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Can we turn the tide? Europe’s Urgent Homework for 2025

The first 100 days of the new US presidency will also be crucial for the EU

It seems that the most iconic legislative achievement of the EU in 2024 has been the introduction of the mandatory semi-fixed cap on all disposable bottles, making the drinking out of such bottles now a profoundly irritating experience. The ‘EU cap’ is the perfect illustration of an institution that has lost its sense of purpose and direction because of ideology taking over from rationality, leading to inevitable decline.

Can the tide still be turned?

If Europe wants to reverse its self-inflicted economic, political and military decline and continue to matter in the emerging new world order that is currently being fast-tracked with or without its involvement, here are some items of vitally important homework that need to be concluded by Europeans in 2025.

1.        Get on board with the new US administration

Not getting on board pro-actively with the new powers-that-be in Washington has by now become dangerously self-defeating for the EU, whether one likes the new US president or not. Since Donald Trump’s decisive victory at the polls on November 5th, he has been swiftly building up his incoming team whilst preparing a wide range of far-reaching measures to be implemented domestically and internationally. The president-elect is using every opportunity to let his country and the rest of the world know what his ideas and plans are. From threats of massive tariffs on imported goods to talk of taking control and buying up of strategic territories such as the Panama Canal and Greenland, the cards that are being played are unconventional and at times wild. Whether or not it ever comes to any of this being implemented is beside the point: the incoming US president is deliberately creating nervousness because he is above all a dealmaker who is sounding out opportunities and testing negotiating positions. Dealmaking defines who Donald J. Trump is, as anyone can read on the very first page of his 1987 international bestseller “Trump – the Art of the Deal”:

“I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”

The last lines in the last chapter of the same book read:

“Don’t get me wrong. I also plan to keep making deals, big deals, and right around the clock”.

The new president’s life both in business and in politics has been defined around dealmaking. If we try to understand that, we will better understand the new US administration and the statements, decisions and policies that are coming our way.

When Trump threatens to impose tariffs on Canadian, Mexican or EU products or says that he would like to have Greenland because of its strategic importance, it is unlikely that he is threatening a prolonged trade war with Europe or the invasion of Danish sovereign territory (although he would probably be willing to do so if he thinks the interest of the United States requires it). He is rather throwing an opening gambit to start the process of negotiating some sort of enticing deal he envisages. In Trump’s America First philosophy, he sees it as his presidential duty to get his country much better deals than it currently has in his perception, whether in domestic or foreign policy and economic matters. He would for example like to have better terms for the use of the Panama Canal by US ships. There might also be lucrative gas- and oil reserves in Greenland that US companies could exploit, apart from its obvious strategic-military importance against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China and an already aggressive Russia, both of whom are actively sniffing around in that region.

Remember: Donald Trump gets ‘a kick’ out of making big deals, and he now wants to do this once more on behalf of the United States of America because he is convinced that his country is being taken advantage of, especially by its allies, trade partners and international organizations such as for example the WHO which he will likely take the US out of again upon assuming office. It will not be the only international body affected.

The mantra now repeated ad nauseam by most of our media outlets and publications that the new president doesn’t care much about the US’s traditional friends and the alliance that has existed with them since the end of World War II, like for example in the leader of the December 21st edition of the Economist, are however widely off the mark:

“All the while, the rivalry between countries siding with China and the American-led Western alliance has deepened, even as America has chosen as president a man whose commitment to that alliance is in doubt.”

Judging from the people tapped for the key foreign policy and security cabinet posts, there seems to be little indication of a drifting away from the Western alliance. The new president is neither a strong proponent of this crucial alliance, nor an opponent. In the language of America First and dealmaking he and his administration will recognize the current and potential benefits for the US of the Western alliance, as well as its lesser downsides, and they will simply try to get a better deal out of it. The new administration will for example continue the process of applying maximum pressure, commenced during Trump’s first term in office, forcing allies in NATO and beyond to take far more responsibility for their own security arrangements and military readiness, instead of allowing them to presuppose that the US will anyway take care of all that when necessary.

The NATO 2% norm is already history as Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General announced during his 12 December 2024 speech. It will soon move officially to 3% and then likely to 4%, if not 5%. South Korea and Japan will also have to contribute far more to their own security arrangements with the US. As discussed above, this pressure will also be felt on the economic front, where tariffs and the threat thereof are mostly a stick to get its trading partners to buy more US goods and services, thus reducing America’s trade deficit.

