Europe is not facing just another crisis. It is witnessing the exhaustion of the international order that structured the world since 1945. And that carries an exceptionally deep historical significance. The great international equilibria do not typically disappear gradually: they collapse when the structures of power, the economic hierarchies, and the political legitimacies stop aligning with reality. It happened after the wars of religion and the Peace of Westphalia, which enshrined the principle of state sovereignty. It happened after the Napoleonic wars and the Congress of Vienna, which established the European balance of powers. And it happened again after the two world wars, when the liberal order led by the United States organized for decades the economy, security and global governance. All these systems were born from traumatic ruptures and from systemic conflicts that redefined the rules of power.
The difference today is that the transition toward a new order has already begun, but there is not yet a framework capable of stabilizing it. The balance that emerged after 1945 has eroded rapidly. Institutions still exist, but they have lost their capacity to order the world. Alliances persist, though they no longer generate the same certainties. The rules survive, but are challenged by actors who did not participate in their design or who deem their legitimacy exhausted.
The historical challenge, therefore, is to understand the depth of this transition and to contribute to the construction of a new international balance before a major confrontation imposes it by force.
“El equilibrio surgido tras 1945 se ha erosionado aceleradamente. Las instituciones continúan existiendo, pero han perdido su capacidad para ordenar el mundo”
This is the true nature of the present moment. We are witnessing something more than a change of context: a simultaneous alteration of the very foundations on which the international system was organized. The rules, the power relations, economic dependencies, technological balances, and forms of political competition change at the same time. In that scenario, inertia ceases to be prudence and becomes strategic blindness.
For decades, Europe operated within a relatively predictable framework. The international order created after World War II offered a set of institutions, alliances, and balances that, despite their contradictions, allowed containing competition among powers and reducing the risk of direct confrontation. Globalization was seen as a process of gradual integration; economic interdependence as a guarantee of stability, and the expansion of liberal democracy as a nearly irreversible historical trend.
That framework has not vanished abruptly, but it has stopped effectively structuring international reality. The problem goes beyond the emergence of new powers and concerns the erosion of the very foundations of the previous order. The relationship between economic power, military power, and political legitimacy is once again contested. With these elements in dispute, the international system enters an inevitably unstable phase.
“The problem goes beyond the emergence of new powers and affects the deterioration of the very foundations of the previous order”
The main problem for Europe does not lie so much in the change as in its difficulty to fully grasp the magnitude of that change. Persisting in inherited categories to interpret a radically different environment reveals a strategic mismatch more than a sign of stability. Effective foreign policy always begins with a correct diagnosis. And that diagnosis requires accepting that the world today is more competitive, more fragmented, and less normative than Europe would like.
Defending principles requires understanding the actual terrain on which those principles must stand. Because, if the analysis does not adapt to reality, policy becomes rhetoric.
Geopolitics of Dependence
The reconfiguration of geopolitics constitutes the first axis of this change. The international system is evolving toward an increasingly evident multipolarity, in which several powers openly compete for influence, access to strategic resources, and the ability to define the rules of the system. But this redistribution of power is not accompanied by a new shared governance framework. On the contrary: it coincides with the progressive weakening of multilateralism and with the return of power logics that are more direct, more transactional, and less institutionalized.
The current period thus becomes a phase of international interregnum. The old order loses effectiveness, but the new one does not yet exist. In those moments, gray zones proliferate, hybrid rivalries emerge, and dynamics of indirect confrontation predominate.
“El sistema internacional evoluciona hacia una multipolaridad cada vez más evidente, en la que varias potencias compiten abiertamente”
In this context, a form of competition consolidates that resembles imperial dynamics. Sometimes it takes the classic sense of territorial occupation, as in Ukraine, but it also operates through the ability to project power with economic, technological, financial, and regulatory instruments. Dependencies are used as pressure mechanisms, supply chains function as levers of influence, and critical technologies become tools of strategic control. Coercion adopts forms more diffuse than in the past, but not less effective.
