Europe’s moment for self-governance
The Trump administration’s insistence that Europe be more responsible for its own defense – including support of Ukraine after a peace deal – has ignited a strong response. In a speech Friday, for example, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Europe is “now in another period of crisis which warrants a similar approach” to that during the pandemic.
Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof told Politico, “Europe has understood the U.S. message that it has to do more itself." In Germany, the person most likely to be the country’s next leader, Friedrich Merz, told The Economist that German troops could be used in Ukraine after a ceasefire.
Whether Europe can shake dependency on America’s military strength remains to be seen. One test will be the European Union’s response to Ms. von der Leyen’s suggestion of triggering the bloc’s emergency clause to permit governments to spend more on their militaries even if that spending pushes their budget deficits over the EU’s limits.
“Now is the time to move mountains in the European Union,” said Ms. von der Leyen, a former German defense minister.
Mr. Macron said Europe must break a mindset of “strategic dependency.” The continent relies heavily on Russian natural gas, imports from China, and America’s military might and technology. That has stagnated European innovation, weakened its economic vigor – witness the crisis in Germany’s once-dominant auto industry – and made it more vulnerable.
The EU is now faced with the need to more firmly anchor its identity in its values of shared prosperity and well-defended democracy. “Security is ... the precondition for maintaining our values, as well as being a necessity for our economic success and competitiveness,” wrote former Finnish President Sauli Niinistö last October.
A global poll taken by the European Council on Foreign Relations after Donald Trump’s election victory found that “People around the world see the EU as a major global power ... [but] the people who believe least in European power are the Europeans themselves.” The U.S. is just one of many countries now cheering the EU to see its own strength and to reject a mentality of dependency. The basis of any security is firstly a mindset of self-governance.
