Europe's weakness and the factors that can contribute to revitalisation

The US document, dedicated to national security strategy, goes into the merits of the internal arrangements of allied countries and imposes the strategic choices to be pursued. Especially in the case of the European Union (EU), it proceeds in such invasive and blackmailing forms as to undermine future spaces of cooperation between the two areas. However, it is undeniable that the document also lays bare actual and well-known elements of weakness in the EU. The Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, thus had good play in claiming that the Trump administration has not changed its position but merely made its concerns clearer to the European governments. The crucial point, overlooked by Meloni, is that these concerns translate into unacceptable demands because they are aimed at dismembering the EU and forcing European countries into a position of vassalage to the United States.

Trump and Vance's demands of the EU are at least fourfold: 1) to empty the competences and powers of the European institutions, so as to affirm the full autonomy of the individual nation-states and to erase that institutional and social model that is based on the basic principles of liberal democracy and that aims to make 'open society' and social inclusion compatible; 2) to reduce the European construction to a single market without rules, in which large US technology companies are free to offer their services in a quasi-monopoly regime and to have unfettered access to databases linked to buyers 3) to reinforce the current allocation of substantial shares of European wealth in the financing of US activities (public and private securities), imposing minimum thresholds of annual purchases in the innovative investment and energy sectors and in the defence sector by European governments and companies; 4) to impose alliances and political compromises on the depleted European institutions and individual countries in the area so that they do not interfere with the re-establishment of a small number of autocratic zones of influence, dominated by the United States also thanks to complex triangulations with China and 'big' Russia.

These demands represent such an existential challenge to the EU that internal initiatives in the opposite direction are unavoidable. First and foremost, it would be a matter of reaffirming the cornerstones of the European policy that was launched in temporary forms as a fiscal response to the pandemic and should now be transformed into a permanent commitment: Centralised financing and the European implementation of the 'green' and digital transition. The conditions should then be created for it to become worthwhile to allocate significant shares of European wealth in financial markets, which are not fragmented locally and which provide access to efficient instruments to support the creation of large supranational innovative companies and a comprehensive restructuring of the European production apparatus to meet international technological challenges. These two initiatives should be welded together with the safeguarding of effective European regulation so as to make the protection of competition in the various markets, the realisation of specific innovative trajectories, the pursuit of a low environmental impact and the combating of multiple forms of social marginalisation (including technological marginalisation in the labour market and marginalisation related to immigrants) compatible. Lastly, it would be a matter of articulating the EU's institutional arrangements in such a way as to include, among the priorities, the launch of a European defence industry and decision-making processes capable of accommodating other European countries that wish to do so and that comply with the principles of the 'rule of law'.

These initiatives, to be launched in 2026, would also have the effect of reviving the attractiveness of the EU's social and democratic model, making it attractive internationally and opening up the possibility of a network of alliances that is incompatible with the US aim of restoring limited zones of influence. Their realisation requires, however, transfers of national sovereignty in favour of the EU that run counter to both the current nationalist drift of most member states and the decisions taken by the European Commission and Parliament. Proof of this are the setbacks in the area of 'green' transition and the deregulation processes now underway.

Three factors can avoid this confederal option and the consequent collapse of the EU. The first factor rests on the demand for 'more Europe' expressed by many citizens in the area to protect themselves against the growing external threats; organisations, which are in favour of a more federal EU, should valorise these demands coming 'from below'. The second factor lies in the fact that, starting with Germany, even the largest countries can no longer delude themselves into thinking that they can find viable spaces outside European cooperation: Merz will be forced to distance himself from the president of the European People's Party (Weber) and from alliances with the extreme right. The third factor is based on short-term opportunities: some European fragilities can be reduced without excessive tensions between a relevant core of member states. Examples are progress in the defence of Ukrainian rights, initiatives for greater financial integration and the construction of more efficient European infrastructure.