Skip to main content

The Atlantic Crisis Triggers a New European Moment

From the series European news

At the Davos Forum in January, US President Donald Trump withdrew his threats to take Greenland away from Denmark and impose tariffs on all countries that opposed him. However, the damage had already been done. The episode was a trauma for Europe: now we no longer know how far the Americans might go, commented Emmanuel Macron. The French president warns against an illusory sense of relief after the peak of tensions. This Greenland moment has undoubtedly made Europeans aware that they are under threat. Now, we must think of Europe as a power [Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 11th].

The German chancellor also spoke out in favour of more European power in his speech to the Bundestag on January 29th. There, Friedrich Merz issued a warning: Anyone in the world who believes [...] that it is necessary to use customs tariffs against Europe must know—and now knows—that we are ready and able to defend ourselves against this if necessary. The senior cadres of European imperialism are now trying to use the Greenland moment to accelerate rearmament and political centralisation.

Pragmatic federalism

In his speech on February 2nd, on the occasion of receiving an honorary degree from the Catholic University of Leuven, Mario Draghi said that the best path for Europe is the one it is already on: Concluding trade agreements with partners who share our principles and offer diversification, and strengthening our position in supply chains where we are already key players. According to the former president of the European Central Bank, this is only a first step, because it is a maintenance strategy, not a destination. Europe must therefore choose its destination: Do we want to remain simply a large market, subject to the priorities of others? Or do we want to take the necessary steps to become a power?. The confederation logic, i.e., grouping together small countries, does not automatically produce a powerful bloc. To become a power, Europe must move from confederation to federation, because where Europe has federated—on trade, competition, the single market, and monetary policy—we are respected as a power and negotiate as a single entity. To move in this direction and break the impasse we find ourselves in today, Draghi proposes the approach of pragmatic federalism: Pragmatic because we must take the steps that are currently possible, with the partners currently available, in the areas where progress can be made. But federalism, because the destination is important. According to Draghi, the euro is an example of the success of this method.

For Enrico Letta, on the other hand, Europe must set itself the goal of completing the integration of the internal market by 2028, i.e., integrating what is not yet integrated. The current president of the Delors Institute stresses the importance of precise deadlines: I learned from Jacques Delors that policies without deadlines are like academic debates, and it is precisely the absence of deadlines that is one of the reasons for the failure of the capital market union over the last ten years [Il Sole-24 Ore, February 6th]. Delors was president of the European Commission from 1985-1995, during which time the 1992 deadline for the single market was imposed and the Maastricht Treaty was negotiated, laying the foundations for the euro.

A new Maastricht moment

Letta and Draghi, former Italian prime ministers and the authors of two reports in 2024 calling for structural reforms of the EU, were both guests at the informal European Council summit on February 12th at Alden Biesen Castle in Belgium, not far from Maastricht. There, the heads of State and government of the 27 member countries met with European Council President António Costa and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Discussions focused on setting up a roadmap with deadlines for various issues: Buy European rules that would introduce new levels of protectionism to defend European industry; the creation of a 28th regime, or EU Inc., that would provide companies with a single legal framework valid across the continent; a reform of federal antitrust law to favour European champions; a reduction in regulations and bureaucracy; reform of the energy market; and the unification of capital markets under the new name of the Savings and Investment Union (SIU).

Von der Leyen said after the summit: At the next European Council in March, I will present the 'One Europe, One Market' roadmap. As for the SIU, if there is not enough progress by June, I will propose moving to enhanced cooperation, i.e., moving forward with a group of willing countries. This would breach a taboo, commented Politico Europe [February 13th]. According to Costa, this is a new Maastricht moment [Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, February 14th]. However, he indicated that, in his opinion, the argument for enhanced cooperation serves above all to put pressure on others and convince them not to stay out [La Stampa, February 14th].