Getting on board means that Europe – if it wants to stay free and prosperous – has to deal actively with the new US administration on all the key areas that matter: energy, economy and security, as I already described in my earlier commentary. The key: offer the new president and his team deals that are seen to be good for the United States.

2.        End the Ukraine war

Irrespective of what future historians will conclude about what led to this horrendous war of fratricide on European soil, it seems clear to all save the Kremlin that after the massive loss of life amongst a whole generation of Ukrainian and Russian youth and beyond, every day of additional bloodshed is a crime against humanity. The only uplifting element of this conflict has been the remarkable courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people in the face of a war they never asked for.

Trump has long promised to negotiate an end to this war as soon as he takes office, but he has recently indicated that this might be more complicated than initially hoped for. All this points to a difficult road ahead for bringing an end to the carnage, especially when we consider that one thing is sure: the United States under President Trump will want to play as small a role as possible in enforcing a peace deal in Ukraine. Whilst Europe seems little prepared or willing to do so instead, the question remains as to how such a peace enforcement mission will look like? To any careful observer of history it should be abundantly clear that any agreement made with men like Putin will be prone to being constantly tested, undermined and finally ignored.

We should also not forget that Russia now has a war economy and is locked into that mode until at least 2029, thus providing credence to the widely held suspicion that a cessation of hostilities with Ukraine will only be used to rebuild and prepare Russia’s military for the next adventure that could for example be the closing of the Suwalki Gap, currently one of the most vulnerable spots of NATO territory on the border between Poland and Lithuania and squeezed between Belorussia and the Kaliningrad Oblast. The Suwalki Gap is the only land-route between NATO territory and its three Baltic members Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It would be relatively easy for the Russians to occupy it, or at least to stop EU and NATO land traffic through it. It would also be an Article 5 incident requiring a NATO response. A perfect incident for Russia to test the alliance’s resolve.

Therefore, although there is a very urgent need for a swift end to the slaughter in Ukraine, it should be a truly just and lasting peace. The prospects, however, for the durability of such a peace deal are bleak and require a long-term and robust European commitment to its own defence and security to ultimately be successful.

3.        Rebuild robust military deterrence

The past years and especially the past months we have observed in Europe an increasing divide between the pacifist and the warmongering parties in the debate on the Ukraine war and its repercussions for Europe. Broadly speaking, the pacifist party claims that Russia was basically provoked into a war by the West and that the war should be ended on any terms available to avoid further bloodshed. The warmongering party acts as if the EU is already at war and that everything should be done until Russia is defeated, even if this means fully dragging NATO countries’ military into the war in Ukraine. Both parties serve themselves from dangerously simplified rhetoric, failing to see the complicated historical and geopolitical forces at play that require careful consideration, military positioning and sensible diplomacy to avoid a full-fledged Third World War to break out.

Historians will have to decide at a later stage which of the two parties is closer to the truth. Today, we must instead look first at the hard facts on the ground. The most important one, apart from the unspeakable bloodshed and senseless destruction, is to fully realize with whom we are dealing here and act accordingly. We are dealing with a Kremlin leader who will stop at nothing to forward the imperial Russian dream he has long and openly espoused and enacted, to the detriment of European security, as Otto von Habsburg, longtime German MEP and eldest son of the late Emperor Karl of Austria, already pointed out explicitly as early as 2003. This was the time when the West was still foolishly enamoured by the ‘charming’ Mr. Putin, whilst President George W. Bush was infamously ‘looking into his eyes’ and trusting him. We only need to look at the bloodshed, destruction and separatism that has been created in the periphery of Russia since Putin came to power in 2000: the brutal Chechen wars, the conflict of Transnistria in Moldova, the war against Georgia and the resulting breakaway of its regions of South-Ossetia and Abkhazia, the war against Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of the Eastern Oblasts, as well as the downing of the civilian airliner MH17 in 2014.