Europe finds itself particularly exposed to this transformation. On one side, it faces a direct threat in its eastern neighborhood, where Russian aggression has reintroduced conventional warfare on the continent and has questioned fundamental principles of European security. On the other side, it observes a profound distortion in the role of the United States, whose foreign policy tilts toward immediate national interest and transactional logic, often with neglect for its traditional alliances.
The consequence is the erosion of Europe’s strategic automatisms. Although a dramatic rupture that would multiply risks must be avoided, the transatlantic relationship has changed forever. The strategic convergence of the second half of the 20th century, structurally aligned by the Cold War, has come to an end. The coincidences will continue to exist, but they will be more contingent, more negotiated, and less permanent than in previous decades.
In this new scenario, strategic dependence ceases to be sustainable on the basis of simple realism, rather than ideological reasons. Europe needs the capacity to act on its own precisely for the moments when other actors decide not to act in the same direction.
“La agresión rusa ha reintroducido la guerra convencional en el continente y ha cuestionado principios fundamentales de seguridad europea”
The temptation to interpret this new environment in terms of closed blocs — the West versus the rest — is also deeply limiting. That reading oversimplifies a reality far more complex and unnecessarily narrows Europe’s room for maneuver. A growing share of the world does not identify with that division and rejects being trapped in rigid alignment logics. For middle powers, insisting on that framework does not broaden alliances; it constrains them.
Moreover, this evolution is intertwined with a profoundly deep economic transformation. Globalization no longer follows the logic of depoliticized efficiency that characterized the past decades. Today it is permeated by concerns about security, technological rivalry, and strategic competition. Trade, energy, infrastructure, and data have ceased to be purely economic domains and have become central dimensions of power.
That redefines the very foundations on which Europe built much of its economic model. For years it was assumed that open trade and global integration would generate shared prosperity and political stability. Today it is evident that interdependence also creates vulnerability. Critical dependencies can be exploited, supply chains interrupted, and competitive advantages redefined through political decisions.
Economic neutrality has disappeared.
In this new setting, the dominant European economic paradigm shows signs of fatigue. The idea that the market alone can guarantee efficient allocations in any circumstance loses meaning in a context where other powers actively employ industrial policy, technological control, massive subsidies, and strategic intervention to shape outcomes.
The debate can no longer be reduced to deciding whether to intervene or not. The decisive question is whether Europe has a coherent strategy to do so effectively.
European Sovereignty in a Multipolar World
This diagnosis demands redefining the balance between openness and protection, between competition and resilience, between market and public capacity. Rather than replicating foreign models, Europe needs to develop its own strategy tailored to its characteristics. Economic autonomy does not imply isolation. It entails the capacity to decide in a context of conflicted interdependence.
“The idea that the market, by itself, can guarantee efficient allocations in any circumstance loses meaning”
This doubling mutation is complemented by a third, touching the very core of European democratic systems. Liberal democracies face growing tensions derived from economic, technological, and cultural changes that deeply alter traditional forms of political mediation. The emergence of large digital platforms capable of shaping the public space introduces a dimension unseen in democratic competition.
At the same time, authoritarian movements and illiberal forces operate increasingly transnationally. They share resources, narratives, and strategies, leveraging the advantages of a globalized digital ecosystem. Democracy is now eroded not only from external pressures but also from within.
These dynamics converge in a fourth transformation: the loss of the West’s relative centrality. The international system reorganizes around new power poles that do not necessarily share Europe’s priorities, interests, or historical references. This does not imply automatic irrelevance, but it does compel a deep adaptation.
Europe has lost its place as the organizing center of the international system to become one of several relevant actors within it.
“La capacidad normativa sigue siendo un activo importante, pero depende cada vez más de la capacidad de proyectar poder económico, tecnológico y geopolítico”
This is one of the main strategic difficulties faced by the West: the persistence of a still overly self-referential view of the world. Normative capacity remains an important asset, but it increasingly depends on the ability to project economic, technological, and geopolitical power. The norm, if not accompanied by influence, loses effectiveness.
The response to this situation cannot be retreat. It must be a strategic redefinition.
The response must be articulated, first and foremost, around the idea of effective European sovereignty. This sovereignty is not equivalent to a withdrawal of national competences: it consists in building a collective capacity to decide. In a world dominated by great powers, scale matters. And the only scale capable of preserving real influence for Europeans is the European one.
