” which Germany and its Chancellor also undertook incrementally, was not the subject of a government declaration and parliamentary debates. The European political initiatives that French President Emmanuel Macron put forward in the summer of 2017 didn’t just remain unanswered because Germany first had to hold a Bundestag election and then protracted coalition negotiations. Rather, there was a lack of strategic clarity in the Chancellery and in the party headquarters of both Merkel’s Christian Democrats and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats, about what Germany actually wanted.

European elections are much more likely than national elections to tempt parties to promise their supporters heaven and earth. The propagation of a federal European state by the FDP is just one recent example. The Greens, for example, are demanding a European immigration law, the Left Party a one-off millionaire levy in all EU states, a ban on arms exports, and the dissolution of both the border control agency Frontex and the border surveillance system EUROSUR. Meanwhile, CDU leader Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and the SPD are calling for a joint permanent seat for the EU on the UN Security Council, and the SPD also wants the transformation of Europe Day on May 9 into a trans-European Union holiday. A more plausible demand from the Social Democrats is to replace the unanimity principle with majority decisions when it comes to foreign policy decisions in the European Council of Ministers. But apart from the fact that this change would first have to be decided unanimously, there is another problem: as became apparent during the migration crisis in autumn 2015, politically controversial majority decisions can deepen existing divisions. The abolition of unanimity is therefore unlikely to have a unifying effect.

Talking European, Acting National

It is not just German parties that like to make promises during European election campaigns, which sound good but are unenforceable in practice. When Emmanuel Macron, in his “Letter to the Europeans” in early March, spoke out in favor of a “minimum wage adapted to each country and renegotiated every year,” he was just appealing to left-of-center voters in his own country. But he can hardly think that a country like Bulgaria would agree to a regulation that it believes would damage its competitiveness. Should other, economically stronger countries, such as Germany and France, step into the breach? That all remains unclear. As far as europhile rhetoric is concerned, Macron surpasses all other EU heads of state and government. But when he talks about European sovereignty and a European army, he does not mean surrendering French sovereignty. France’s exclusive control over both its permanent seat on the UN Security Council and its nuclear weapons is sacrosanct. What may at first sound supranational are in reality ambiguous metaphors from Macron.

Of course, German politicians also understand the art of talking European and acting national. The construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline is one particularly striking example of this. Another is the SPD call for a joint European army. The party seemed to barely give a thought to the fact that the German parliament has to consent to any out-of-area Bundeswehr deployments—unless they are hoping to persuade all the European states to allow the European Parliament to have a similar oversight role, i.e. to create a “German Europe” in terms of defense policy. As far as asylum and migration are concerned, the same applies: as in 2015, there is still today a tendency on the left to elevate Germany to the rank of Europe’s leading moral nation. In the 19th century, a satirical verse from Adelbert von Chamisso’s “The Night Watchman” that mocked conservatives was often quoted in Germany, “And the king absolutely/If he does our will.” These days, the center-left in Germany seems to be following a slightly different motto: “And Europe absolutely, if it does our will.”

At the same time, a number of vitally important issues are barely being mentioned during this year’s European election campaign in Germany. Is the EU still a community of values? It has so far been unable to do much about Hungary, Poland, and Romania’s open disregard for the rule of law, as laid down in the Copenhagen Accession Criteria of 1993 and the Lisbon Treaty of 2009. With some member states having made themselves so economically dependent on Putin’s Russia or China that they no longer willing or capable of supporting EU decisions critical of Moscow or Beijing and therefore repeatedly block them, what remains of the argument that Europe must speak with one voice on important foreign policy issues ? How can the EU counter Donald Trump’s unilateralism when it is currently so divided on fundamental normative issues? What remains of the idea of an avant-garde core Europe when even Italy, a founding member, is set on a collision course with “Brussels” and the EU’s common set of rules?

Since amendments to the European treaties require the agreement of all member states, it is in most cases an illusion to believe that obvious grievances can be eliminated by amending those treaties. But there is nothing to prevent liberal democracies in the EU from working more closely together and thus creating a counterweight to the “illiberal democracies” before their number increases, for example with the possible accession of problematic candidate countries like Serbia.

Modesty and Realism

A better coordination of liberal democracies is also urgently needed outside of the EU. Even after it leaves, the United Kingdom will continue to be closely linked to the states of the EU due to its political culture. The same is true for the former British colonies of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. And despite Trump, this also applies to the United States. It’s not only in the area of defense that Europe remains dependent on close cooperation with the US. What we like to call “European values” are, in fact, Western values, that have to a large extent been shaped by America. If the West is to have a future, the liberal democracies of Europe must do their utmost to counter further transatlantic estrangement.

Populists and nationalists are benefiting from the omissions and mistakes made by the defenders of liberal democracy. A particularly serious mistake was and is the fact that they are evading and even suppressing the question of the finality of the European unification process. The EU is a group of post-classical nation states. Post-classical nation states differ from older, classic, fully sovereign nation states in that they jointly exercise some of their sovereign rights and have transferred others to supranational institutions.

Those who say that it is necessary to dissolve the nation states into a United Europe overlook the fact that the overwhelming majority of Europeans would not even consider giving up their traditional nation state. Moreover, the nation state in Europe is still the safest haven for the rule of law, the welfare state, and democracy. In order to preserve and further develop these achievements, there is a need for ever closer cooperation between those European states that are committed to these values. This goal is more modest than that of a European federal state or a European republic. But it is more realistic and democratic than any supposedly europhile utopia.

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Artwork © Katinka Reinke

It all began with the lights going out in the Baltics. In the autumn of 2021, as it was getting cool in northern Europe, but not yet properly cold, the Kremlin decided to venture a small experiment. For years, Moscow had been working to restructure the old, Soviet-era electrical network in Europe’s northeast so that it would be possible to disconnect Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania without cutting off Kaliningrad in the process. In order to achieve its full effect, the operation had to go ahead before 2025, the target date for the former Soviet republics’ independence from Russian nuclear power and its supply network.

And so, in early October 2021, the power went out from Narva in Estonia’s East to Lithuania’s border with Poland in the West—and didn’t go on again for a full three weeks. Computer systems, Internet, monetary transfers, traffic control, industrial production, sewage and cooling systems, heating and telecommunications: all of society’s vital functions were brought to their knees. Emergency services were able to supply a few nooks and crannies with power, but that couldn’t prevent catastrophe.

Driven to desperation, the Baltic governments called on NATO to invoke Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the mutual defense clause, yet the alliance had become sluggish. It took a full two weeks to reach agreement, and several western European NATO members didn’t cover themselves in glory with regard to their duty of solidarity. Of course, Russia had not dared to launch a military attack on the helplessly vulnerable Baltics, but it had demonstrated its power, divided the alliance, and laid bare the weak points of the Western alliance in terms of both political unity and its preparedness to deploy and fight. The Kremlin eventually decided, on the 21st day of the blackout, to let the three countries back into the network. The act that had cost a few thousand people their lives and caused devastating economic damage was generally described as a wonderful success by Moscow strategists.

What Moscow hadn’t counted on was the long-term impact the operation would have. If it had known which processes the operation was going to trigger, and how these would change the strategic situation, the Kremlin would presumably have kept its finger off the trigger.

The Migrant Boom

Today, in the summer of 2040, the European Union is a fully developed regional power with a small but impossible-to-ignore capability to project power globally. The catchword “Common Foreign and Security Policy” no longer leads to giggles and eye-rolling on the international stage, but is rather a factor that Washington, Beijing, Ankara, Moscow, Tehran, and Delhi have learned to take seriously.

