Europe isn’t experiencing merely another crisis — it is witnessing the exhaustion of an international order that has structured the world since 1945. This moment carries an extraordinary historical depth. Great international equilibria tend not to fade away gradually: they collapse when power structures, economic hierarchies, and political legitimacy cease to reflect reality.
That’s what followed the Religious Wars and the Peace of Westphalia, which enshrined the principle of State sovereignty. It also followed the Napoleonic Wars and the Congress of Vienna, which established the European balance of powers. And it recurred after the two World Wars, when for decades the liberal order led by the U.S. brought organization to the economy, to security, and to global governance. All of these systems emerged from traumatic ruptures and systemic conflicts that redefined the rules of power.
The distinction today is that the shift toward a new order has already begun, yet we lack a framework capable of stabilizing that transition. The post-1945 equilibrium has quickly eroded. Institutions persist, but they’ve lost their ability to impose order on the world. Alliances endure, but they no longer carry the same certainties. The rules survive, but they’re questioned by actors who had no role in crafting them, or who consider their legitimacy exhausted.
The historical challenge is therefore to grasp the depth of our current transition and to contribute to building a new international balance before a major confrontation imposes one by force.
“The equilibrium that emerged after 1945 has rapidly eroded. Institutions continue to exist, but they’ve lost their ability to order the world”
That’s the essence of the present moment. We are witnessing not only a change of context but the simultaneous alteration of the foundations on which the international system was built. At the same time, changes are underway in terms of rules, economic dependencies, power relations, technological balances, and forms of political competition. In such a landscape, inertia ceases to be prudent and becomes a form of strategic blindness.
For decades, Europe operated within a relatively predictable framework. The international order that emerged after World War II offered a set of institutions, alliances, and balances that (despite their contradictions) made it possible to contain competition among powers and to reduce the risk of direct confrontation. Globalization was interpreted as a process of gradual integration — economic interdependence as a guarantee of stability, and the expansion of liberal democracy as a practically irreversible trend.
This framework hasn’t vanished overnight, but it has ceased to structure international reality in effective ways. The problem extends beyond the emergence of new powers and encompasses the erosion of the very foundations of our former order. The relationship between economic power, military power, and political legitimacy is again contested, and the international system is entering an inevitable phase of instability.
“The problem goes beyond the rise of new powers and affects the deterioration of the very foundations of our prior order”
Europe’s principal challenge lies less in change itself than in the difficulty of fully absorbing such a magnitude of change. Resorting to inherited categories to interpret a radically different environment is not a sign of stability but a sign of strategic mismatch. Effective foreign policy begins with a precise diagnosis. That diagnosis requires us to accept that today’s world is more competitive, more fragmented, and less regulated than Europe would prefer.
Defending one’s principles requires a proper understanding of the actual terrain on which those principles must be upheld. If an analysis doesn’t adapt to reality, politics becomes rhetoric.
Geopolitics of dependency
Geopolitical reconfiguration constitutes the first axis of this transformation. The international system is moving toward a clearly multipolar order in which several powers openly compete for influence, access to strategic resources, and the ability to define the rules of the game. Yet this redistribution of power hasn’t been accompanied by a new framework for shared governance. On the contrary: it coincides with the gradual weakening of multilateralism and with the return of more direct, more transactional, and less institutionalized mechanisms of power.
The present era can thus be seen as a phase of international interregnum. The old order loses its effectiveness, but the new one has not yet emerged. In such periods, gray zones proliferate, as do hybrid rivalries and the dynamics of indirect confrontation.
“The international system is evolving toward an increasingly evident multipolarity in which several powers openly compete”
Against this backdrop, a form of competition is solidifying that echoes imperial dynamics. Sometimes it takes the familiar form of territorial occupation, as seen in Ukraine, but it also operates through the capacity to project power via economic, technological, financial, and regulatory instruments. Dependencies are wielded as pressure points, supply chains become instruments of influence, and critical technologies become agents of strategic control. Coercion takes on more diffuse but no less effective shapes.
Europe is particularly exposed to this transformation. On one side, it faces a direct threat in its eastern neighborhood, where Russian aggression has revived conventional warfare on the continent, challenging the core principles of European security. On the other side, it observes a drastic reshaping of the role of the United States, whose foreign policy has shifted toward a logic of immediate, transactional national interests, often accompanied by scorn for its traditional alliances.