That implies advancing integration and the single market where power is generated: defense, energy, industry, financing, artificial intelligence, critical technologies, and strategic infrastructures. It also implies developing common financial instruments able to sustain long-term investments and reduce structural dependencies.
Sovereignty is not a political statement. It is the cumulative result of strategic decisions sustained over time.
Furthermore, Europe must redefine its place in the global economy and geopolitics. Diversification of relationships becomes a structural necessity to reduce vulnerabilities and broaden room for maneuver. In a world of asymmetric interdependencies, relying less on a single actor constitutes a form of autonomy.
Here Europe must abandon both naivety and the binary logic of automatic alignments. “The world that is emerging will not be organized exclusively around two closed blocs.” It will be an arena of variable balances, flexible partnerships, and relationships that are simultaneously competitive and cooperative.
“This architecture of strategic diversification would allow Europe to broaden its room for maneuver in an increasingly competitive and fragmented international environment”
In that context, it makes sense to articulate a European repositioning strategy based on its own, cooperative relationships with actors capable of defending common interests and contributing to shaping a new multilateralism: Brazil, Mexico, India, and China. More than an alternative bloc or a formal alliance, this architecture of diversification would enable Europe to widen its room for maneuver in an ever more competitive and fragmented international landscape.
Brazil represents a central partner for Europe in the global reorganization of energy, industry, and climate policy, and in the reconstruction of multilateralism. Ratifying the EU-Mercosur agreement would strengthen relations with the region’s leading South American power and consolidate ties with a region key to the green transition, critical minerals, and food security amid rising geopolitical competition for influence and investments.
Mexico holds a singular position due to its industrial integration with North America and its growing geoeconomic weight. Modernizing the EU-Mexico Global Agreement offers Europe an opportunity to deepen a strategic economic and technological relationship and access new transatlantic value chains in a context of industrial diversification and reduced dependencies.
India embodies the multipolar autonomy logic characteristic of the major emerging powers: cooperation without automatic alignment. The expectation to rapidly finalize the EU-India partnership agreement highlights New Delhi’s growing importance as a first-order economic, technological, and geopolitical partner, and the need for Europe to strengthen its presence in the Indo-Pacific.
The relationship with China will be the true test of European strategic autonomy. Europe must shape its policy toward Beijing around its own interests, not those of other powers. That requires combining cooperation and firmness, defending reciprocity, ensuring fair competition, and maintaining stable channels of dialogue alongside pragmatic management of differences.
Europe cannot afford either naivety toward China or a logic of systemic confrontation. Its interest lies in promoting its industrial base and defending its economic interests while cooperating on major global challenges that can only be addressed effectively through Europe–China collaboration.
This approach is especially important given the growing risk that Europe becomes caught between two simultaneous pressures. On the one hand, the Russian threat to its east; on the other, the possibility of a more transactional and less Europe-stable United States policy. In that scenario, expanding relations and diversifying interdependencies, far from being a tactical option, constitute a strategic imperative.
Because in a multipolar world, having options equals having a geopolitical insurance policy.
But no external strategy will be credible if Europe does not first rectify its internal limitations. The European Union continues to face enormous difficulties in making quick decisions, aligning positions, and translating its economic weight into real political power. Institutional fragmentation reduces its effectiveness precisely when the international environment demands greater agility and strategic clarity.
Europe must decide faster, take more political risks, and abandon the illusion that perpetual ambiguity is a sustainable strategy. In international politics, indecision is not neutral. It has consequences.
Europe still possesses exceptional assets: economic scale, technological capacity, regulatory power, institutional stability, and a unique historical experience of the costs of conflict. But assets do not endure by inertia; they depend on the ability to understand the historical moment in which we act.
Because the great transition is already underway. The balance established after 1945 has ceased to order the world, but the new order has not yet been born. In those gaps, powers reposition themselves, dependencies turn into weapons, and wars cease to seem impossible.
Europe thus faces a singular historical responsibility: to contribute to building a new international balance without requiring a new catastrophe to make it possible.