This development became possible thanks to multiple parallel, mutually reinforcing developments. The shock of the “Baltic Blackout” unleashed unforeseen powers in the member states. Not only did defense spending race upwards, but the streamlining of military structures in the five decisive member-states—Germany, France, Italy, Poland, and Spain—and the adjustment of the outdated procurement system provided for an unexpected increase in capabilities. An agreement was reached with NATO on so-called European Redundant Battle Structures (EBRS), which made the command structures of both organizations fully compatible, limited duplication of weapon systems, and pragmatically spelled out reciprocal coordination.

It was helpful that in 2024, the recession finally came to an end and the so-called Migrant Boom began, a phase of high economic growth triggered by the extensive integration of the young, hungry people that had entered Europe in high numbers since 2015. The boom also drew power from the fact that the Chinese economy had picked up since 2025, and from the completion of the Transatlantic-Pacific Integrated Markets Program (T-PIMP) between China, ten countries in the Pacific region, the EU, and the US. Donald Trump’s successor in the White House had rapidly taken up the dormant global free trade negotiations, and fear of a major global recession had brought together a wide, previously unimaginable global coalition.

This liberal renaissance even rubbed off on the Middle East. After the peaceful revolution in Iran in 2022 and Turkish President Erdogan’s departure for exile in Sochi, Russia—where a floor in the brand new Trump MAGA hotels was specially decorated for him in neo-Ottoman style—the path was clear for an extensive integration of the region’s markets. Iran and Turkey joined the Arab Regional Mercantile Pact for Investment and Trade (ARMPIT), which had been founded by Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the Gulf States. This federation then joined a customs union with the EU’s now-complete internal market.

Russia’s Decline, Europe’s Opportunity

For the EU, these favorable economic conditions were like a fountain of youth. Comprehensive social programs eroded part of the basis for the populists’ criticism of elites and globalization, and Europe was able to strengthen its diplomatic, military, and development instruments without any toxic, polarizing battles.

But the decisive factor was the durable political consensus that the newly aspiring Europe had achieved after the crisis in the Baltics: it had become clear to even the most boorish de-integrationists that the self-destruction of the continent couldn’t be allowed to continue. The price was simply too high.

Moscow’s creeping departure from the biggest international stage gave Europe’s reawakened ambitions another boost. Just two years after the electricity war in the Baltics, Russia had slipped into the massive recession that economists had long predicted, which eventually led to the departure of Putin’s inner circle from power in 2024 (destination: MAGA Hotel in Sochi).

Russia had been pulled so deep into China’s tributary orbit that it was to some extent neutralized. It simply didn’t have the resources needed to continue its wastefully massive military presence on its own western border, the border that had in any case been its most secure and predictable since 1990. Chief Ideologist Dugin moved into a basement apartment in the MAGA Hotel and sulked. As China’s junior partner, the country was allowed to perform auxiliary services in Central Asia; in return China guaranteed Russia’s territorial integrity.

A New Deal With Washington

Europe’s core foreign policy actors had, then, more than just the leeway to do their own homework. In the wake of Europe’s realignment, Europe’s core also found a new way to divide up tasks in the European neighborhood between itself and the US. Washington still had no interest in Europe rising to become a true world power, let alone a nuclear one, but on that point the Americans and Europeans largely agreed. So the US stepped up its engagement in Europe in ways agreed with Brussels down to the smallest detail. The nuclear umbrella, as well as a solid presence of US troops on European soil, stayed put. Fort Trump in Poland was renamed Fort Brzezinski in 2023, which on the one hand had the advantage of making it almost impossible to pronounce, but on the other replaced the truly unspeakable with the name of one of Poland’s greatest sons.

The EU and the US also agreed on burden-sharing in Europe’s geopolitically tricky neighborhood. America took on the role of a shaping power in the Arctic, in Eastern Europe, and in the Levant, while the Europeans dedicated themselves to the Baltic Sea, the Balkans, and North Africa. NATO’s standing maritime groups in the Baltic Sea and Mediterranean could now be replaced by European operational fleets.

This doctrine (named SMURF for Stability and Mutual Reassurance for Freedom), which the EU and NATO had gotten off the ground together, had the advantage of freeing up important American forces for the actual geopolitical hotspots in Asia. For China, despite its accommodating posture in the framework of T-PIMP, had by no means given up its aggressive hegemonic claims in its backyard.

Victory Over Populism

Europe supported the new division of labor through a significantly expanded presence on the seven seas, in order to secure international trade routes and choke points and be able to react locally at any time to conflict flare-ups. One participant in these naval operations was the small German task force around the brand-new Amphibische Kampf- und Konsularschiff (AKK) “Johannes Kahrs,” the German aircraft carrier, named after a former budget politician who had once represented the pretty port city of Hamburg in the German Bundestag.

But how could Europe’s new foreign policy role be secured at home? After the “Baltic Electric Shock” (Bild, October 5, 2021), there was sufficient political capital for more than just an enhanced foreign and security policy. And the brutal, long-lasting recession that Brexit had triggered in the UK helped concentrate minds in the remaining member states. Even more important was the small euro crisis of 2022, which fueled the point of view that Europe had to put the common currency on a new foundation. With this new crisis, the new European thinking came full circle. While the crisis in the Baltics had demonstrated to the European left that one gets nowhere with breezy pacifism and “understanding” for Russia, the latest euro scare convinced European conservatives to give up their fundamental opposition to political union and a transfer union in the eurozone.

Indeed, it took until 2030, but within that decade the “inclusive turnaround” (Janning, 2026) took place. It was a movement against euroskepticism, renationalization, populism, and authoritarian temptations.

A Single Phone Number

The European republic that was meant to replace the nation states remained an illusion, as expected. But Europe’s foreign policy core, which had emerged after the crisis in the Baltics, also developed a domestic policy power center that reformed the EU’s political system in two steps. First, the single market was completed, which had a significant positive effect on growth in the EU. Apart from the European asylum compromise of 2023, it was above all this boom that raised Europe’s credibility and thereby expanded the room for maneuver of pro-European elites. The result was step two: a truly Europe-wide direct election of the president of the European Commission in 2029.

In the course of this revision of Europe, Brussels was able to abolish the European External Action Service and transform it into the European Security Council, in which the heads of state and government met monthly under the chairmanship of the directly elected Commission president and brought the foreign policy of the member states into a common whole. This did not completely prevent nations from going it alone, nor did they magically come to complete agreement on all issues. But since Europe had linked the weight of each member state’s voting rights to its voting behavior on foreign policy questions, the incentive to undermine the common foreign policy was quite low. Observers agreed that this state of affairs was the closest thing to the EU “speaking with one voice,” a goal that had been evoked for so long.

This new institutional constellation earned legitimacy when it, in a series of crisis situations, including in the Middle East and in the relationship to China, formulated a strong European position and asserted European interests in a previously unthinkable way. Not least because of this new foreign policy strength, Great Britain applied in 2038 to rejoin the EU. The outcome, though, was up in the air until 2040 because of disagreements about the recognition of British agricultural products ( “Ceci n’est pas un fromage,” Le Figaro, July 23, 2039).

“Learning through suffering,” the most cynical of all the maxims about progress, allowed the EU, within 20 years, to transform from a quarreling, internally shaky structure fearful of the changing world order into a guarantor of regional and global stability. Given the multiplicity of forks in the road where it could have taken a wrong turn, one can—without diminishing the achievement of political leaders—sigh and admit: we got lucky.

