Eighty Years After WWII, Post-American Europe Lacks a Post-American Agenda

• Commentary Europe and Global Governance
  by Giovanni Grevi

The 80^th anniversary of the end of World War II (WWII) in Europe evokes the defining choices that shaped the continent for decades. It also coincides with the hollowing out of the transatlantic partnership that has long underpinned the European order. As Trump's America alienates Europe, a post-American consensus is emerging across the continent, but a post-American European agenda remains elusive.

After WWII, the US became a resident power in Europe to prevent the Soviet Union from taking over the continent. It thereby created the strategic space where the political project of European integration could take root and thrive. The values at the basis of this project were shared across the Atlantic: freedom, openness and welfare. The doctrine of containment was not simply a return to balance of power politics, but it was framed as a struggle against authoritarianism, in support of the liberal principles that the US embodied.

America's engagement in Europe outlasted the end of the Cold War because it rested on these strategic and normative foundations. Expanding the so-called liberal international order (despite America's inclination to bypass rules when expedient) was central to US national interest, and a likeminded Europe was an essential component of this grand strategy. Today, the paradigm change in transatlantic affairs reflects the deliberate rejection of these foundational assumptions by the Trump administration.

Trump's 'half-Palmerston' act and Europe

President Trump and his allies are aggressively promoting an illiberal agenda at home, which they share with illiberal forces abroad. On a geostrategic level, President Trump is poorly executing a 'half-Palmerston' act. The XIX century statesman famously claimed that imperial Britain had no perpetual friends or enemies, only permanent interests. In Trump's worldview, however, not just partners, but also interests are highly transactional, except for the overriding goal of keeping America 'first'.

In this framework, Europe is not a priority: it is a trade rival, an annoying norm-setter and a secondary geopolitical theatre. The war in Ukraine is perceived as a distraction from resetting US relations with Russia, in a world of competition and deals among those who 'hold the cards'. The erosion of the transatlantic partnership is just one manifestation of Washington's broader, self-defeating sabotage international order that the US and Europe largely built. The global economic turmoil unleashed by Trump's tariffs agenda is a prime example of this drift.

Europe's uneven post-American consensus

Most in Europe have by now grasped the scope of the problem, and a post-American consensus is consolidating in many European capitals. This consensus rests on the recognition that Europeans can no longer depend on the US as the bedrock of their security and prosperity. This is not what Europeans wished for, but the conclusion that they are drawing from the track record of the Trump administration. However, this acknowledgement does not translate into a shared agenda for a post-American Europe.

The post-American consensus features many nuances, given the diversity of Europe's political and strategic cultures, as well as the different degrees of dependency on the US. France's sense of vindication of long-standing gallic scepticism of America's motives does not resonate in Berlin, where Washington's antagonistic turn has shaken deeply-ingrained beliefs in the ineluctability of transatlantic alignment. In Eastern European countries, the emerging consensus comes with considerable angst. For them, the US defence commitments through NATO have amounted to a life insurance against the threat posed by Russia.

The emerging consensus is uneven across Europe. Self-professed Trump champions, such as Hungary's Prime Minister Orban or Rumanian presidential candidate Simion, endorse Trump's policies precisely because they weaken the fabric of liberal Europe that they want to tear apart. Italy's Prime Minister Meloni, positioning herself as an aspirant bridge-builder, walks a tightrope, leveraging her ideological affinity to President Trump to paper over the transatlantic rift and avoid difficult choices ahead. These efforts, however, corroborate the underlying recognition that Trump's Washington is disconnecting from Europe in ways that affect Europe's security and economic growth. According to various recent polls, a majority of European citizens consider Trump a threat to peace and security in Europe and even an enemy of the continent, while favourable attitudes towards the US have fallen since the outset of the new administration.

Despite awareness of the state of play, nothing in the post-American consensus prevents engagement with Washington, which both EU institutions and national leaders are pursuing. It is obviously in Europe's (and indeed the mutual) interest to keep some sort of transactional partnership on track, exploring ways to avert a trade war, contribute to a durable peace in Ukraine and build a much more European NATO. Reaching out to the Trump's administration is, however, largely an exercise in damage limitation. Surely a necessary one, but far from sufficient to reset Europe's own agenda.

