What if the world was waiting for Europe? What if it needed us? The 20th century was the United States’, but the 21st century probably won’t be theirs.
By Javier CERCAS
I don’t understand: where does all this concern come from? Didn’t we know who Trump was? Didn’t we hear his speeches? Didn’t we realize that he is not a politician, but a bully? Didn’t we know that, like Putin, he only understands the language of force? Didn’t we forget that, like Putin, he despises democracy and that he had organized a coup? Didn’t anyone tell us that he hates the EU as much as Putin and that he doesn’t want a united Europe (which is why he supports European leaders who are trying to break up the EU)?
Wasn’t it clear that this second Trump, surrounded by servile oligarchs and steeped in techno-autocracy, would be even worse than the first? Didn’t we know about his connection to Putin, who helped him come to power the first time around? Did we think he would threaten suicidal trade wars with Mexico and Canada, but not with us? Wasn’t it clear that in Ukraine he would try to reach a deal with his collaborator in Moscow without consulting the Europeans, a perfect deal for the next Russian invasion (next stops: Moldova and the Baltic states)?
We knew all this and much more, but we pretended not to know, and now we are facing reality: it is not hyperbole to say that Trump aspires to the destruction of democracy and, to achieve this, he must destroy or weaken Europe – the greatest bastion of democracy – and dismantle international institutions, in order to replace a rules-based world order with a new authoritarian order, governed by the only law he knows: the law of the strongest. This is the situation, and whoever does not see it, does not want to see it. Therefore, Europe must respond immediately.
How? There are at least five reasonable steps.
- First, let us understand once and for all that a united Europe – that is, a federal Europe, capable of combining political unity with linguistic, cultural and identity diversity – is the only guarantee for peace, prosperity and democracy on the continent, as well as for its importance in the world.
- Second, let us understand that, at least in Europe, the main division is no longer between left and right, but between internationalism and nationalism, between Europeanism and sovereignism, between mixed and inclusive openness and purist and exclusionary isolation. This means that Pedro Sánchez is right when he asks the Popular Party to distance itself from Vox, but wrong when he does not do the same with separatism, which follows the same logic as Vox (or worse: Trump supports Vox; Putin supports separatism, including that of the ERC, the Republican Left of Catalonia, whose slogan – “For a Europe of free nations” – could have been Orbán’s or Le Pen’s).
- Europe should not depend on the United States; it should be autonomous in every aspect – political, energy, defense – and speak with a single voice in the world, a clear and powerful voice.
- It is urgent that Europe becomes aware of its power; we are the third largest economy in the world (and the first, before the undoable disaster of Brexit), we use the second strongest currency, we have one of the most important markets; we must free ourselves from the inferiority complex towards the US – as Joseph Stiglitz has said – we must challenge the US and China instead of trying to appease them – as Abraham Newman has said. We have much more power than we believe, and if we do not exercise it, it is because of a lack of unity, political ambition, historical vision and self-belief.
- And what if the world is waiting for Europe? What if it needs us much more than we imagine?
Arancha González Laya, former Spanish Foreign Minister, put it this way: “There are many countries that already feel abandoned and need a stable and serious partner like the EU, which is an island of stability and reliability in the face of this United States that is today the epicenter of global geopolitical instability.” The 20th century belonged to the United States; the 21st century will probably not be theirs. Trump is a symptom of a decadence that had been going on for years. Who will dominate the future? Ruthless Chinese authoritarianism, or Europe, with its democracy, its welfare state, and its rules-based international order?