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Artwork © Katinka Reinke

Brussels, on a spring day in April 2040. Marie Épinard is fretful. A few months ago, the woman who started her career as a member of the young team advising the then French President Emmanuel Macron, moved into the Berlaymont at Schuman roundabout. As President of the European Commission, she sees herself as following in the footsteps of her compatriot Jacques Delors, committed to ensuring the dynamism of the single market. She sees it as the centerpiece of the joint project that is the European Union because this project now encompasses many different things. The common legal entity, the Union of “Equals,” has not really existed since the 1990s—with the euro and Schengen two major fields of differentiation have since developed. Nevertheless, the EU still holds on to its narrative as being about “unity.”

But in recent years, this kind of differentiation has evolved from being an instrument for overcoming blockages into becoming an active organizational principle in the EU. This has had a number of institutional consequences that have changed the way cooperation happens in Brussels. And Paris has been one of the driving forces behind this development.

The principle of unanimity in many of those areas that so urgently required joint action had caused constant blockages due to the primacy of national interests. As a result, groups of member states had finally taken the bull by the horns and started moving ahead in fields as diverse as cooperation on police and intelligence matters, defense policy, technology policy, and taxation policy.

One of Épinard’s most important tasks is to ensure that all of this continues to be done within the framework of the EU Treaties with commonly agreed rights and obligations—and that it remains open to all who want to join later. There is now something like a “common sense” approach among the EU member states as to how such forms of cooperation can be conducted in a way that is compatible with the common good. And this, after all, is a remarkable development, following the many years in which the mental maps in the member states regarding the EU had moved further and further apart. The realization of the extent of their own weakness in the face of an increasingly aggressive global environment certainly had an impact.

Too Complex for a Beer Mat

In the meantime, there is something like a truce in the EU: everyone is committed to the most ambitious single market possible—and some are doing even more. Yet the many different strands, which exist alongside each other without any connection, carry a risk of unravelling. Differentiation comes at the expense of transparency. In the meantime, as a result of the different speeds, the rights and advantages enjoyed by EU citizens are anything but equal, which increases political volatility.

As a consequence, the President of the European Commission spends a lot of her time digesting the opinions of her various legal advisers on the somewhat abstract question of exactly how much asynchronicity a union can tolerate and still go by that name. This morning, there is once again a great deal of differing opinions as to when the point will have been reached when competing systems gathered under one roof will no longer make sense. Épinard herself would like to have a model for the EU that could be written on the back of a beer mat. But that’s just not possible these days.

Most importantly, there is the single market, which is open to all EU member states that have committed themselves to democracy and the rule of law. “Big is beautiful” has been the motto here since the 2020s. Then there is the increasingly aggressive competition between the US and China and the rise of other powers and regions which have ultimately brought Europeans closer together and even allowed for progress on all four fundamental freedoms. After leaving the EU, the British, too, have gradually formed closer ties again with the single market and have strengthened the circle of friends in non-EU Europe. The Western Balkans states, meanwhile, have now become part of the single market, following a deliberate effort by the EU to support them.

Europe’s integration-skeptical governments have finally accepted that the single market cannot function without strong supranational institutions. And the prospect of no longer fulfilling the criteria for membership of the single market is also disciplining those political forces in Europe that had started turning their backs on democracy and the rule of law in their countries. All this has served to strengthen the EU institutions, above all the European Commission. It can now also use its regained strength within the single market to give the EU clout in international trade policy, which offers the potential for both conflicts and opportunities.

It was a long journey to get to this point. For many years, Europeans struggled to overcome the deep rifts that had opened up between sovereignists and advocates of “more Europe” over fundamental issues of democracy and the rule of law. It was only after 2019 and Brexit, which took place at the last minute in an orderly fashion but still hit the economic interests of London and the EU capitals hard, that EU citizens realized just how much internal cohesion they had lost: economically, socially and culturally.

A Hanseatic Alliance

This was also demonstrated by the European elections of that year, which significantly boosted nationalist forces in the European Parliament. Their power to shape policy remained limited, as they still had less than a third of the seats and few overlapping policies. But their repeated tactical alliances considerably increased the potential for disruption of the EU system.

In addition, there was the cooling of the global economy, the effects of which were clearly felt in the EU, particularly in Germany. The euro zone, with its still incomplete architecture, once again revealed its inner weakness. In Rome, Prime Minister Matteo Salvini played with fire: leaving the monetary union was out of the question, instead Italy wanted to change its rules from within.

For the Élysée, the loss of Italy as an ally was a real problem, particularly as successive governments in Madrid had been stymied for years due to unresolved internal divisions over the question of Catalonia’s independence. A new force field had developed in the EU in the form of the Netherlands and its new “Hanseatic alliance” of EU countries with conservative approaches to fiscal policy, a stance that Germany was also sympathetic to. This made it impossible for France to tip the scales to ensure a genuine reform of economic and monetary union.

Paris soon gave up believing in the Franco-German motor for reforming the euro zone. With enormous political effort, President Macron had managed to halt the protest movements in his own country, to moderately push forward his reform path, and to anchor his ideas for the future of the economy, politics and society in Europe in a coalition with the Liberals in the European Parliament, while also keeping Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National in check. Berlin under Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, was not prepared to compromise despite all the lofty commitments to strengthening the European Union with regard to an economic union.

In this context, and against the backdrop of a weak global economy, the battles over distribution within the EU increased. The negotiations over the multi-annual financial framework for 2021-2027 were fiercely contested, with the different interests clashing as never seen before. During this period, the forces of the center were also significantly weakened in the European Council and the Council of Ministers. This was partly due to the ongoing electoral successes of nationalist parties and movements that then formed governments, and partly due to their own internal weaknesses and the lack of a common vision from Germany and France for the future of the EU. Had the Maastricht Treaty therefore finally failed, were the states and societies of Europe unready for a genuine political union, for deeper cooperation on issues of migration, internal security and defense?

Looking back, it’s clear that this disillusionment was actually helpful as it led to a new consensus among the member states. In this phase of fundamental differences, the decision was made to focus on the single market as the EU’s “main raison d’être,” something the Commission had already envisaged in 2017 as a possible scenario for the development of the EU.

Security and Migration

“Nobody falls in love with a common market,” Delors had once warned. Yet EU countries had gone through too many emotions in recent decades—negative emotions. So why not a new soberness? After all, without the single market, the EU would be nothing. A number of initiatives were launched to further enhance the single market. In addition to this, real progress in securing the EU’s external borders drew attention to the explosive issue of migration in the short term. However, without any agreement on a common asylum and migration policy, internal border controls tightened over time. In turn, it quickly became clear that the single market could not develop its full potential without being embedded in a more ambitious policy framework.

In retrospect, two developments were decisive for the start of a new phase of differentiation: Firstly, the shift of US security interests towards China and away  from Europe—something that happened gradually rather than with a bang. Secondly, the agreement on a genuine common asylum and migration policy by a group of EU member states in the face of continuing migration pressure, which threatened to trigger domestic political upheavals.

When it came to defense policy, Britain increasingly signaled its interest in genuine cooperation with the EU. The UK’s own position outside the EU structures proved to be advantageous, as the country’s public opinion was still divided about the EU. For France, which had early on made intensive efforts to involve the UK, this was a welcome development as it helped compensate for Berlin’s weakness. During his first term in office, President Macron had convinced the new German Chancellor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, to join London, Madrid, Rome and Warsaw in making a genuine offer of cooperation on defense policy to any other EU member states that were willing and able.

The focus here were less on institutional issues than on a few examples of rapid, flexible and, above all, successful cooperation. Needless to say: since the British needed to be on board, the whole thing had to take place (at least initially) outside the treaties. This was hard to swallow for the officials in the chancellery in Berlin, but the EU had long been accused of relying on initiatives within the EU framework to allow it to hide its own lack of ambition. In view of the concrete security-related challenges, it was indeed necessary to demonstrate the ability to act. The European Intervention Initiative, molded on the French model, finally saw the light of day.

