Are we Europeans able to be independent from the US, to develop an autonomous geopolitical strategy to confront current and future crises with any chance of success?
Many doubt this, including the EU Foreign Relations Council itself: there is too much mistrust among partners to accept and accept a different shared leadership than Washington’s. On the other hand, how to distribute the costs.
Poland, for example, does not trust Berlin or Paris and, on the contrary, aspires to be the United States’ most supportive ally in Europe: something like top-of-the-range.
And apparently, pretending not to care about the economic cost and getting the approval of Washington, the first military power on the continent, it is willing to take on its territory all the troops the superpower wishes to deploy and become.
On the one hand, the financial crisis and immigration policy separated the continent’s north and south, while the war in Ukraine split east and west in a certain way: “old and new Europe,” as the old US put it. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
With some exceptions created at the Madrid summit, such as Viktor Orbán’s Hungary, the unity that European governments are now demonstrating against Russia can shatter if the conflict drags on too long: citizens’ patience has a limit. .
It is true that the invasion of Ukraine by its neighbor Russia took place at the time of “Europe’s great geopolitical weakness,” as recognized by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the superpower has managed to distance itself from its European allies in terms of economic power.
If in 2008 the EU’s GDP was 16.2 billion euros and exceeded that of the US by 14.7 billion, last year the relationship was reversed: in the superpower state, compared to 19.8 billion for the EU and Great Britain together. billion.
It also has to do with the strength of their currencies: the dollar currently represents about 60 percent of all countries’ foreign exchange reserves. And the euro is currently only 21 percent.
First of all, the latter allowed Washington to increase its ability to impose economic sanctions on countries whose regimes it did not accept, and it did so without being held accountable to anyone, not even its allies.
Russia and China are trying to oppose this global dependence on the dollar, which, for their part, is so damaging to their interests, and often demand payment in their own currencies, the ruble and yuan, for business transactions with third countries.
And in their efforts they have the support of many countries of the so-called global South, which in many cases reject boycotts and other punitive measures from the West, viewing them as unfair if not hypocritical.
The superiority of the USA over Europe is also absolute in the increasingly decisive technological sector and has not stopped its growth in recent years: the big five in the sector dominate the European scene.
And all Brussels can do right now is to fine these tech giants, as has been the case for Google’s commercial misconduct, but without developing alternatives, as the People’s Republic of China has successfully done despite the obstacles Washington is trying to put up. .
Admittedly, the United States and its staunch aide, the United Kingdom, knew very well what they were doing when they insisted on the rapid integration into the EU and NATO of countries that formerly belonged to the Soviet orbit and would therefore enter the Soviet orbit. valiant against the Kremlin.