Franco-German frictions

However, there is no shortage of sceptical voices regarding the ability of member countries to make a leap towards federalisation in certain areas. The main argument in this vein is the obvious friction in the Franco-German axis. Rather than an acute crisis, these are long-standing differences between Paris and Berlin, which are re-emerging under the pressure of the crisis in the world order. On trade and industrial policy, France tends to take a more protectionist stance than Germany, but this is more a difference in degree than a head-on confrontation. The German government is pushing for new trade agreements, while Macron, partly due to internal political fragility, continues to criticise the Mercosur agreement. However, the French president concedes that the strategic approach of trade diversification is valid and praises the agreements concluded with India and Canada [Süddeutsche Zeitung, February 12th].

With the slogans Buy European and Made in Europe, Paris is pushing for European preference measures aimed at protecting its industry, while European Commissioner Stéphane Séjourné is campaigning for his Industrial Accelerator Act, which also contains elements of industrial protectionism. For Berlin, European preference measures must be an exception and a measure of last resort, limited to critical and strategic technologies, not entire sectors, and must be time-limited [Le Monde, February 12th]. Germany, too, now recognises the necessity of having trade defence instruments, but prefers the Made with Europe formula, emphasising openness to partner markets.

Another controversial issue is the sixth-generation Franco-German fighter jet, which is part of the FCAS project. A decision on this matter is needed in order to start building a prototype, but the respective governments have not yet been able to impose a task-sharing agreement on Dassault and Airbus.

Common debt

Macron's interview with the European press on the eve of the Alden Biesen summit, in which he made an emphatic appeal for new common debt, caused great irritation in German government circles. According to Adriana Cerretelli of Il Sole-24 Ore, this was a clumsy move: The facts have already shown that when necessary, such as post-COVID-19 and the €90 billion in aid to Ukraine, common debt is created with out fanfare and, above all, without declaring a religious war, which is precisely what has always hindered it; all the more so if the country calling for EU-Bonds has accounts increasingly in the red [February 12th].

However, when assessing Macron's move, the support he has received on this point from the European monetary power must be taken into account. The confidential document that the ECB sent to heads of State and government before the European Council summit on February 12th includes a request for the creation of a European safe asset, i.e., EU-Bonds [Handelsblatt, February 12th]. Even more significant was the position taken in favour of EU-Bonds by the president of the German Central Bank. Making Europe attractive also means attracting investors from outside, argued Joachim Nagel. To this end, the Bundesbank president believes that a more liquid European market with regard to safe European assets would be helpful. He added—probably to appease the sensibilities of the German public and the Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe—that such safe assets should only support specific purposes and that European debt is not a free lunch [Politico.eu, February 11th].

The European reaction is manifesting itself not only in the economic and institutional spheres, but also in the military sphere. I have initiated preliminary talks with French President Emmanuel Macron on European deterrence, Merz said at Wehrkunde, the Munich Security Conference in February. At this annual meeting of leading figures in transatlantic relations, the German chancellor declared that a sovereign Europe is our best response to the new era. He offered the United States a new transatlantic partnership that is healthier and has a self-supporting European pillar. Macron, who was also present in Munich, barely mentioned the United States in his speech. Instead, he argued that Europe needs to become a geopolitical power that defines its own security interests; with Russia, it should negotiate a new architecture of security for Europe after [the war in Ukraine], because our geography will not change.

The Wehrkunde of the Atlantic crisis

Like Merz, who tried to convince the Americans of the usefulness of NATO, stating that in times of rivalry between great powers, the United States will not be powerful enough to do everything on its own, the British prime minister also defended the transatlantic alliance at the Wehrkunde. Instead of a moment of rupture, we must make it into a moment of radical renewal, said Keir Starmer, who wants a more European NATO, underpinned by deeper links between the UK and the EU.

Von der Leyen sees a true European awakening underway, starting with defence investments that in 2028 will exceed what the US spent in 2025. Indeed, all the signs are there; it will become clear at the March European Council how far the proposals discussed at the Alden Biesen summit will become enforceable deadlines. If that does happen, it should be stressed that it will be just the start of a new series of battles, both inside and outside the EU.

A new European moment that raises the strategic role of the Union will shift the global balance and is bound to provoke counter-reactions. The same applies to the internal balance within the EU, which is being strained by the current acceleration. In terms of military spending, this is already visible in French concerns about German rearmament.