Russia under this leadership will not stop until they are stopped either by whatever overwhelming force, or by massive military deterrence. The West has shown since the invasion by Russia of the Crimea peninsula in 2014 that it is unwilling and unable to employ such force –  apart from delivering weaponry, it is therefore highly unlikely that Ukraine will ever be able to defeat Russia militarily. Hence, the West only rests the option to build up a military deterrence so robust that Russia will not take the risk of militarily or otherwise provoking NATO once the Ukraine war has ended. For this deterrence to be achieved, one that enforces stability and peace in Europe as it did during the Cold War, NATO members will need to make it a top priority – like Poland has been doing – to strengthen their full suite of military capabilities, far beyond what is already being done. It should also become self-evident for all Europeans that if we want to avoid all-out war and live in peace and prosperity, we must all be willing to play our part. Reintroducing some form of compulsory military service is again on the table in Europe and will likely be reintroduced in the coming years across the continent where it does not already exist.

4.        Ditch DEI programs and review the Green Deal

Politico Magazine in its December 26th magazine edition ran a piece under the title “9 Political Issues That Bit the Dust This Year”. High on the list is the demise of DEI programs and how corporate America is now ditching these programs – soon to be followed by the new US government – as quickly as they can where only recently this ‘principled stand’ was the virtuous thing to do. Clearly, reality seems to have caught up with that specific ‘virtue’. Europe would do good to rapidly follow suit if it does not want to further weaken its competitiveness and effectiveness. Systemic discrimination needs to be rooted out on all levels of society, but DEI programs ultimately only introduce new forms of discrimination and kill the excellence needed to build up a functioning society.

Climate change has also become a rigid political ideology, instead of an important cause that calls for common sense action based on an ongoing scientific debate that also considers its economic and social impact and perspectives. Like was the case with Covid-19, ideologizing climate change has led to a situation where a certain narrative is declared “settled” science (no such thing exists of course, as science by its very nature is never settled) and any further debate on the merits is declared ‘anti-science’ whilst often destructive measures are pushed through that later turn out to be more damaging than the phenomenon they tried to respond to (think of lockdowns and school closures 2020-2023). The Green Deal is an example of this dynamic: whilst there is obviously the need to develop alternative energy sources that are less damaging to the environment, such measures need to be economically sustainable and not lead to the destruction of people’s livelihoods. By merely looking at the example of Germany – once the industrial heartland and the economic powerhouse of the EU – we can observe the disastrous economic consequences of a climate policy that becomes so blindly ideologized that it loses sight of reality as in the other important factors that need to be weighed in when climate policy decisions are being made.

The EU is on a path to not only repeat but also to maximize this mistake in the years to come if it does not seriously review and adapt the Green Deal as it stands today. Already in April of this year the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) called upon the European Commission for an urgent “review of the green transition targets and to ensure they will not be achieved at the expense of Europe’s industrial and social systems, workers’ well-being and the EU’s competitiveness.” Again, as with so many issues on the geopolitical scene, the election of Donald Trump as US president has only fast-tracked the need for the EU to deal with this issue effectively if it does not want to be left behind. It should also not be forgotten that under the presidency of Joe Biden, whilst ‘clean’ energy production was being increased, fossil-fuel energy sources continued to be developed and strongly grew as well.

5.        Revamp the economy

As I described in my earlier essay, the United States economy is by far the largest and most powerful in the world (26% of global GDP, with China and the EU following with a mere 17% each), not only leaving behind in competitiveness China but also the EU, especially in the areas of productivity and innovation. The 2024 Draghi report on EU Competitiveness summarizes the problem as follows:

“First – and most importantly – Europe must profoundly refocus its collective efforts on closing the innovation gap with the US and China, especially in advanced technologies. Europe is stuck in a static industrial structure with few new companies rising up to disrupt existing industries or develop new growth engines. In fact, there is no EU company with a market capitalisation over EUR 100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years, while all six US companies with a valuation above EUR 1 trillion have been created in this period. This lack of dynamism is self-fulfilling.”

Another major problem, as the Draghi report notes, is the heavy regulatory burden in the EU, making innovation, high productivity and as a result economic growth much harder to reignite and sustain. Again, we will see the opposite movement in the United States, since one of the key priorities the new Trump team will waste no time on implementing is to massively deregulate the US economy, further enhancing its competitiveness and where groundbreaking innovation will likely follow as a result. As also the Draghi report suggests, the EU needs to follow suit urgently, with at least a 25% reduction of regulatory burden required to even start having a positive economic impact.