Germany’s Conversion

Overall, a clear willingness to change could be seen in Germany’s European policy with regard to a greater level of differentiation. While Berlin had previously placed great emphasis on the cohesion of the EU as a whole and was above all concerned about losing countries in Central and Eastern Europe as a result of closer cooperation with others, it now became convinced that cooperation with like-minded partners in promising core areas of its own interest could be attractive—and can also help demonstrate the value of Europe to the German people.

For although Germany had long been one of the countries that profited most from EU membership, the image of “Germany as paymaster for the crises of the others” had persisted in the country. Organizing the reform of European asylum and migration policy, which had long failed in the EU-27, into a group of EU countries was far more attractive for Berlin than the prospect of closer economic and social cooperation within the euro zone, which France had long demanded. On the issue of migration, differentiation could also be more easily organized on the basis of existing EU treaties by using the instrument of “enhanced cooperation.”

Paris, however, insisted that new forms of cooperation beyond the single market should still be linked to the EU institutions. At the same time, there should be a clear difference made between the member states that participated in these projects and those that did not. For example, only countries involved in a particular issue should take part in votes on those issues in the European Parliament. This should also apply to the Eurogroup.

Primacy of the Ballot Box

While the Commission should have some responsibility for defense, migration and the euro, its rights would vary according to the format. Berlin agreed to the premise that the strong role of the EU institutions in the single market of all EU members should be preserved. And so, the way was cleared for a new experimental field of flexible cooperation between groups of member states—vive l’Europe différenciée! The “New Hanseatic League,” for example, claimed the right to set its own priorities and developed a differentiation project in the field of new technologies. And in this way, new forms of cooperation began to emerge.

So now Marie Épinard is pondering the question of finding the right balance between everyone acting together and the Europe of differentiation—and she finally comes to the conclusion that only the next European elections can reveal what that balance should be. It will be up to the citizens of the EU to decide whether or not the first female European Commission president, together with the governments of the member states, has indeed managed through differentiation to bring the EU closer to its citizens’ expectations of security and prosperity. In 2040, it is now a matter of course in the EU for achievements to be measured not by the yardstick of history—but rather by what Europeans decide at the ballot box.

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Artwork © Katinka Reinke

The chaotic Brexit saga suggests that states in Europe are no longer able to settle their differences in a constructive manner. The 2019 European elections have already been marked by a renaissance of sovereignist rhetoric. Pro-European politicians are at odds with each other regarding the required EU reform agenda. Can integration thrive in an atmosphere of conflict and chaos? Can the EU prosper in a new era of national pride and glory? How many crises can the EU digest before losing its mission and purpose? And most crucially, is Europe disintegrating?

There are no convincing answers to these pressing questions. This is partly because it is difficult to understand the fast-moving events, and pessimists have been proven wrong many times in the process of European integration. Europe emerged stronger from previous crises, and the present-day challenges can again be overcome in due time.

It is also difficult to predict disintegration because we lack a plausible narrative, let alone the theory to discuss it. For mysterious reasons, successive generations of intellectuals, commentators and politicians have always focussed on European integration while neglecting the opposite scenario. This is like discussing peace without trying to comprehend war. We may well be in favor of peace, but peace cannot be maintained without any understanding of the causes and implications of war. Similarly, can we comprehend democracy without talking about autocracy?

No wonder we are so confused at present. We do not really know what causes disintegration and what are its symptoms. Is disintegration a process, or something resembling sudden death? Does Brexit weaken or strengthen the integration of the remaining 27 states? How can we stop or reverse disintegration?

In the absence of plausible theories of disintegration, we can try to envisage some scenarios of the EU falling apart. Three outcomes seem most plausible at present. The first sees Europe’s leaders losing control over financial or political events. The second involves leaders trying to address problems, but ending up making things worse. The third scenario envisages a benign neglect policy with not-so-benign implications.

The “Big Bang” Scenario

At the peak of the euro crisis, an economic avalanche beyond anybody’s control was seen as the most likely disintegration scenario. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel repeatedly declared that the plunge of the euro would mean the collapse of Europe. Poland’s Finance Minister Jacek Rostowski added that the outcome of this scenario could well be war. Neither came to pass, but numerous analysts still argue that the common currency without a common fiscal government is not sustainable in the long-term.

We will be able to verify this pessimistic claim only when faced with another huge financial crisis. Such a crisis is difficult to predict and locate. The last financial shock came from New York, not Brussels. The next one could come from Shanghai or Rio de Janeiro. Financial turbulence may well be caused by a security crisis.Another huge refugee crisis could also lead to the implosion of EU institutions. Environmental disaster or a pandemic could cause events to spiral out of anybody’s control. None of these things can be predicted for sure, but any of them could happen with or without the purposeful contribution of the EU.

During emergencies, chaos and conflict are a normal state of affairs. Germany as the most powerful country would be at the center of crisis management. Some countries would join a bandwagon behind Germany; others would try to form a counter-alliance. Since chaos is heaven for populist politics, nationalism would thrive. The politics of territorial claims and financial recriminations would ensue. It is hard to see the EU surviving an avalanche of mutual accusations, retaliations and recriminations. Under this scenario, disintegration would be spectacular. It would resemble a cosmic big bang or sudden death.

Such drama appeals to our imagination, but it is difficult to speculate about the “unknown unknowns” that could trigger it. Not every crisis results in an Armageddon. The EU has a record of impressive resilience. Brexit, for instance, will hurt the EU more than is currently being acknowledged, but it is unlikely to lead to disintegration. In fact, the UK is more likely than the EU to disintegrate in the aftermath of Brexit. Moreover, it is difficult to suggest specific policies that could prevent a European Armageddon caused by hypothetical threats, however frightening.

The Gorbachev Scenario

The Soviet Union collapsed after Mikhail Gorbachev began introducing economic and democratic reforms. Gorbachev wanted to strengthen the Soviet Union, not dismantle it. Historians point to the reforms of the Hapsburg Empire as accelerating its demise. The so-called Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867 that led to the creation of a dual monarchy with two separate parliaments and prime ministers in Budapest and Vienna provides a good example.

The EU has not attempted major reforms for the last three decades, but the lower-key measures that member states did agree proved highly contentious. This especially applies to the 2012 Fiscal Compact. Its critics say it is driving the eurozone apart because it imposes unjust and excessively rigid, counter-productive policies on the debtor states. Efforts to reform the EU’s asylum system have proved equally contentious with numerous states, especially from Central and Eastern Europe, refusing to accept the central redistribution of refugees.

In the run-up to the 2019 European elections, politicians launched numerous reform proposals—many of them contradictory rather than complementary. If the most ambitious of them were to be implemented, this would generate not only conflicts, but also unwanted or unexpected side effects.

Plans to create a more ambitious economic and political union are likely to have the most profound implications. A political and economic union of many distinct entities, however interdependent, would struggle to identify a set of common interests that could guide its policies. It would only work if composed of a few like-minded and similar looking European states.

Such a core of Europe would create a new divide across the continent, raising fear and suspicion. Some EU member states would be worried about being excluded, while others would fear that joining would subject them to domination by core members. In other words, the jump into a fully-fledged union would likely destabilize relations among European states, and break cooperative arrangements. A federation, however light, may well be attempted with the intention of saving EU integration—but in reality it could prompt disintegration.

Even less contentious reforms, such as those aimed at strengthening Europe’s defenses, especially against cyber-attacks, may require treaty changes—and in some countries referenda. Those have proved to be a festivals of populism benefitting euroskeptic campaigners. As such, they could be a vehicle of disintegration.

