By Sławomir Sierakowski
The EU was created as an antidote to power politics. But to survive, it must become a superpower, contradicting the very principle on which it was founded. The reason is US President Donald Trump, who is forcing it to transform itself almost against its will.
The EU does not need to turn its back on the US; but it must recognize that it can rely only on itself, and that means acquiring hard (military) power.
Although Trump’s time in office is limited, Trumpism could endure. Despite his transactional approach and rapidly fluctuating positions, Trump may represent a more lasting doctrine. After all, many of his first-term policies — from tariffs to his confrontational stance toward China — survived his defeat in 2020, and he was hardly the first US president to demand greater contributions from other NATO members.
Moreover, the Republican Party is now fully under Trump’s control, having ousted or forced out anyone who did not embrace the MAGA movement. Trump has also subjugated the US financial, legal, and tech elite, and developed a deep bench of potential successors. Safe in his position, he can now focus on establishing a dynasty and securing his legacy, including through territorial expansion.
Although Trump did step back from his threat to use force in pursuing a US takeover of Greenland, that crisis is not over. He dropped his demand for US sovereignty over the island only after Europe signaled a willingness to respond — finally — with something other than appeasement. The European Parliament suspended work on a trade agreement with the US. Many EU leaders called for the bloc’s anti-coercion mechanism to be used, while most refused to join Trump’s bizarre pay-to-play Board of Peace.
As long as the EU’s most serious problems were Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán and Russian President Vladimir Putin, it could more or less accept the status quo. But the emergence of another Putin in Washington leaves the EU in a completely different position.
Fortunately, the EU has all the assets it needs to be one of three or four superpowers. Its common market surpasses any other economy in size, and it can match anyone in terms of its alliances and soft power. While Western Europe is reckoning with anaemic GDP growth, Central and Eastern European economies are developing rapidly. No US state has grown as fast as Poland in the last 25 years.
Yes, the EU lags behind the US and China in terms of innovation and access to raw materials, but they face difficult challenges, too. China is struggling with inauspicious demographics and very low consumption. US power is being hollowed out from within through the Trump administration’s war on scientific research, higher education, immigration, rule of law, and international institutions.
And Russia has pretty much nothing going for it, other than a fully committed war economy.
There are good reasons why Ukraine and a dozen other countries dream of joining the EU. Taking inspiration from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s statement the night after Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022: half a billion people are here; a huge industrial base is here; one-sixth of the world’s GDP is here; and allies are here.
In other words, Europe has massive latent power, and it is beginning to do more to unlock its potential. In the short and medium term, it must fight for time and resolve the “Ukrainian question,” just as the West resolved the “Eastern European question” in the 1990s. Trump has already shifted this problem to Europe by refusing to finance the Ukrainian army and state.
Five years ago, it would have seemed absurdly optimistic to predict that the EU would be able to issue joint debt, buy weapons, and make key decisions without unanimity. No one could have guessed that Sweden and Finland would finally abandon their neutrality and join NATO, significantly strengthening the alliance’s European pillar.
Yet all that has happened, and more. European defense companies are now growing much faster than their American counterparts. The fastest-growing European company today is the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall. If the million-strong Ukrainian army — as battle-hardened and innovative as any in the world — remains on Europe’s side and does not fall into Russian hands, Europe will have everything it needs to be a military superpower in the age of drone warfare.
The EU has proven over and over that it is capable of reforming itself, despite resistance from enemies within and outside its borders. To paraphrase Zelensky again: Europe does not need a free ride; it needs arms.
The writer is founder of the Krytyka Polityczna movement