With complete American energy independence that is set to increase under the new administration as of January 20th, where energy prices are already much lower than in the EU, this will further strengthen the competitiveness of the US economy in relation to the EU, the latter still being exclusively dependent on gas supplies from third countries such as the US, UK, Norway, Russia, Qatar and Azerbaijan. A dependence that is set to only increase if the above-mentioned Green Deal continues to be implemented without drastic changes needed to reflect new geopolitical and economic realities. Trump’s campaign pledge ‘drill baby drill’ will certainly be turned into policy by the new US administration as well, promising a continuation of that upwards trend whilst the EU is still not even close to energy independence. Will a rational approach finally overcome the self-defeating climate policies of the European Commission? Apart from innovation and deregulation It will be the key to the economic recovery and futureproofing of the EU, and it will require very bold and creative leadership to implement it.

Conclusion

There are of course many other major areas of homework that Europe needs to urgently take care of, such as illegal immigration, a disastrous demographic decline, pension reform, high payroll taxes and also more philosophical but critically important issues such as the threats from within to freedom, democracy and the Rule of Law about which I wrote in my October 2024 essay on ‘Friends and Enemies of Human Conscience’ and my December 2024 speech at the European Parliament on ‘The Meaning of Freedom and how to live it Today’.

Hopefully in one year’s time we will be able to look back on 2025 as the year when the EU was able to turn from its fixation on plastic bottle caps towards a firm recommitment and resulting action towards making Europe great (again :)) – a family of nations that in the words of Robert Schuman, knows that “world peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.” Those dangers are now bigger than ever before since the end of the Second World War and require common sense, common action and enduring European strength to be rebuilt. This should happen not with more centralized power in Brussels but nation by nation and institution by institution, starting however with the individual and communal responsibility every citizen must take today. Peace and prosperity begin here: in the human heart and its free mind.


The first 100 days of the new US presidency will also be crucial for the EU

It seems that the most iconic legislative achievement of the EU in 2024 has been the introduction of the mandatory semi-fixed cap on all disposable bottles, making the drinking out of such bottles now a profoundly irritating experience. The ‘EU cap’ is the perfect illustration of an institution that has lost its sense of purpose and direction because of ideology taking over from rationality, leading to inevitable decline.

Can the tide still be turned?

If Europe wants to reverse its self-inflicted economic, political and military decline and continue to matter in the emerging new world order that is currently being fast-tracked with or without its involvement, here are some items of vitally important homework that need to be concluded by Europeans in 2025.

1.        Get on board with the new US administration

Not getting on board pro-actively with the new powers-that-be in Washington has by now become dangerously self-defeating for the EU, whether one likes the new US president or not. Since Donald Trump’s decisive victory at the polls on November 5th, he has been swiftly building up his incoming team whilst preparing a wide range of far-reaching measures to be implemented domestically and internationally. The president-elect is using every opportunity to let his country and the rest of the world know what his ideas and plans are. From threats of massive tariffs on imported goods to talk of taking control and buying up of strategic territories such as the Panama Canal and Greenland, the cards that are being played are unconventional and at times wild. Whether or not it ever comes to any of this being implemented is beside the point: the incoming US president is deliberately creating nervousness because he is above all a dealmaker who is sounding out opportunities and testing negotiating positions. Dealmaking defines who Donald J. Trump is, as anyone can read on the very first page of his 1987 international bestseller “Trump – the Art of the Deal”:

“I don’t do it for the money. I’ve got enough, much more than I’ll ever need. I do it to do it. Deals are my art form. Other people paint beautifully on canvas or write wonderful poetry. I like making deals, preferably big deals. That’s how I get my kicks.”

The last lines in the last chapter of the same book read:

“Don’t get me wrong. I also plan to keep making deals, big deals, and right around the clock”.

The new president’s life both in business and in politics has been defined around dealmaking. If we try to understand that, we will better understand the new US administration and the statements, decisions and policies that are coming our way.