Reforms aimed at the repatriation of certain powers from Brussels to national capitals and the reduction of budgetary contributions may also drive the EU apart. These reforms are chiefly sponsored by euroskeptic parties and not those supporting tighter integration. After all, repatriation of power from Brussels is usually associated with disintegration rather than integration.

The “Benign Neglect” Scenario

Reforms, especially the major ones, are always risky, and politicians usually avoid risk. Moreover, in a Europe split along numerous political and economic differences it is difficult to agree any reform, let alone a highly ambitious one. Pro-European liberals would be particularly opposed to reforms coming from the anti-liberal camp even if decentralization may make the EU more flexible and competitive.

Under the “benign neglect” scenario, disintegration would take place by default or in disguise. Rather than trying to look for European solutions to national problems, member states would increasingly try to solve problems on their own or in a non-EU framework. They would not openly abandon the European project, but use it merely as a public relations tool.

The long history of the Western European Union (WEU) is a good example of such a symbolic cooperative frame. The WEU existed for many decades, but was hardly ever utilized for its envisaged security purposes. Members of the WEU met regularly and adopted resolutions. The WEU administrative structure and even the parliamentary assembly functioned seemingly normally.

And yet, when serious challenges arose in the field of defense and security, WEU member states ignored the WEU structure and used NATO, the EU, the UN, the OSCE, or informal frameworks instead. The 1990s war in the Balkans uncovered the price of this policy: Europeans found themselves without a common security strategy, divided on the question of which institution should handle the war, and without the effective military capabilities to do anything meaningful.

A policy of benign neglect and of muddling through comes at a price, but it is better than endorsing highly ambitious, hazardous projects. In a period of economic turmoil and ideological confusion, pragmatism is a valid alternative to idealism; a gradual approach may work better than a revolutionary one.

This probably explains the policy of European leaders at present. They are clearly reluctant to invest their careers and resources in policies with highly uncertain outcomes. While they will do the minimum to avert financial meltdown and political confrontation, it will not be enough to halt the process of creeping disintegration. The EU itself is the obvious victim of such an approach, with some of its key institutions progressively marginalized.

However, institutions have a very long half-life, even when they are not working, which suggests that the EU—or rather its façade—will survive. Europe will increasingly resemble a maze with different actors moving in opposite directions, whilst maintaining the appearance of dialogue and cooperation. The informal mode of decision making will become more important than dysfunctional treaties. Stronger states, especially Germany, will find themselves in the position of kingmaker by default rather than design. Emerging problems will have to be addressed, and if Brussels proves unable to do anything helpful, the public will expect solutions from Germany. This may prove a mixed blessing.

Grassroots Reform

None of the three envisaged scenarios bode well for Europe and Germany. Yet the measures currently being entertained to prevent disintegration seem inadequate. They also lack broad public backing.

Perhaps the only way to prevent disintegration is to reverse its dominant logic. Integration does not need to be a matter of nation states only; cities, regions and civil society organizations can be given tangible access to EU decision-making and resources. Integration can well be forged along functional rather than territorial logic because different fields require different memberships and modes of governance.

Spreading out power within Europe and bringing it closer to the citizens may help legitimize European policies more than the current centralized system. Such changes will not come from the top; they need to be pushed from the bottom. Are Europeans prepared to take things into their own hands?

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© US National Park Service/Handout via REUTERS

There really aren’t two ways about it: the outlook for Europe is bleak. The historic opportunity to unite the continent politically that presented itself in the wake of the 2007 financial and sovereign debt crisis has been frivolously squandered. The transatlantic order, guarantor of prosperity and security since the end of World War II, is showing signs of disintegration. Once at the forefront of innovation, Europeans are now seriously debating whether critical technological infrastructure should be imported exclusively from the United States or perhaps also from China.

In addition, there is Brexit; a still fragile currency union whose stability will be put to a severe test in the next recession; the political mess with regard to a common policy on defense procurement; the deep moral failure in the Mediterranean; and an increasingly confused political culture, with European societies on the verge of losing their ability to engage in rational discourse.

In short, we are facing a situation that just a few years ago would have been relegated to the realm of fantasy, regarded as unthinkable, intolerable even. Today it is being recognized with alarming nonchalance as the new normal.

Berlin and Brussels have come to terms with all this. In a world where compromise is the highest form of political craftsmanship, losing the ability to act does not appear to be as a bad trade. The painstakingly negotiated deal, the path of least resistance, the option with the fewest opponents, has replaced openly struggling to address conflicting positions and forge majorities. This leads to endless procrastination: better to stand still than to risk taking a few steps in the wrong direction. We don’t have a word for it when political entities so aimlessly revolve around themselves. If we saw the same symptoms in a human being, we would probably speak of depression.

Catastrophe Looming

Given this lethargy, the upcoming European elections could well end in catastrophe. It is questionable whether another low turnout and the expected gains of right-wing populist parties will lead to a rethink. More likely, Brussels will retreat back to the view that the advantages of the EU have simply not been sufficiently communicated—the people still don’t really understand what they have in Europe. If anything, external factors are to blame for the dissatisfaction: global trends that make European jobs uncertain and promote inequality. All these things are outside the control of politician, the argument goes. The fact that Europe has a serious problem with democracy and effective governance is very rarely acknowledged, and if so, only behind closed doors.

How then can Europeans regain their sovereignty, as France’s President Emmanuel Macron so eloquently demands? The answer is as simple as it is difficult for many to imagine: sovereignty or power is like money. Where there is none, none can be distributed. That’s why Europe itself must “become a power,” as former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer aptly put it at a recent conference.

Like a Faulty Valve

It is much harder to see how this path can be taken. For the longest time, the hopes of many rested on the notion that a continuously deepening confederation would eventually become so intertwined that, one day, almost without us noticing, it would have evolved into a complete political union. But this idea had to clash, sooner or later, with the narrowly defined interests of the European nation states.

The result of this conflict between the idea of Community and the meager remnants of the nation state did not lead to shared sovereignty, the claims of EU optimists to the contrary notwithstanding. Nor is sovereignty really ceded to Brussels, as anti-EU populist like to lament. Rather, political power is simply leaking out of the system like gas from a faulty valve, evaporating somewhere between Brussels and the national capitals. As a result, none of the actors involved—nations, parliaments, governments—are really capable of action. Rarely in history has there been a comparable failure to translate economic potential and sheer demographic size into political power and ability to assert oneself.

This is particularly evident in fiscal policy. Although national solutions don’t work anymore in this political field, the EU member states are unable to escape their respective national political contexts. While large parts of Europe are currently failing to make urgently needed investments in infrastructure and education, the size of the German budget surplus (€60 billion) is steadily catching up to the Greek total budget, roughly €90 billion.

A Fundamental Flaw

Without automatic transfers, no monetary union is able to function for sustained periods of time. This applies to the euro as it does to other currencies. Take the dollar. The United States taxes citizens of New York $100 billion more per year than it spends on the state. The surplus is redistributed through federal programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, as well as infrastructure and the military. Florida, Michigan, and Kentucky, on the other hand, each year spend billions of dollars in federal funds that citizens from other states have to pay for. Taxpayers do so without much complaint. After all, a union holds more than just economic benefits. In Europe, we are effectively trying to reap these rewards as well but remain unwilling to respect the fundamental laws of gravity that govern any such arrangement.

If such issues were subject to all-deciding parliamentary debates, they could be negotiated and fed into a democratic decision-making process. The EU, however, although it calls itself a union, is a de facto confederation and does not allow for this type of resolution to take place. One of the greatest features of democracy, namely that it enables the resolution of irreconcilable differences through majority decisions, is absent from European decision-making.

