By Grillo, Francesco
We Europeans feel too safe, in my opinion. Europe has long since lost its position as the world’s dominant political and economic force, which it held at the turn of the century. Will Europe continue to have a strong cultural influence? I don’t think so, unless we protect it and adapt to new circumstances. Civilizations are all too fleeting, as history has demonstrated.
One of the founding founders of the European Union, Konrad Adenauer, spoke these remarks in 1956, and it’s amazing how true they still sound today. They accurately depict the union’s current situation. The conditions that Europeans must adapt to are changing drastically, and they are still having difficulty adjusting to new circumstances.
The modern-day equivalent of this conflict is the fight for technological leadership. Europe is complacent about its descent into backwardness, despite the fact that success in this area may revolutionize the continent. According to the European Commission, just one of the 19 digital platforms with over 45 million users is based in the EU (Zalando).
Losing control of information entails progressively losing market share as well as the capacity to defend European democracies. Information is both political and economic power. Although Brussels has created a plethora of regulations pertaining to digital services, American digital platforms are escaping punishment for what European officials themselves refer to as the manipulation of democratic elections. Brazil banned Elon Musk’s X for failing to ban accounts that were allegedly disseminating false information.
However, this fall has been gradual enough to make European politicians complacent about the future.
In the meantime, Donald Trump is correct when he complains that the European Union has been slow to participate in the trade talks he forced upon them. In fact, progress is typically faltering in one of the very few areas where the European Union has a mandate from the member states to deal directly with third parties: commerce. Each of the 27 member states has a distinct industrial strategy, and the responsible commissioner must continuously identify a common denominator.
The decision-making procedures in Europe are not up to par. They were, in fact, designed for a different century. The EU has been able to say significantly less about Gaza than individual nations like Spain or the UK, for example, because there is no common voice on foreign policy. In actuality, this can have the effect of weakening the moral leadership that ought to be Europe’s soft advantage.
Crisis of confidence
Inadequate institutional arrangements are the reason behind Europe’s inability to adapt to developments in the actual world. However, a deeper issue of trust in its own talents may be the cause of the current paralysis in the face of an obvious need for action.
On the one hand, complacency still appears to be possible. Europe can take some pride in its enduring status as a location where individuals are free to pursue life, liberty, and happiness, as Stanley Pignal, the Charlemagne columnist for The Economist, recently stated. However, it is clear that the institutions required to really accomplish such goals—such as welfare and healthcare systems, independent and strong media, and energy and military autonomy in an unruly world—are disintegrating.
However, Europe is becoming more and more resigned. In response to the question, “Do you think that your children will live better than you?” Gallup International conducted a global survey. The EU is home to seven of the world’s most gloomy nations. Just 24% of French respondents and 16% of Italian respondents said “yes” to this question.
Less than half of young Europeans believe they are ready to enter the workforce, according to Ipsos. And they attribute that to the educational system. Since this study was conducted in 2019, before the epidemic, the European War, and—most importantly—AI, the situation may be even worse.
Even the far-right and far-left parties appear to agree that Europe has no other option. It should be noted that the French National Assembly and the Italian Lega now discuss altering the EU from within rather than leaving it. In a world seeking a new order, individual nation states just lack the scale necessary to even attempt to assume leadership.
Europe has a genuine chance in a world that the US has abandoned. It must, however, be sufficiently innovative to envision new ways for EU institutions to make decisions and for EU citizens to voice their opinions. Thus, a whole community must somehow regain the realistic hope that decline is not unavoidable (though we must also be conscious that it may even accelerate nastily).
Lastly, youth play a critical role in the process. It is now necessary to demand that they govern instead of just listening to them. They are presently what Karl Marx would likely have described as a class with highly particular economic, cultural, linguistic, and demographic traits. These need to be transformed into a political agenda and a fresh idea of what Europe can look like in the future.
Francesco Grillo is an Academic Fellow at Bocconi University’s Department of Social and Political Sciences.