When Trump threatens to impose tariffs on Canadian, Mexican or EU products or says that he would like to have Greenland because of its strategic importance, it is unlikely that he is threatening a prolonged trade war with Europe or the invasion of Danish sovereign territory (although he would probably be willing to do so if he thinks the interest of the United States requires it). He is rather throwing an opening gambit to start the process of negotiating some sort of enticing deal he envisages. In Trump’s America First philosophy, he sees it as his presidential duty to get his country much better deals than it currently has in his perception, whether in domestic or foreign policy and economic matters. He would for example like to have better terms for the use of the Panama Canal by US ships. There might also be lucrative gas- and oil reserves in Greenland that US companies could exploit, apart from its obvious strategic-military importance against the backdrop of an increasingly assertive China and an already aggressive Russia, both of whom are actively sniffing around in that region.

Remember: Donald Trump gets ‘a kick’ out of making big deals, and he now wants to do this once more on behalf of the United States of America because he is convinced that his country is being taken advantage of, especially by its allies, trade partners and international organizations such as for example the WHO which he will likely take the US out of again upon assuming office. It will not be the only international body affected.

The mantra now repeated ad nauseam by most of our media outlets and publications that the new president doesn’t care much about the US’s traditional friends and the alliance that has existed with them since the end of World War II, like for example in the leader of the December 21st edition of the Economist, are however widely off the mark:

“All the while, the rivalry between countries siding with China and the American-led Western alliance has deepened, even as America has chosen as president a man whose commitment to that alliance is in doubt.”

Judging from the people tapped for the key foreign policy and security cabinet posts, there seems to be little indication of a drifting away from the Western alliance. The new president is neither a strong proponent of this crucial alliance, nor an opponent. In the language of America First and dealmaking he and his administration will recognize the current and potential benefits for the US of the Western alliance, as well as its lesser downsides, and they will simply try to get a better deal out of it. The new administration will for example continue the process of applying maximum pressure, commenced during Trump’s first term in office, forcing allies in NATO and beyond to take far more responsibility for their own security arrangements and military readiness, instead of allowing them to presuppose that the US will anyway take care of all that when necessary.

The NATO 2% norm is already history as Mark Rutte, the NATO Secretary General announced during his 12 December 2024 speech. It will soon move officially to 3% and then likely to 4%, if not 5%. South Korea and Japan will also have to contribute far more to their own security arrangements with the US. As discussed above, this pressure will also be felt on the economic front, where tariffs and the threat thereof are mostly a stick to get its trading partners to buy more US goods and services, thus reducing America’s trade deficit.

Getting on board means that Europe – if it wants to stay free and prosperous – has to deal actively with the new US administration on all the key areas that matter: energy, economy and security, as I already described in my earlier commentary. The key: offer the new president and his team deals that are seen to be good for the United States.

2.        End the Ukraine war

Irrespective of what future historians will conclude about what led to this horrendous war of fratricide on European soil, it seems clear to all save the Kremlin that after the massive loss of life amongst a whole generation of Ukrainian and Russian youth and beyond, every day of additional bloodshed is a crime against humanity. The only uplifting element of this conflict has been the remarkable courage and resilience of the Ukrainian people in the face of a war they never asked for.

Trump has long promised to negotiate an end to this war as soon as he takes office, but he has recently indicated that this might be more complicated than initially hoped for. All this points to a difficult road ahead for bringing an end to the carnage, especially when we consider that one thing is sure: the United States under President Trump will want to play as small a role as possible in enforcing a peace deal in Ukraine. Whilst Europe seems little prepared or willing to do so instead, the question remains as to how such a peace enforcement mission will look like? To any careful observer of history it should be abundantly clear that any agreement made with men like Putin will be prone to being constantly tested, undermined and finally ignored.

We should also not forget that Russia now has a war economy and is locked into that mode until at least 2029, thus providing credence to the widely held suspicion that a cessation of hostilities with Ukraine will only be used to rebuild and prepare Russia’s military for the next adventure that could for example be the closing of the Suwalki Gap, currently one of the most vulnerable spots of NATO territory on the border between Poland and Lithuania and squeezed between Belorussia and the Kaliningrad Oblast. The Suwalki Gap is the only land-route between NATO territory and its three Baltic members Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It would be relatively easy for the Russians to occupy it, or at least to stop EU and NATO land traffic through it. It would also be an Article 5 incident requiring a NATO response. A perfect incident for Russia to test the alliance’s resolve.