For convinced Europeans, the challenge is not to explain to the populace why Europe is good for them. It is more about making clear why it cannot do anything for them in its current configuration, why it no longer works—and what we can do about that.

Young America, Old Europe

All of this does not mean that we have to reinvent the wheel. There is one example in history that has a great many parallels with today’s Europe: the founding of the United States of America. The 13 former colonies had emerged from the War of Independence against the United Kingdom with enormous debts. At the same time, the young Union was threatened by Spanish Florida to the south and by the British to the north, who had retained their presence in Canada. The loose set of rules that the former colonies had adopted were totally unsuited to meeting the financial and foreign policy challenges. There was no real executive, and Congress did not have the right to levy taxes to fund national projects. All international treaties had to be ratified individually by each Member State for them to enter into force. Young America, therefore, found itself in a similarly untenable situation as the Europe of today. In many ways it were concerns all too familiar to us today, that informed the constitution, that was drawn up in Philadelphia in 1787. The rest is history. The US became the most powerful political union in the world.

Learning from America does not mean repeating all the mistakes made in Washington since then. Rather, it is a matter of recognizing the three central achievements of the United States of America: the empowerment of the union parliament, the transfer of the supreme command of the army to the government in Washington, and the consolidation of the debts of member states into a common national debt, secured by the “full faith and credit” of the US government.

The conditions for a successful and effective European Union are essentially the same as they were in America 250 years ago. Whichever can only be done together must be lifted to the European level, shaped by the European executive and legitimized by the European Parliament.

History shows that successful unions do not emerge from gradual processes in times of peace and tranquility, but rather as a consequence of sharp disruptions during periods marked by extreme crises. Successful unions happen as a result of events, of collective efforts by its citizens. Europe now needs such an event: a full debt and defense union underpinned by parliament is the only way to resolve Europe’s crisis and sustainably mitigate external threats. Only then can Europe finally become the positive force on the world stage that it should be.

Goodbye, Monnet!

To accomplish this, we first must overcome the myth of the “Monnet method”. We are faced with what is essentially a binary decision: political union or relapse into 19th-century nationalism. Many organizations committed to the European cause have not really grasped this yet. Adhering to European multilateralism is a dangerous miscalculation, which at best will end in the paralysis of the European project.

Second, Brussels must become capable of admitting criticism. It is time to acknowledge the very real construction errors of the EU instead of constantly preaching its advantages to its citizens.

We should, third, stop overusing the peace narrative. It barely appeals to younger Europeans and is intellectually flawed for the simple reason that is was mainly NATO, and not the EU, that deserves credit for preserving peace in Europe after World War II.

Finally, the fact that Macron’s reform efforts have failed is not only a sign of the Monnet method having reached its limit. It points to the need to overcome the idea of European unification as an evolutionary process. We must also rethink in whom we place our hopes.

The European nation states and their governments have gone as far as they could. Any further step toward integration is tantamount to a self-sacrifice that can never be covered by a national mandate. To expect France and Germany to take this step together is folly. In fact, a new Europe will not be built with or through the nation state, but only against it.

This calls for a massive politicization of European civil society. The new bearers of the European idea must henceforth be the European regional governments, companies, interest groups, parties, trade unions, in short: the citizens themselves. It will take many small actors to finally put an end to the pettiness of the supposedly large ones.

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© REUTERS/Max Rossi

In 2018, it’s a familiar scene: In a shock to the political system, a motley band of single-issue activists and anti-establishment radicals rises from the ideological fringes to enter the parliament of one of Europe’s biggest states. As politicians from traditional parties look on in horror, the movement makes a flamboyant impact on parliamentary debate with eye-catching stunts and wild rhetoric. While journalists wonder whether these new MPs might be soft on Moscow, their party challenges an entrenched consensus over the state’s economic system and military alliance with the United States. Later it will be remembered as a wild first step in their long march through Europe’s institutions.

Let’s go back to 1983. The early years of the German Green Party, which caused much scandal upon its entry into parliament in that year, were characterized by a deeply held conviction among its members that environmental degradation and a nuclear arms race were generating a fundamental clash between the interests of the people and supposedly corrupt elites. In fact, many of the social movements that emerged from the political turmoil of the late 1960s cultivated an attitude of total opposition to the established order that in 2018 would be considered a form of radical populism.

As the German political scientist Klaus von Beyme has pointed out, the Greens only began to distance themselves from their early populist style after entering a coalition government in the federal state of Hesse in 1985; in the subsequent years, their skepticism vis-à-vis European integration and their suspicion of all things military would gradually be tempered or abandoned, leading to the emergence of the pragmatic movement that many today see as the best hope of protecting the moral foundations of liberal democracy from a very different populist wave.

Unique Ideological Patterns

Comparing previous outsider parties to the right-wing protest parties that have gained ground in recent years holds an important lesson: the social composition of an emerging party’s base and its initial ideological foundations are crucial to shaping how it evolves when it comes into positions of power. All European populist parties have managed to take advantage of popular discontent surrounding the eurozone crisis after 2010 and the refugee surge of 2015. But each one of them has its own unique ideological pattern, and its own movement structure that shapes its approach toward European integration. And while US political entrepreneurs such as Steve Bannon, UK euroskeptics such as Nigel Farage, or Vladimir Putin’s regime may hope that these populist movements will trigger the collapse of the European Union, many well-established right-wing populist movements need no external help. They have a more complex relationship with the European integration process than one might assume.

As much as European populists are anchored in the nationalist politics of their own societies, they also draw on ideological themes focused on the defense of a collective European space against internal or external threats. Potential enemies of a collective “Christian Europe” are often a feature of the rhetoric of populist leaders in countries such as Hungary, Italy, or the Netherlands. Yet while interaction with EU institutions has helped deepen links between populist movements, it has at times also fueled tensions between them over responses to the moments of crisis that have transformed European politics since 2008.

A Threat to the EU?

A deeper look at the underlying origins and strategic goals of key populist parties provides a firmer understanding of the extent to which they represent a threat to the established order of the EU. As such parties and their members gradually adjust to the continued survival of European institutions they had so fiercely opposed, another possibility has come into focus: right-wing populists may well attempt to harness European integration processes in the service of their own specific personal and ideological ambitions.

From France’s Marine Le Pen to Austria’s Herbert Kickl, senior figures in right-wing populist movements have shifted from total rejection of European institutions toward a focus on redirecting them toward an authoritarian defense of a vaguely defined “Christian Europe.” To analyze the emergence of right-wing movements in Europe only through the lens of “populism” is therefore to miss other factors of equal importance in shaping their behavior. Other key dimensions of their identity—such as cultural value systems, class affiliations, ethno-linguistic loyalties, attitudes toward the projection of military power, or particular foreign policy stances—often draw them into their own distinct policy trajectories once they begin to wield power in parliaments and governments.

Each of the political movements that have come to be associated with the rise of right-wing populism has its own particular origin story. France’s Front National, recently renamed Rassemblement National, blended the anger of veterans and expellees alienated by the outcome of the Algerian War with the remnants of a 1950s Poujadiste movement suspicious of social change. It rallied its supporters around themes focused on fear of immigration and supposed threats to France’s sovereignty.

Italy’s Lega Nord has gone through several transformations, starting as an early 1990s independence movement for Italy’s North under the bombastic leadership of Umberto Bossi and later eveloping into a vehicle for the all-Italian nationalism of his equally voluble if rather more strategically deft successor Matteo Salvini, without ever abandoning its suspicion of non-Italian outsiders or commitment to low regulation and tax cuts.