The consequence is the loss of Europe’s strategic automaticity. While we should avoid a dramatic rupture that would multiply risks, the transatlantic relationship has been permanently altered. The strategic convergence that existed in the latter half of the 20th century, structurally anchored by the Cold War, has ended. Cohesive interests will persist, but they’ll be more contingent, more negotiated, and less permanent than in the past decades.
In this new setting, strategic dependence is no longer sustainable, for reasons of simple realism rather than ideology. Europe requires its own capability to act precisely when other players choose not to move in the same direction.
“Russian aggression has reanimated conventional warfare on the continent, calling into question the fundamental principles of European security”
The temptation to interpret this new environment through the lens of closed blocs — the West against the rest — is also profoundly limiting. That reading oversimplifies a much more complex reality, and it unnecessarily constrains Europe’s maneuvering space. A growing portion of the world does not identify with that dichotomy and refuses to be trapped within its logic of rigid alignment. For middle powers, insisting on that frame does not broaden alliances: it narrows them.
Moreover, this evolution is tied to an equally profound economic transformation. Globalization no longer operates under the depoliticized efficiency logic of recent decades. Today it is shaped by security concerns, technological rivalry, and strategic competition. Trade, energy, infrastructure, and data have ceased to be solely economic domains and have become central dimensions of power.
This profoundly alters the assumptions on which Europe built much of its economic model. For years, it was believed that trade liberalization and global integration would yield shared prosperity and political stability. It is now clear that interdependence also brings vulnerability. Critical dependencies can be exploited, supply chains disrupted, and competitive advantages redefined through policy decisions.
Economic neutrality has vanished.
In this new environment, the dominant European economic paradigm shows signs of exhaustion. The idea that the market alone can guarantee efficient allocation no matter the circumstances becomes untenable when other powers actively use industrial policy, technological control, large subsidies, and strategic intervention to steer outcomes.
The debate can no longer be reduced to intervention versus non-intervention. The decisive question is whether Europe has a coherent strategy for effective intervention.
European sovereignty in a multipolar world
This diagnosis calls for rethinking the balance between openness and protection, competitiveness and resilience, markets and public capacity. Rather than copying others’ models, Europe must craft its own strategy, tailored to its own traits. Economic autonomy does not mean isolation. It means the capacity to decide within an environment of conflictive interdependence.
“The idea that the market alone can guarantee efficient allocation in whatever circumstance becomes meaningless”
To this dual transformation we can add a third change that strikes at the heart of Europe’s democratic systems. Liberal democracies are experiencing mounting tensions stemming from economic, technological, and cultural changes that reshape our traditional channels of political mediation in deep ways. The rise of large digital platforms with the power to influence the public square has introduced an unprecedented dimension to democratic competition.
At the same time, authoritarian movements and illiberal forces are increasingly operating across borders. They pool resources, narratives, and strategies, taking full advantage of a globally connected digital ecosystem. Democracy is being eroded not only from the outside, but also from within.
Ultimately, all of these dynamics converge in a fourth transformation: the loss of relative centrality by the West. The international system is being reorganized around new poles of power that do not necessarily share European priorities, interests, or historical frames. This does not automatically imply obsolescence, but it does demand deep adaptation.
Europe has ceded its position as the central organizing force of the international system and has become one among several relevant actors operating within it.
“Regulatory capacity is still an important asset, but it depends more and more on our ability to project economic, technological, and geopolitical power”
Here arises one of the West’s main strategic difficulties: the persistence of a worldview that remains far too self-referential. Regulatory capacity remains valuable, but its effectiveness increasingly depends on our ability to project economic, technological, and geopolitical power. If it is not accompanied by influence, rules and norms lose their force.
The response cannot be withdrawal. It must be to engage in strategic redefinition.
First, our response must revolve around the notion of effective European sovereignty. Sovereignty does not mean retreat into national competencies alone but the construction of our collective decision-making capacity. In a world dominated by great powers, scale matters. And the only scale that can sustain a genuine capacity to shape outcomes for European citizens is the continental scale.
