Either it adapts and evolves, or it doesn't survive: here we are at the Darwinian moment of a united Europe, after the alignment between the USA and Russia. Once again, conflicts over borders and nationalities in the East catalyse turbulent changes in the world order. The fragile imperial peace in Ukraine is an existential problem not only for Kyiv, but also for the European Union. However, the main issues that characterise the historical discontinuity of the era we live in are also centred around this peace plan: the uncertainties of nuclear deterrence among several ‘strongmen’, the concentration of technologies with unprecedented impact in the hands of a handful of plutocrats, and the challenges of climate change and energy transition.
Few believe that Trump will stand by the Europeans in supporting Ukraine through booming military budgets, perhaps through the massive purchase of American weapons, as the British would like. It certainly will not happen if a design for European strategic autonomy anchored in the nuclear capability that the French have developed outside NATO command prevails. Moreover, it is not clear why Putin should make real concessions today that would limit his options tomorrow. Faced with the favourable conditions created by the US distancing itself from Europe, the long-term plan pursued by Russian revisionism sees great opportunities. The same pressure on Ukraine, culminating in the 2022 invasion, has gone hand in hand with signals that the Kremlin has interpreted as Washington's disengagement from the European theatre (e.g., the withdrawal of tanks and helicopters).
The credibility of a European military force charged with enforcing agreements on the Ukrainian front has been compromised. If Ukrainian peace comes soon, it will be vulnerable. The regional scenarios of destabilisation are numerous, from the Baltic (Kaliningrad) to the Balkans, via Moldova and Romania, where a vermin of paramilitaries and arsenals linked to ‘foreign agents’ has emerged behind the ‘pro-Russian’ presidential candidate. Russian pressure comes in the form of a hybrid threat: episodes of industrial sabotage, cutting of submarine cables and cyber attacks. And social campaigns benefiting the far-right ‘European patriots’, which now coincide with White House endorsements. Against this backdrop, Trump has blocked the actions of the US Cyber-Command towards Russia, Musk's emissaries have compromised the data of US security apparatuses, while Starlink satellites have betrayed Ukrainian defences, which are retreating. This means that Europe is exposed. In addition, on March 6th, the Italian Chamber of Deputies passed a law in first reading opening the door of ‘national transmission capacity’ ('riserva di capacità trasmissiva nazionale') under situations of emergency, namely allowing the use of private and non-EU satellites to transmit information to Musk. While this constitutes a serious breach of digital sovereignty, Italian Minister for Business Adolfo Urso's words (‘Italy shows Europe the way to space’) project us into the grotesque.
However much one may deny it, the rules of the game are changing, and there is a serious problem with deterring Russia. In Germany, the industrial and energy-hungry heart of Europe, completing the energy transition out of the fossil fuel era would be an imperative. But the brake on public spending, put in the constitution by the Cdu-Spd coalition in 2009, has slowed public investment, sabotaging growth and leading to the current situation. Today, Merz, drawing a Cdu-Spd coalition that rests on a declining electoral consensus, wants to avoid at all costs the political compromises necessary to obtain, in the parliament that will make him chancellor, the removal of that brake.
In practice, he would like to please the conservative hawks, who only agree to an easing of the brake for reasons of national security, and avoid depending on the vote of the left-wing Linke, who are opposed to releasing the debt only for military spending. For their part, the Greens, outside the coalition, are expected to support a package that ignores renewable energy and climate warming policies when it talks about infrastructure.
Making billions of euros available for the security and defence of Ukraine and the EU is not a sufficient response for a new strategic culture and European defence. Faced with a defence challenge defined as existential, Von der Leyen proposed a plan that relies on articles of the EU Treaty, in particular Art. 122 TFEU, that speak of the exceptional nature of the situation, the temporariness of the measures, and seeks to avoid the scrutiny of the democratically elected European Parliament. As it happened for Covid, the debt instrument that is envisioned will become loans to Member States, and one can only expect that in the near future, pressures to reduce debt will be resumed (as it happened after Covid) and that the bill will be paid through cuts to social spending. In other words, Von der Leyen’s ‘ReArm Europe’ amounts to a reallocation of public spending, not an injection of new money.
As Trump declares war on US academia and scientific research, a far-sighted European leadership should invest in research on sustainability and on the completion of the energy transition, and the development of lato sensu strategic autonomy.
In the absence of a new EU industrial policy, we’re almost sure that what we are going to see is mainly those defense companies that are in close connection with European decision-making, benefiting immensely, without much effect on growth.
As the Financial Times warns, it is not possible to think of increasing military spending without reducing social spending. In several European countries, the extreme nationalist right is in government or aspires to influence it. If the warfare state replaces the welfare state, through national rearmament programmes, it is likely that the extreme right of the (pseudo-)sovereignist ‘patriots’ will grow even stronger, digging the grave of the European Union. A genuine pact for the defence of Europe, on the other hand, would sideline the forces that have been hindering EU integration and transformation on the fronts of fundamental rights and ecological transition for years.
As a post-sovereign configuration, Europe has never been armed, so there is no point in talking about 'rearming Europe'. Defending Europe while international norms and multilateralism are being sidelined means shifting the political centre away from the historical bedrock of armed nationalism. Along this road, Orban's Hungary, where the sovereignist far-right has cemented its foundations, can only end up falling outside (no longer simply the target of a vote against from within, or a freezing of funds). This process would draw a clear line on the material and normative constitution of the Union.
A pact for the defence of Europe conceived in the broth of social Darwinism, armed nationalism and climate denialism is a pact that destroys Europe.