Why Europe Risks Losing its Strategic Moment
As geopolitical tensions rise, the EU sidelines its own ambitions while middle powers could still reshape the global order. A commentary by Moreno Bertoldi, and Marco Buti
A “given amount of political capital” appears to be the curse haunting Europe: the European Council proves unable to address more than one difficult issue at a time, with each new crisis displacing the previous one, leaving it inevitably unfinished. This is precisely what risks happening today with the war in Iran.
The Iranian conflict has once again shown that Donald Trump regards his allies as vassals — actors who need not be informed of the moves the hegemonic superpower is about to undertake, even when these have significant consequences for them, and who are expected simply to endorse decisions taken in Washington.
Faced with this new emergency, the European Union, rather than building on its efforts towards strategic autonomy, appears to have set them aside. The call by Canadian prime minister Mark Carney, in his Davos speech, to create flexible alliances among middle powers — which had initially garnered strong support — has been relegated to the background by the Iran crisis. Yet it is precisely these developments, alongside the planned Trump-Xi summit at the end of March (now possibly postponed), that should prompt the EU to accelerate this process, rather than dismiss it as an appealing but unrealistic idea.
As Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group, has noted, the window of opportunity for middle powers to defend their interests “will not remain open indefinitely. If they fail to act, the two largest powers will consolidate bilateral arrangements — in infrastructure, digital systems and security — across the developing world. Once those agreements are in place and relationships entrenched, it will be far more difficult for others to limit US or Chinese hegemony.”
Strengthening economic ties among middle powers is the most effective way forward. To its credit, the EU has been particularly active in this area. Free trade agreements concluded with India and Mercosur, as well as enhanced cooperation with the CPTPP, move in this direction. Additional agreements are also on the horizon, both geographically — such as with Australia — and in high-potential sectors, including the EU-Canada digital trade agreement. Gradually, this network of agreements is redirecting trade flows and value chains towards middle powers, expanding their room for manoeuvre not only economically but also politically.
Further steps could reinforce this trajectory, including measures of strong symbolic value. Two elements are worth recalling. First, the United States is now compelled, following a Supreme Court ruling, to reconsider its universal tariffs. Second, China’s already substantial trade surplus continues to grow, driven by excess industrial capacity and an undervalued renminbi. Against this backdrop, the EU and other middle powers should coordinate and seek a common position within the G20 — calling on the United States to ensure that any new tariffs are lower than those introduced last year, and urging China to rebalance its growth model and allow its currency to appreciate.
Even if neither superpower feels bound by G20 deliberations, the mere fact that middle powers align around a shared position would make visible the kind of alliance envisaged by Carney.
Acting in concert, middle powers could also leverage existing chokepoints and mutual dependencies to counter the assertiveness of the superpowers. A recent study by the Geostrategic Europe Taskforce shows, for example, that by pooling their strengths, the EU and Japan could acquire significant bargaining power vis-à-vis China.
By relaunching the prospect of an alliance among middle powers, the EU would demonstrate that it is not condemned to the curse of short-term political capital, but is instead capable of laying the foundations for a new international order — one based on a more balanced and equitable system of rules than the one that preceded it. In time, even the United States and China might join such a framework, should they choose to move beyond their current trajectory.
A previous version of this article was published by Il Sole 24 Ore
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