Lotta Comunista, February 2026

Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Democratic Defeat in the Urban Vote

Internationalism No. 71, January 2025 Page 2 From the series Elections in the USA A careful analysis of the 2022 mid-term elections revealed the symptoms of a Democratic Party malaise which subsequently fully manifested itself in the latest presidential election, with the heavy loss of support in its traditional strongholds of the metropolitan areas of New York City and Chicago, and the State of California. A defeat foretold Republican votes rose from 51 million in the previous 2018 midterms to 54 million in 2022, a gain of 3 million. The Democrat vote fell from 61 to 51 million, a loss of 10 million. The Republicans gained only three votes for every ten lost by the Democrats, while the other seven became abstentions. In 2022, we analysed the elections in New York City by borough, the governmental districts whose names are well known through movies and TV series. In The Bronx, where the average yearly household income is $35,000, the Democrats lost 52,00...
Read more

The Unstoppable Force: Capital’s Demand for Migrant Labour

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 16 “Before Giorgia Meloni became Italy’s prime minister, she pledged to cut immigration. Since she has been in government the number of non-EU work visas issued by Italy has increased”. This is how The Economist of April 26th summarises the schizophrenia of their politics; and this is not only true in Italy: “Net migration also surged in post-Brexit Britain”. The needs of the economic system do not coincide with the rhetoric of parliamentarism. And vice versa. Schizophrenia and imbalances in their politics Returning to Italy, the Bank of Italy has pointed out that by 2040, in just fifteen years, there will be a shortage of five million people of working age, which could lead to an estimated 11% contraction in GDP. This is why even Italy’s “sovereignist” government is preparing to widen the net of its Immigration Flow Decree. The latest update, approved on June 30th, provides for the entry of almost ...
Read more

In the Depth of Our Class

The pandemic of the century is a storm that does not subside; it returns to its rampage after 40 million infections and more than a million official victims, perhaps two million according to estimates on the excess deaths. In the contention between powers, China stands as the winner: it seems to have tamed the virus, and industry and services are up and running; the USA and Europe, on the other hand, are moving towards a new wave of infections that casts yet more shadows on the economic cycle. Political structures and health systems are at the height of tension. In America, the elections have judged Donald Trump’s rash demagogy on the basis of the opposite reasons for containing the pandemic and the intolerance of small and large producers; in Europe the executives are attempting to steer between the surge in infections, increasingly stringent confinement measures and the threats of fiscal jacquerie in the tourism and catering sectors. Almost everywhere, in the Old Continent, governm...
Read more

India’s Weaknesses in the Global Spotlight

Farmers’ protests around New Delhi have been going on for four months now. A controversial intervention by the Supreme Court has suspended the implementation of the new agticultural laws, but has raised questions about the dynamics between the judiciary and the executive, and has failed to unblock the negotiations between government and peasant organisations. The assault by Sikh farmers on the Red Fort during the Republic Day parade as India was displaying its military might to the outside world — the Chinese Global Times maliciously noted — paradoxically widened the protest in the huge state of Uttar Pradesh. The Modi government has been trying to revive India’s image with the 2021 Union Budget: it announced one hundred privatisations and approved the increase to 75% of the limit on direct foreign investment in insurance companies. For The Indian Express ( IEX ) this is a sign of the commitment to push ahead with reforms despite the backlash from rural India. Also for The Economi...
Read more

Armed Negotiations between the Gulf and the Mediterranean

David Petraeus, Commander of the US forces in Iraq and the Gulf in 2007-2008, then director of the CIA in 2011-12, described the elimination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani on January 3 rd in Baghdad as a defensive action , with which the Trump presidency restored a US deterrence , which was weakened by recent Iranian actions . This is a reference to the attacks conducted indirectly, unclaimed by Tehran, against the Saudi oil infrastructures on September 14 th 2019. In March 2008, when the forces under Petraeus’ command supported the Iraqi Army in the fight against local Shite militias, Soleimani sent a message to the American general: informing him that he was the person in charge for Iranian policies in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Gaza therefore the channel through which to define an agreement to resolve the various issues with Tehran. Petraeus holds the advisors of the Quds Force, the spearhead of the Pasdaran asymmetric operations, responsible for the killing of around 600 ...
Read more

