Four Sundays ago, with US President Donald Trump upending America’s traditional foreign relations, alienating allies and siding with dictator/invader Vladimir Putin on the Ukraine issue, my column was titled “The awakening of Europe” and spoke of the continent becoming aware of the greater global responsibility it must now shoulder.
One day later in the Financial Times, Chief Foreign Affairs columnist Gideon Rachman, wrote: “Trump is making Europe great again,” and the next day, the paper’s leading economics columnist, Martin Wolf, penned: “How Europe can take up America’s mantle”.
Not surprising. The European Union (EU) is an economic powerhouse with 27 member states in a single market of over 440 million people, the second-largest economy in the world by nominal GDP. “Europe has the economic strength, power and talent to compare ourselves to the United States,” says French President Emmanuel Macron. Indeed, the EU already has strong retaliatory action planned against Trump’s tariffs. Moreover, as I have pointed out, with the pooled resources of member-states, it could have the second most powerful military in the world. Add Britain and it is a grouping with two nuclear powers, UK and France.
Now its leaders are taking action. Led by UK’s PM Keir Starmer and Macron, EU countries agree to be part of a “coalition of the willing” in a peace-keeping force to defend Ukraine against Russia, in sync with Macron’s earlier call for Europe’s “strategic autonomy” within the Transatlantic alliance.
Starmer is prepared to deploy thousands of British soldiers to Ukraine “for years” to maintain a ceasefire and prevent another Russian invasion. Europe’s two nuclear powers are now its leaders of hard power.
This furthers the “post-Brexit rapprochement” between the EU and the UK, significantly boosted by Donald Trump’s “betrayal” of the continent. Also on the table are increasing sanctions and seizing frozen Russia assets held in the EU.
Critically, the EU and individual member states are moving to spend more on individual and collective defence. The EU is mobilising approximately 800 billion euros (US$843 billion) to strengthen European defence and provide “immediate” military support for Ukraine.
Britain will spend an additional £2.2 billion this year, France is raising its spending to around 100 billion euros annually, and Germany has also set up a special fund of 100 billion euros for a powerful Federal Armed Forces. “German rearmament would change the face of Europe; it would certainly cause Moscow to take note,” says Roger Cohen in The New York Times.
The EU is also exploring a new satellite network to provide military intelligence as doubts mount over America’s commitment. And, in a very bold move, Macron has opened discussions with European leaders about sharing the protection of France’s nuclear arsenal with them.
The French President is convinced that without the promise of nuclear protection, Russia’s aggression would expand farther into Europe. “We are entering a new era,” he says. “Peace is no longer guaranteed on our continent.”
Underscoring European seriousness, its biggest military powers, France, Britain, Germany, Italy and Poland, along with EU and NATO representatives, are drawing up plans to assume greater responsibilities for the continent’s defence.
They hope to convince Trump to agree to a managed transfer over the next five to ten years, avoiding the chaos of a unilateral US withdrawal from NATO.
They must tread lightly here. The US is at present indispensable to European security. It spends more on defence than all other NATO allies combined, providing Europe with a nuclear umbrella, having military capabilities not possessed by the continent and running air, naval and troop bases with 80,000 troops stationed in Europe.
The present situation demands “a two-track policy”, says Rachman. Europe must delay the severance of American military support “for as long as possible, while preparing for that moment as fast as possible”.
Meanwhile, shaken by a Trump-created crisis in its long-standing alliance with the United States, Canada is now moving closer to Europe. The “old US/Canada relationship is over”, says PM Mike Carney.
Ottawa is in advanced talks with the EU to participate in the bloc’s expansion of its military industry, allowing Canada to be part of building European fighter jets and other military equipment at its own industrial facilities, a sign that “traditional US allies are deepening their ties without US participation”. Indeed, military chiefs from Australia, New Zealand and Japan have already met on the current global situation with their EU counterparts at a closed-door meeting in Paris.
The “old continent” is being reborn. The “Father of Europe”, Jean Monnet, did forecast “Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises”.
As I remarked in 2023, after centuries of conflict, two horrific World Wars finally propelled the blood-soaked continent towards peace and “ever closer union” among its western members starting with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1952, then the European Economic Community in 1957 and European Union at Maastricht in 1993.
Now Europe is facing another crisis, the likely end of the transatlantic alliance. It is girding its loins for this challenge. From evidence so far, we are moving toward Europe’s rebirth.
—Ralph Maraj
