Vassilis Ntousas / Mar 2025
_Photo: Shutterstock_
The events of the past few weeks underscore a stark reality: the world is becoming more dangerous, fragmented, and increasingly hostile to the European Union’s values and interests.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has not only reintroduced high-intensity warfare to the continent but has also shattered decades-old security assumptions. The war’s very rationale is deeply flawed, reinforcing the trend that hard power—not diplomacy alone—now increasingly shapes the global order. And the Kremlin is hardly alone in exploiting, fueling, and celebrating this shift.
Meanwhile, despite the volatility in its immediate neighbourhood, the EU continues to struggle to assert a meaningful geopolitical presence. And of course, as the world watches the unfolding of the new Trump administration’s first 100 days, one would be hard-pressed to find aspects of the transatlantic partnership left unchallenged by Washington—Europe’s most important security partner—as it embraces unpredictability, transactionalism and disruption.
For the EU, the problem is not just _what_ is happening but also _how_ it is happening. As a Union committed to cooperation, multilateralism, and a rules-based order not dictated by might, these developments seem stranger than fiction—defying not just the bloc's expectations but also its traditional approach to foreign policy, making it even harder for Europe to respond effectively.
The EU’s challenge is compounded not only by the oft-cited culprits—internal divisions and bureaucratic sluggishness—but also by a cautious approach that has repeatedly signaled the need to adapt to the times, yet has so far failed to translate into sufficiently meaningful change. In 2019, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to lead a “geopolitical Commission”. While progress has been made—see, for instance, the creation of the European Peace Facility or the partial energy decoupling from Russia—Brussels needs to move the needle more decisively. French President Emmanuel Macron has repeatedly declared Europe’s “age of naivety” over, but reality suggests otherwise. Likewise, former EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell frequently urged the bloc to learn “the language of power”, yet that goal remains elusive.
_What Europe Must Do_
The first area of action is the most obvious one. The idea that Europe must strengthen its defence capabilities has long been a cliché, but the EU no longer has the luxury of treating it as anything less than a must. There is growing momentum—from various tracks of high-level security talks and the recent special European Council summit on defence to the European Commission’s ‘ReArm Europe’ initiative. Adding to the list of welcome steps, Germany’s future coalition partners have stated their intent to reform the country’s debt brake to unlock and boost defense spending.
But momentum alone is not enough—it must translate into sustained spending and long-term action beyond short-term political shocks and cycles. NATO remains and should remain central to European security, yet there is ample room for the EU to develop its own credible and complementary defence capabilities. Europe spending more and better on defence is not about appeasing Washington but about strengthening NATO, supporting allies like Ukraine, and ultimately ensuring European security. And crucially, this is not just a question of funding but also of addressing the chronic structural problems of Europe’s fractured defence landscape.
Secondly, the EU needs an economic strategy that meets the world as it is, not as the bloc wishes it to be. EU institutions are well aware of this, and several steps already taken—such as the European Chips Act, the Critical Raw Materials Act, and the Anti-Coercion Instrument—demonstrate the tools the EU can and should wield, while continuing to defend trade openness and expand its trade agreements, as seen in the case of Mercosur. Balancing these two goals will not always be easy, but ignoring either one is not realistic. Building on the progress made, grounding a new EU strategy in current geopolitical dynamics now requires bolder and faster actions to secure supply chains, expand domestic industrial capacity, and protect European states, businesses, and citizens from undue economic pressures—wherever these pressures may originate.
Finally, in an era dominated by information manipulation and propaganda, an equally urgent task for the EU is to more boldly recalibrate how it views and defends itself in the information space. Information integrity is fundamental for democracy and essential for better decision-making. Yet, what we are witnessing today is an expanding range of authoritarian and geopolitical forces aggressively attacking, meddling in, and disrupting our democracies in increasingly brazen ways, undermining cohesion and limiting space for constructive debate and effective decision-making both within and beyond European borders.
The past few years have seen significant groundwork laid in the fight against foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI), both by the EEAS and at the Member State level. At the same time, however, the threats have worsened and metastasized. Therefore, while the renewed focus on security and defense issues is entirely warranted and welcome, the important discussions and decisions before us on this front should not be detached from the critical fight against FIMI. This is where a meaningful part of the adversarial game is played at home and abroad, and Europe must both better secure itself and defend against increasingly malign, aggressive, and sophisticated operations that take aim at the very fabric of our societies.
The European Commission’s European Democracy Shield, to be unveiled later this year, must therefore continue this work with the ambition and resources necessary to meet the scale of the threat. And at a more political level, the EU and Member States should better integrate efforts to expose malign influence operations into their foreign policy modus operandi, while increasing their backing of counter-FIMI initiatives and the counter-FIMI expert community—both integral in understanding and countering these threats. Crucially, the bloc should also gradually become more assertive in calling out not just the operations, but the adversaries behind them—again, wherever they may come from.
_Will Europe Act?_
In meeting the vast majority of the challenges it faces, Europe is far from powerless. It holds vast economic, regulatory, and diplomatic influence, alongside significant military capabilities within its member states. The issue is therefore not a lack of power—it is a lack of political will to wield, sharpen, and expand that power where necessary.
But if the past few weeks have shown anything, perhaps an even more important and timely question than _what_ Europe can do is _whether_ it will do what it needs to do. Easier said than done, of course, but in this stranger-than-fiction scenario unfolding, concrete actions are necessary to complete the journey toward geopolitical maturity if the bloc wants to continue writing its own script. As difficult as it is to accept, the world has changed, and Europe must change with it.
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