Indo-African Opposition at the WTO

Since March 1 st , the Nigerian economist Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala has been the new director general of the World Trade Organization. Like a coach hired by a team languishing at the bottom of its league — writes Larry Elliott of The Guardian — Okonjo finds herself in the happy position of taking over at the WTO when the only way is up , This historic international institution is unlikely to experience extinction or irrelevance. However, the appointment of Okonjo does not in itself remedy WTO’s deep troubles. An alternative in plurilateralism The negotiating function of the WTO has been lacking for twenty years now. The latest ambitious goal of liberalising trade in goods and services, announced in Doha in November 2001, became bogged down by the impossibility of a general compromise between old powers and large emerging economies. In 2015 Michael Froman, President Barack Obama’s Trade Representative (USTR), officially called for the abandonment of the Doha Round. Froman’s alternative p...
Read more

The Works of Marx and Engels and the Bolshevik Model

Internationalism Pages 12–13 In the autumn of 1895 Lenin commented on the death of Friedrich Engels: "After his friend Karl Marx (who died in 1883), Engels was the finest scholar and teacher of the modern proletariat in the whole civilised world. […] In their scientific works, Marx and Engels were the first to explain that socialism is not the invention of dreamers, but the final aim and necessary result of the development of the productive forces in modern society. All recorded history hitherto has been a history of class struggle, of the succession of the rule and victory of certain social classes over others. And this will continue until the foundations of class struggle and of class domination – private property and anarchic social production – disappear. The interests of the proletariat demand the destruction of these foundations, and therefore the conscious class struggle of the organised workers must be directed against them. And every class strugg...
Read more

‘Two Hands’ and ‘Two Roads’

From the series News from the Silk Road The international tensions which China will face on the seas in the next fifteen years could find a buffer in the expansion of China’s influence on land in Central, Southern and Western Asia. Wang Jisi is the dean of the School of International Studies at the University of Beijing and a major figure of the American party in China. His unexpected foray into ‘geopolitics’ has reignited the old clash between different American currents — a phenomenon we analysed more than twenty years ago. At the time, Robert Manning, the author of The Asian Energy Factor and adviser to the State Department in 1991, viewed Asia’s growing dependence on the Persian Gulf for its energy requirements in the light of geoeconomics and geostrategy and foresaw a possible convergence between the USA and China. From a geoeconomic standpoint, both trade and the funding and development of the infrastructure necessary for Asia’s energy needs were more important than terri...
Read more

Chinese Rearmament Projects Itself in Asia

Internationalism No. 78-79, August-September 2025 Page 5 From the series Asian giants Trends in rearmament spending and comparisons of military equipment are increasingly set to dominate coverage of the contention between powers in the crisis in the world order . The military factor has entered the strategic debate, accompanied by a wealth of figures and technical details. The increase in military spending as a percentage of GDP represents a widespread sign of the rearmament cycle at this juncture, but spending alone cannot entirely explain the situation, given the qualitatively different natures of the arsenals being compared. Nor are comparisons between this or that type of weapon useful in themselves, because ultimately all weapons are only ever used in combination with the complex military means available to a power, either in alliance or in conflict with other powers in the system of States. Therefore, while it is difficult to assess the real significa...
Read more

The Defeat in Afghanistan — a Watershed in the Cycle of Atlantic Decline

In crises and wars there are events which leave their mark on history because of how they make a decisive impact on the power contention, or because of how, almost like a chemical precipitate, they suddenly make deep trends that have been at work for some time coalesce. This is the case of the defeat of the United States and NATO in Afghanistan, which is taking the shape of a real watershed in the cycle of Atlantic decline. For the moment, through various comments in the international press, it is possible to consider its consequences on three levels: America’s position as a power and the connection with its internal crisis; the repercussions on Atlantic relations and Europe’s dilemmas regarding its strategic autonomy; and the relationship between the Afghan crisis and power relations in Asia, especially as regards India’s role in the Indo-Pacific strategy. Repercussions in the United States Richard Haass is the president of the CFR, the Council on Foreign Relations; despite having ...
Read more