The EU’s Moment of Truth
The Trump administration’s demands expose Europe’s vulnerabilities — and threaten to turn allies into dependants. A commentary by Marcello Messori
The US document devoted to national security strategy goes far beyond external threats. It delves into the internal arrangements of allied countries and seeks to dictate the strategic choices they should pursue. In the case of the European Union, the approach is so intrusive and coercive that it risks undermining any future scope for cooperation between the two sides of the Atlantic.
That said, the document also lays bare a number of real and long-standing weaknesses of the EU.
This has allowed Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, to argue that the Trump administration has not changed its position, but has merely made its concerns about European governments more explicit.
What Meloni overlooks is the crucial point: those concerns are translated into demands that are unacceptable because they aim to dismantle the EU and force European countries into a position of political and economic vassalage vis-à-vis the United States.
The demands advanced by President Donald Trump and Vice-President JD Vance towards the EU can be grouped into at least four categories.
First, they seek to hollow out the competences and powers of European institutions, restoring full autonomy to individual nation states and dismantling an institutional and social model rooted in the core principles of liberal democracy — a model that aims to reconcile an “open society” with social inclusion.
Second, they would reduce the European project to a single market devoid of effective rules, allowing large US technology companies to provide services under near-monopolistic conditions and to gain unrestricted access to consumer-related data.
Third, they aim to reinforce the current allocation of substantial portions of European wealth towards financing US activities — both public and private — by imposing minimum annual purchase thresholds in areas such as innovative investment, energy, and defence on European governments and firms.
Fourth, they would impose political alliances and compromises on weakened European institutions and individual member states to ensure that they do not interfere with the restoration of a limited number of autocratic spheres of influence, dominated by the US through complex triangulations with China and a resurgent Russia.
These demands amount to an existential challenge for the EU, making it imperative to launch internal initiatives that move in the opposite direction.
The first step would be to reaffirm the pillars of European policy that were introduced on a temporary basis as part of the fiscal response to the pandemic — and that should now be transformed into a permanent commitment: centralised European financing and the European-level implementation of the green and digital transitions.
Next, the EU should create conditions that make it attractive to allocate significant shares of European wealth to financial markets that are not fragmented along national lines and that offer efficient instruments to support the creation of large, cross-border innovative firms, as well as a broad restructuring of Europe’s productive system capable of meeting global technological challenges.
These two initiatives should be combined with the preservation of effective European regulation, so as to reconcile competition policy, the pursuit of specific innovation trajectories, low environmental impact and the fight against multiple forms of social exclusion — including technological exclusion in labour markets and the marginalisation of immigrants.
Finally, the EU’s institutional architecture should be redesigned to include, among its priorities, the launch of a European defence industry and decision-making processes capable of accommodating other European countries that wish to participate and that meet rule-of-law standards.
If launched in 2026, such initiatives would also enhance the attractiveness of the EU’s social and democratic model, strengthening its international appeal and opening the way for a network of alliances incompatible with the US objective of restoring narrow spheres of influence.
Their implementation would, however, require transfers of national sovereignty to the EU — a move that runs counter both to the nationalist drift of most member states and to recent decisions taken by the European Commission and the European Parliament. The retreat on the green transition and the deregulatory processes now underway offer clear evidence of this tension.
Three factors could still prevent a slide towards a confederal option and the consequent collapse of the EU. The first lies in the growing demand for “more Europe” expressed by many European citizens seeking protection from rising external threats; organisations in favour of a more federal EU should amplify these bottom-up pressures.
The second factor is that even the largest countries — starting with Germany — can no longer harbour illusions of finding viable alternatives outside European cooperation. Germany’s incoming chancellor, Friedrich Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union, will be forced to distance himself from Manfred Weber, the president of the European People’s Party, and from alliances with the far right.
The third factor concerns short-term opportunities. Some European vulnerabilities can be reduced without excessive tensions among a critical mass of member states. Examples include stronger support for Ukraine’s rights, initiatives to deepen financial integration, and the development of more efficient European infrastructure.
A version of this article appeared in Italian in Il Sole 24 Ore.
IEP@BU does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors.