Deutschtum on the Up

Emerging more recently, Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) was initially founded as part of a backlash against the German government’s policies during the eurozone crisis. Yet after several leadership changes, the AfD’s identity has shifted from Deutschmark patriotism towards far more right-wing, anti-migration, and anti-Islam positions. With Austria’s Freiheitliche Partei Österreichs (FPÖ), a combination of neo-liberal economic policies coupled with an emphasis on German as the basis of Austria’s ethno-linguistic identity has proved a path to electoral success since the early 1980s. Yet this Deutschtum (German-ness) ideology has also fueled tensions with neighboring states. Slovenia is concerned by the willingness of FPÖ leaders to toy with hostility to Austria’s Slovenian minority communities: Italy is worried by irredentist claims on its South Tyrol region which has a German-speaking majority. By contrast, under the leadership of Geert Wilders, the Dutch Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV) has largely remained a single-issue party, whose identity is defined by a relentless hostility to Islam and Muslim immigrants in what it claims to be a defense of European liberal values.

Along with movements hostile to the established milieus that dominated the politics of the EU until the early 2000s, there are parties often identified with populism that are less hostile to the so-called establishment. One example is Hungary’s Fidesz party, which under the leadership of Viktor Orbán since 2010 has used right-wing populist themes such as hostility to migration and fascination with Russian authoritarianism to consolidate its hold on power. Yet it hasn’t broken with the network of Christian Democratic parties united within the European Peoples Party in the European Parliament.

So although it vehemently opposes further migration and what it calls the meddling of EU institutions, Fidesz regularly backs the Christian Democratic consensus in many policy areas. It also emphasizes the Christian dimension of Europe’s identity in a way that echoes the rhetoric of the founding generation of post-1945 Christian Democratic statesman such as Alcide de Gasperi and Konrad Adenauer. Similarly, Poland’s Prawo i Sprawiedliwość (“Law and Justice,” or PiS) often uses populism to mobilize support. Yet its close relationship with factions within the Catholic Church and the influence of pre-1939 national conservative traditions on its leadership have anchored it in a belief system that does not mesh well with the ideological flexibility of other European parties associated with populist politics.

Then there are loose voter coalitions such as Italy’s Movimiento 5 Stelle (M5S) for whom populism is the glue that holds disparate ideological factions together. M5S has updated a classic populist hostility toward vaguely defined elites by claiming that the internet can provide a new means of divining the will of the people. But it remains a fractious alliance with a small leadership group that represents various milieus drawn from both the left and right of the Italian political spectrum. With such an ideologically diverse voter base, frequent authoritarian tendencies, and a willingness to shift policy goals overnight, M5S sits in a category of its own—the party is so completely defined by its thin-centered populist ideology that it is difficult to place in any of the main ideological camps at the heart of European politics.

The best way to determine which right-wing populist movements could construct robust Europe-wide alliances, and which might struggle to find partners, is to look at how their ideologies affect policy. This is particularly the case when it comes to the three dominant themes that have helped to define the development of the EU in the past decade: the financial crisis and the shakeup of the eurozone structures that followed; the responses to Russian expansionism; and how to manage migration and the EU’s external borders. Only when looking at how right-wing populist parties interact with one another over these three key issues is it possible to establish whether there is enough ideological convergence between them to represent a unified force that could either undermine the EU or reconfigure European integration processes along authoritarian lines.

Fundamental Disagreements

The outlook for such populist cooperation is decidedly mixed. While populist parties might share anti-migration stances, a neo-liberal economic outlook, and hostility toward European institutions, there are still fundamental disagreements over eurozone policy. Certainly, the challenge posed by Italy’s governing coalition to the structures of the eurozone has elicited enthusiasm from AfD politicians hoping for the euro’s demise. But when Lega and M5S politicians demand further funding from the EU their supposed populist allies in Germany and the Netherlands are quick to express their outrage. And even though they share frustrations over the role of the European Court of Justice, the deep gulf between Lega and PiS over how to respond to Russian expansionism prevents any form of cooperation. Moreover, while prominent populist leaders like Matteo Salvini and Alice Weidel might agree in general about the need to harden the EU’s external borders, disagreements swiftly rise to the surface when the debate shifts to how refugees and migrants who land in Italy should be distributed across the EU.

For all the talk of how Orbán and Salvini might be developing a political relationship that could lead to the defection of Fidesz from the European People’s Party (EPP) to a European alliance of populists, such divergences over specific policies, as well as wider differences in social and ideological outlook, will likely continue to hamper the ability of right-wing populists to cooperate when it comes to concrete policy. Indeed, the need for right-wing populist movements to retain the loyalty of nationalist voters can drive them into conflict with each other. The angry exchanges between Lega and FPÖ over Austrian government proposals to make dual citizenship easier to achieve for German-speakers in the Italian region of South Tyrol is only one of many instances where irredentist tendencies have undermined the ability to build a Europe-wide populist alliance.

This is the paradox at the heart of national populist parties’ attempts to cooperate at the European level: in order to do so, they would need to find a common political language and shared ideological goals, and foster a sustained effort to reconfigure the European integration process. It is already evident how such coordination could work. For over a decade, far-right youth groups such as the Identitarian Movement that provide the recruiting grounds for populist parties have been developing the ideological basis for such Europe-wide political networks. By emphasizing a shared European identity based on deeply authoritarian concepts of racial supremacy, such movements foster a belief among their adherents that Europe needs to be defended from various external and internal threats, including migrants and the United States.

Men on the Inside

Prominent figures in the US, Russia, and the United Kingdom may well hope that right-wing populist movements will shatter European institutions. But the shared structural and ideological characteristics between parties such as the Lega, AfD, or Rassemblement National may well take them beyond a grudging acceptance of European integration towards an active embrace of those aspects they believe match their own goals.

The Austrian and Italian governing coalitions, both with a strong populist presence, are already throwing their weight behind collective European border control initiatives overseen by Frontex. This is true, too, for the expansion of military and policing operations across North Africa and the Sahel which are designed to choke off the main African migration routes to European territory. Rather than representing a mortal threat to European integration, there are signs that European right-wing populists could pull European institutions into a more militarized stance that reflects these parties’ willingness to project collective power into states along the EU’s borders in a profoundly illiberal fashion.

It’s not a coincidence that Green parties across Europe seem most attuned to how right-wing populist movements could subvert European integration. After all, they have gone through their own process of adaptation to and cooption of European institutions. The ferocious political debates that often pit Green parties—who advocate greater cooperation and openness when it comes to relations with the EU’s neighbors—against right-wing populists who embrace the militarization of the EU’s collective external borders have come to mark one of the key dividing lines of contemporary European politics. Yet it should be no surprise that a European integration process that has profoundly influenced every aspect of European life may well transform the ideology and strategic goals of some of its most vehement opponents. To prevent right-wing populists from turning Europe into the closed fortress of their fantasies is perhaps the next great challenge for those who believe in a Europe whole and free.

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© REUTERS/Yves Herman

In recent years the European Union has weathered an economic crisis and a migration crisis; today, it is still deep in the throes of battling both a rise of nationalism and managing a messy divorce from the UK. The bloc is gearing up for next year’s European elections with the hope of forging closer connections to European citizens and enlisting them as allies in future crises.

That is one reason European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker two weeks ago laid out his ideas on how to reform the EU institutions to bring them closer to the people. He re-committed to the controversial Spitzenkandidat—“lead candidate” in German—system for choosing his successor.

In the Spitzenkandidat process, Europe’s major political groups each select a lead candidate; whichever party wins the election fields the new president of the Commission. It is something of an institutional coup pulled off by the European Parliament and engineered by then-EP president Martin Schulz four years ago. Making use of the loose wording of the Lisbon Treaty, the parliament took control of who will be the next EU executive chief—a decision that until then belonged to the leaders of the member countries alone.