Therefore, although there is a very urgent need for a swift end to the slaughter in Ukraine, it should be a truly just and lasting peace. The prospects, however, for the durability of such a peace deal are bleak and require a long-term and robust European commitment to its own defence and security to ultimately be successful.

3.        Rebuild robust military deterrence

The past years and especially the past months we have observed in Europe an increasing divide between the pacifist and the warmongering parties in the debate on the Ukraine war and its repercussions for Europe. Broadly speaking, the pacifist party claims that Russia was basically provoked into a war by the West and that the war should be ended on any terms available to avoid further bloodshed. The warmongering party acts as if the EU is already at war and that everything should be done until Russia is defeated, even if this means fully dragging NATO countries’ military into the war in Ukraine. Both parties serve themselves from dangerously simplified rhetoric, failing to see the complicated historical and geopolitical forces at play that require careful consideration, military positioning and sensible diplomacy to avoid a full-fledged Third World War to break out.

Historians will have to decide at a later stage which of the two parties is closer to the truth. Today, we must instead look first at the hard facts on the ground. The most important one, apart from the unspeakable bloodshed and senseless destruction, is to fully realize with whom we are dealing here and act accordingly. We are dealing with a Kremlin leader who will stop at nothing to forward the imperial Russian dream he has long and openly espoused and enacted, to the detriment of European security, as Otto von Habsburg, longtime German MEP and eldest son of the late Emperor Karl of Austria, already pointed out explicitly as early as 2003. This was the time when the West was still foolishly enamoured by the ‘charming’ Mr. Putin, whilst President George W. Bush was infamously ‘looking into his eyes’ and trusting him. We only need to look at the bloodshed, destruction and separatism that has been created in the periphery of Russia since Putin came to power in 2000: the brutal Chechen wars, the conflict of Transnistria in Moldova, the war against Georgia and the resulting breakaway of its regions of South-Ossetia and Abkhazia, the war against Ukraine with the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of the Eastern Oblasts, as well as the downing of the civilian airliner MH17 in 2014.

Russia under this leadership will not stop until they are stopped either by whatever overwhelming force, or by massive military deterrence. The West has shown since the invasion by Russia of the Crimea peninsula in 2014 that it is unwilling and unable to employ such force –  apart from delivering weaponry, it is therefore highly unlikely that Ukraine will ever be able to defeat Russia militarily. Hence, the West only rests the option to build up a military deterrence so robust that Russia will not take the risk of militarily or otherwise provoking NATO once the Ukraine war has ended. For this deterrence to be achieved, one that enforces stability and peace in Europe as it did during the Cold War, NATO members will need to make it a top priority – like Poland has been doing – to strengthen their full suite of military capabilities, far beyond what is already being done. It should also become self-evident for all Europeans that if we want to avoid all-out war and live in peace and prosperity, we must all be willing to play our part. Reintroducing some form of compulsory military service is again on the table in Europe and will likely be reintroduced in the coming years across the continent where it does not already exist.

4.        Ditch DEI programs and review the Green Deal

Politico Magazine in its December 26th magazine edition ran a piece under the title “9 Political Issues That Bit the Dust This Year”. High on the list is the demise of DEI programs and how corporate America is now ditching these programs – soon to be followed by the new US government – as quickly as they can where only recently this ‘principled stand’ was the virtuous thing to do. Clearly, reality seems to have caught up with that specific ‘virtue’. Europe would do good to rapidly follow suit if it does not want to further weaken its competitiveness and effectiveness. Systemic discrimination needs to be rooted out on all levels of society, but DEI programs ultimately only introduce new forms of discrimination and kill the excellence needed to build up a functioning society.

Climate change has also become a rigid political ideology, instead of an important cause that calls for common sense action based on an ongoing scientific debate that also considers its economic and social impact and perspectives. Like was the case with Covid-19, ideologizing climate change has led to a situation where a certain narrative is declared “settled” science (no such thing exists of course, as science by its very nature is never settled) and any further debate on the merits is declared ‘anti-science’ whilst often destructive measures are pushed through that later turn out to be more damaging than the phenomenon they tried to respond to (think of lockdowns and school closures 2020-2023). The Green Deal is an example of this dynamic: whilst there is obviously the need to develop alternative energy sources that are less damaging to the environment, such measures need to be economically sustainable and not lead to the destruction of people’s livelihoods. By merely looking at the example of Germany – once the industrial heartland and the economic powerhouse of the EU – we can observe the disastrous economic consequences of a climate policy that becomes so blindly ideologized that it loses sight of reality as in the other important factors that need to be weighed in when climate policy decisions are being made.