This entails advancing integration and the single market, where our real power resides: defense, energy, industry, finance, artificial intelligence, critical technologies, and strategic infrastructures. It also includes the creation of common financial instruments capable of supporting long-term investments and reducing structural dependencies.
Sovereignty is not a political statement but the cumulative result of strategic choices sustained over time.
In addition, Europe must redefine its place in geopolitics and the global economy. Diversifying its relationships has become a structural necessity, to lessen vulnerabilities and to widen room for maneuver. In a world of asymmetric interdependencies, less dependence on any single actor is a key element of autonomy.
Here Europe must abandon both naivety and the binary logic of automatic alignment. The emerging world will not be organized around two closed blocs — it will be a space of shifting balances, flexible affiliations, and relationships that are at once competitive and cooperative.
“This architecture for strategic diversification will allow Europe to broaden its room for maneuver in an increasingly competitive and fragmented world”
It is sensible for Europe to articulate a repositioning strategy grounded in its own internal relationships and in cooperation with other actors capable of defending our shared interests and contributing to the formation of a new multilateralism: Brazil, Mexico, India, and China. More than a separate bloc or a formal alliance, this architecture for strategic diversification will enable Europe to widen its maneuvering space in a world that is increasingly competitive and fragmented.
Brazil represents for Europe a crucial partner in the global reorganization of energy, industry, and climate action and in the rebuilding of multilateralism. Ratifying the EU-Mercosur agreement will strengthen our ties with South America’s leading power and consolidate our links with a region essential to the green transition, critical minerals, and food security — all amid growing geopolitical competition over influence and investment.
Mexico occupies a distinctive position thanks to its industrial integration into North America and its rising geoeconomic weight. Modernizing the EU-Mexico Global Agreement offers Europe an occasion to fortify our strategic, economic, and technological ties and to access new transatlantic value chains in a setting of industrial diversification and reduced dependency.
India embodies the multipolar autonomy typical of rising great powers: cooperation, but without automatic alignment. The push to finalize the association agreement between the EU and India at record speed underscores New Delhi’s growing importance as a premier economic, technological, and geopolitical partner; it also signals Europe’s need to strengthen its presence in the Indo-Pacific.
Relations with China will serve as the true test of Europe’s strategic autonomy. Europe must shape its policy toward Beijing according to its own interests, not to accommodate the priorities of other powers. This will require combining cooperation with firmness, demanding reciprocity, ensuring fair competition, and maintaining stable channels of dialogue while pragmatically managing differences.
Europe cannot afford to act with naivety toward China, nor can it pursue systemic confrontation. Europe’s aim is to promote its industrial base and defend its economic engagement, while pursuing cooperation on major global challenges that can only be effectively addressed through collaboration between Europe and China.
This approach will be especially crucial given the risk of Europe getting caught between two concurrent pressures: the threat from Russia in the East and the potential for increasingly transactional policies from a U.S. that is less committed to European stability. In that context, the expansion of relationships and the diversification of interdependencies are more than mere tactical options; from a strategic viewpoint, they are necessities of the highest order.
Because in a multipolar world, holding multiple options amounts to a geopolitical insurance policy.
But no foreign policy will be credible if Europe first corrects its own internal constraints. The European Union still faces enormous challenges in making timely decisions, aligning positions, and translating its economic weight into effective political capacity. Institutional fragmentation is diminishing its effectiveness precisely when the international context calls for greater agility and strategic clarity.
Europe must reach decisions more swiftly, take bigger political risks, and abandon the illusion that permanent ambiguity can be a sustainable strategy. In international politics, indecision isn’t neutral — it has consequences.
Europe still possesses exceptional assets: its economic scale, technological prowess, regulatory power, institutional stability, and its unique historical experience of the costs of conflict. But assets are not preserved by inertia; they depend on the ability to understand the historical moment in which they operate.
Because the great transition is already underway. The balance that arose after 1945 has ceased to bring order to the world; at the same time, the new order has yet to be born. In a vacuum such as this, powers reposition themselves, dependencies become weapons, and wars no longer appear impossible.
Europe is therefore confronting a unique and historic responsibility: to contribute to constructing a new international balance without waiting for a fresh catastrophe to make it possible.