National governments reacted too late to this development in 2014. European political parties nominated their candidates and the European People’s Party put forward the former eurogroup president and ex-leader of Luxembourg, Juncker, but nobody thought he would eventually become Commission head. In the end, the EPP won and German Chancellor Angela Merkel threw her weight behind the idea, succumbing to pressure at home to support what is seen as a more democratic process. In hindsight, it is fitting that at the time only the UK’s David Cameron and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán opposed the appointment of Juncker; the UK is now leaving the EU and Hungary is drifting ever further away from liberal democracy.

The Spitzenkandidat process remains a key battle between national governments and the European Parliament: It is a symbol of the ongoing ideological and practical struggles between those who prefer a community of member states and those who want a more integrated European community.

The parliament this time raised its bets by trying to tie the leaders’ hands even further, arguing that the Spitzenkandidat system “is a principle that cannot be overturned.” This is partly how the EP is trying to turn around rapidly shrinking voter participation rates in European elections.

No Automacity

Juncker insisted the lead candidate process must go ahead, saying: “We have to make sure that Europe is at the heart of the election campaign.” That’s why it might have seemed odd at first glance that one of the most vocal opponents of the Spitzenkandidaten system is French president Emmanuel Macron, who ran a pro-Europe campaign last year. But Macron doesn’t yet have a European party to belong to and would be unable to influence who takes the Commission top post.

In a nod to Macron, Juncker urged parties to commit themselves to a European political group. There is speculation in Brussels that Macron is working on setting up his own La Republique en Marche on the European level, perhaps with the help of Spain’s Ciudadanos party, Matteo Renzi’s social democrats in Italy, and some smaller parties. He hasn’t announced an intention to do so, but it seems the French president wants to change the political landscape first and then help define the European Commission presidency.

Other governments were also on the lookout this time. Liberal Macron will find strange bedfellows in his opposition to the lead candidate system. Illiberal Hungary and its allies in the Visegrad Four, the Czech Republic, Poland, and Slovakia, want as little divergence as possible from the rules laid down in the Lisbon treaty: in a statement they argued that EU countries should propose the Commission president “taking into account” the outcome of the European elections, then allow the European Parliament to guide their decision.

But it’s not just Macron and the usual suspects who oppose the change. Some diplomats in Brussels sound reluctant as well, noting that turnout for the 2014 elections was the lowest ever since direct elections were introduced on the European level, and the Spitzenkandidat system did not manage to build a link between European citizens and the EU as intended. Juncker hoped to bridge that by fielding multilingual candidates and staging televised debates across the continent.

When EU leaders gathered last Friday in Brussels for an informal summit, there was little love in the air for the Spitzenkandidat system. European Council President Donald Tusk, who leads the gatherings of EU leaders, asked them to think about whether they want to automatically accept the outcome of the Spitzenkandidat process or let leaders themselves to decide how to honor the election results. All agreed that the European Parliament does not have monopoly over choosing the next Commission president, and there is no “automaticity” in the system.

Tusk pushed back even further. “The idea that the Spitzenkandidat process is somehow more democratic is wrong,” he told reporters after the summit, standing next to Juncker. German chancellor Angela Merkel added that no clear majority is expected in next year’s election, so leaders will have to see which parties can form a coalition before nominating the Commission president for the Parliament to approve.

Now the European Parliament must decide next year whether to play hardball and reject the Council’s nominee. It would be yet another move in the battle with member states over which institution has the ultimate democratic legitimacy in the EU—and who has the ability to bring the bloc closer to its citizens.

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© REUTERS/Fabrizio Bensch

The seismic waves triggered by Britain’s referendum are far from over. Nevertheless, it is becoming clear how much power has already shifted within the EU.

There is the United Kingdom itself, which has completely lost influence on the continent – much more quickly and much more radically than the British themselves expected. After a brief phase of mourning, continental Europeans have moved on.

Contrary to British hopes, not even Germany came to the rescue. Both Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government and German industry, including the automotive sector, decided that safeguarding the single market for the remaining 27 EU members was more important than signaling to Britain that there might be some scope for cake-having-and-eating.

In the meantime, the untidy – to say the least – outcome of the recent parliamentary election is further weakening the UK’s position vis-à-vis Brussels. Just as the Brexit negotiations are starting on June 19, Britain’s objectives are less clear than ever. Hard Brexit? Soft Brexit? Perhaps no Brexit? Who knows.

Within the remaining bloc of 27, Brexit has strengthened the old, western European core and weakened countries in Central and Eastern Europe. Poland and Hungary in particular are coming under huge pressure, and not just for their attempts to keep out refugees and restrict the judiciary, NGOs, the press, and public opinion. They are also finding out that their position outside the eurozone will be difficult to maintain now that the biggest non-euro country is leaving the EU.

This has to do with power politics rather than economics. When Britain was fully on board, re-electing Donald Tusk as president of the European Council against the wishes of his native Poland would have been unthinkable. There would also have been much less talk of a multi-speed Europe – talk that is largely targeted at making Eastern Europeans realize that they will not be allowed a veto against closer integration.

Germany has been strengthened, and not just because in a smaller EU size matters even more. Chancellor Merkel has been very skillful at keeping the EU27 together on Brexit issues. Her standing is boosted by the country’s good economic performance and by her own excellent prospects of being re-elected for a fourth term in September. Finally, the re-emergence of France on the European scene – we will get to that in a moment – substantially benefits Germany by lessening fear of German hegemony.

The largest risk to Germany’s position in Europe is posed by Donald Trump. The US president has targeted Germany because of its large trade surplus, but it’s more than that: Merkel is more dangerous to Trump than any of the other Western leaders because of her standing with the American public. Just look at the extensive US coverage of her recent criticism of Trump’s G7 trip.

Trump is not committed to European integration in the least; if he can set European allies against each other, it will be Germany that suffers the most. And the United States’ role as NATO’s key country gives him a fair amount of leverage over Eastern Europe in particular.

Emmanuel Macron is the chief architect of France’s return to a central position of power within Europe. Other EU leaders know that they owe him simply for having won the presidential elections and keeping far-right Marine Le Pen from destroying the European project. This is most of all true for Germany because it needs the European framework more than any other country.

If Macron succeeds at pushing through at least some of the financial, public sector, and labor market reforms that he has promised, it’s not only his own credibility that will be boosted. Again, Germany will also benefit strongly because France will have shown that reform is possible. Berlin will have to pay for that with concessions on the future economic governance of the eurozone, but it will gain a strong ally on EU reform. The Franco-German tandem is making a real comeback.

Economic reform is also at the heart of the power shift in southern Europe. The big winner here is Spain, where the economy is now back on track after a hard slog at austerity. After Ireland and Portugal, Spain is the third showcase for the longer-term benefits of cutting deficits. With the boost in political power that comes with economic prowess, Madrid can be expected to play a much bigger role in EU matters over the next couple of years.

Spain’s gain is Italy’s loss: this member of the founding six has turned itself into the weakest link in today’s EU. Italy has not been able to muster the political will to address either the country’s economic flaws or the ills of its banking system. At the same time, the rise of the populist anti-European Five-Star Movement, recent electoral setbacks notwithstanding, presents a serious risk not just to Italy but to the future of the EU as a whole.

It’s too early for clear conclusions, but not for a warning: if anything has become clear over the past twelve months, it is how much political volatility has increased. Second-guessing voters is becoming impossible. Even Macron’s success, which provided Europe with a much-needed uplift, was built on the destruction of traditional politics and political certainties.

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