The EU is on a path to not only repeat but also to maximize this mistake in the years to come if it does not seriously review and adapt the Green Deal as it stands today. Already in April of this year the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) called upon the European Commission for an urgent “review of the green transition targets and to ensure they will not be achieved at the expense of Europe’s industrial and social systems, workers’ well-being and the EU’s competitiveness.” Again, as with so many issues on the geopolitical scene, the election of Donald Trump as US president has only fast-tracked the need for the EU to deal with this issue effectively if it does not want to be left behind. It should also not be forgotten that under the presidency of Joe Biden, whilst ‘clean’ energy production was being increased, fossil-fuel energy sources continued to be developed and strongly grew as well.

5.        Revamp the economy

As I described in my earlier essay, the United States economy is by far the largest and most powerful in the world (26% of global GDP, with China and the EU following with a mere 17% each), not only leaving behind in competitiveness China but also the EU, especially in the areas of productivity and innovation. The 2024 Draghi report on EU Competitiveness summarizes the problem as follows:

“First – and most importantly – Europe must profoundly refocus its collective efforts on closing the innovation gap with the US and China, especially in advanced technologies. Europe is stuck in a static industrial structure with few new companies rising up to disrupt existing industries or develop new growth engines. In fact, there is no EU company with a market capitalisation over EUR 100 billion that has been set up from scratch in the last fifty years, while all six US companies with a valuation above EUR 1 trillion have been created in this period. This lack of dynamism is self-fulfilling.”

Another major problem, as the Draghi report notes, is the heavy regulatory burden in the EU, making innovation, high productivity and as a result economic growth much harder to reignite and sustain. Again, we will see the opposite movement in the United States, since one of the key priorities the new Trump team will waste no time on implementing is to massively deregulate the US economy, further enhancing its competitiveness and where groundbreaking innovation will likely follow as a result. As also the Draghi report suggests, the EU needs to follow suit urgently, with at least a 25% reduction of regulatory burden required to even start having a positive economic impact.

With complete American energy independence that is set to increase under the new administration as of January 20th, where energy prices are already much lower than in the EU, this will further strengthen the competitiveness of the US economy in relation to the EU, the latter still being exclusively dependent on gas supplies from third countries such as the US, UK, Norway, Russia, Qatar and Azerbaijan. A dependence that is set to only increase if the above-mentioned Green Deal continues to be implemented without drastic changes needed to reflect new geopolitical and economic realities. Trump’s campaign pledge ‘drill baby drill’ will certainly be turned into policy by the new US administration as well, promising a continuation of that upwards trend whilst the EU is still not even close to energy independence. Will a rational approach finally overcome the self-defeating climate policies of the European Commission? Apart from innovation and deregulation It will be the key to the economic recovery and futureproofing of the EU, and it will require very bold and creative leadership to implement it.

Conclusion

There are of course many other major areas of homework that Europe needs to urgently take care of, such as illegal immigration, a disastrous demographic decline, pension reform, high payroll taxes and also more philosophical but critically important issues such as the threats from within to freedom, democracy and the Rule of Law about which I wrote in my October 2024 essay on ‘Friends and Enemies of Human Conscience’ and my December 2024 speech at the European Parliament on ‘The Meaning of Freedom and how to live it Today’.

Hopefully in one year’s time we will be able to look back on 2025 as the year when the EU was able to turn from its fixation on plastic bottle caps towards a firm recommitment and resulting action towards making Europe great (again :)) – a family of nations that in the words of Robert Schuman, knows that “world peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it.” Those dangers are now bigger than ever before since the end of the Second World War and require common sense, common action and enduring European strength to be rebuilt. This should happen not with more centralized power in Brussels but nation by nation and institution by institution, starting however with the individual and communal responsibility every citizen must take today. Peace and prosperity begin here: in the human heart and its free mind.


The opinions expressed in this essay are not necessarily those of the organizations the author represents and have thus been written on a personal title.

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