The post-American consensus appears in fact thicker in diagnosing the new context than in prescribing what to do about it. Talk about European sovereignty or strategic autonomy has made a comeback, and extended well beyond Paris or Brussels. Germany's new Chancellor Merz made it a priority to progressively "achieve independence" from the US. The problem, however, is that this is not 'performative' speech - these words do not produce effects by themselves as a declaration of marriage, or war, do. European sovereignty - the ability to achieve outcomes - requires jointness, consistency and resources.

A post-American European order?

Europeans must define the perimeter of their future and are faced with two options: the nation state or European integration. Most leaders would concur that European integration is the only viable solution to deliver peace, prosperity and progress for their citizens. Few, however, have been prepared to draw the consequences of that conclusion. The task for Europe is to establish a post-American European order, namely one that does not rely on American leadership, while pursuing cooperation with the US when possible. The shape of such order is, however, yet to be defined.

Since WWII, the US have not only structured the European security order through NATO, via their military footprint in Europe and extended nuclear deterrence, but also played a critical role in Europe's broader political order. Europeans have often felt more comfortable with American primacy than with each others' priorities. The presence of the US reassured Germany's neighbours at the time of German re-unification. Countries in Eastern Europe have counted on the US to keep in check the drive by Western European capitals to partner with Russia with little regard for their concerns, before the Ukraine war. As a member of the EU until Brexit, the UK leveraged its special relationship with Washington to prevent the EU from evolving into a more autonomous political actor, beyond market integration. For about three decades after the Cold war, Germany mobilised its two most important partnerships, with the US and with France, to maximise its economic interests at the lowest possible security cost, through a mix of European integration and transatlantic cooperation.

In short, Europeans have outsourced to the US not only their defence but also, to some extent, the management of their differences, balancing out respective interests on pivotal issues. This point reveals the scale of the political challenge that they are confronting when considering the implications of the Transatlantic disconnect. The post-American consensus can lead to a post-American order or to a post-American void, which other powers would assuredly fill. To avoid that, Europeans ought to re-shore full ownership of their own political order and shape a truly strategic agenda. As trust across the Atlantic wanes, they must entrust each other with their future.

Rising to the task

Having launched a revolutionary project of political integration alongside America's hegemonic role after WWII, Europeans must now complete the job on their own. The current EU institutional agenda targets some of the right priorities, but it unclear whether European countries will summon the political will to develop and accomplish this agenda, making it theirs. Drawing on the Letta, Draghi and Niinistö reports, the Commission has been playing a proactive role to nudge member states to join forces, most recently through the Competitiveness Compass and the White Paper on European Defence. However, the pace of change falls far short of requirements.

Is Europe jointly investing in its digital sovereignty on anywhere near the necessary scale? Can the EU be expected to help deliver European public goods with a budget just above 1% of the Union's GDP? Are Europeans willing and able to expand and harness the global role of the Euro? Is a leap forward in sight for the integration of Europe's defence industry and armed forces? There is a clear risk that a post-American Europe exhausts itself in seamless crisis management: a recipe for decline.

Those who aim to advance European integration need to make choices as transformative as 80 years ago. This is vital not only to withstand global power politics and deter Russia, but also to cement the popular legitimacy of the European project. It is the task of leaders to produce a vision of the future centered on what to strive for, not just what to brace for, and to implement it. The gap between the leaders' rhetoric about Europe's watershed moment and the incremental, half-hearted solutions they propose to cope with it undermines their credibility, while fuelling insecurity and nationalism.

As a common front emerges, involving nationalist populist forces across the Atlantic pitted against liberal ones, the latter are approaching a reverse-Juncker moment. In the midst of the Eurozone financial crisis, the former Commission President quipped: "We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it." Current pro-European leaders face a potentially even more disruptive situation, but the politics have changed. If leaders believe that empowering Europe is critical to shape a post-American order, not doing what they say should be done is the safest way to discredit their agenda, and lose further political ground. In other words, Europe can offer national leaders the tools to remedy their fragility at home, if they decide to harness its potential.

Searching for leadership

With the US shedding their leadership role and adopting a self-harming, hyper-nationalistic posture, Europe cannot ignore fundamental questions about the pillars of European sovereignty. It must address the fiscal, defence, technological and institutional requirements to define its own course. A sovereign European agenda fully involves cooperation with partners and is not alternative to preserving a workable transatlantic partnership and deepening it, if and when Washington is interested in doing so. However, it is a pre-condition for not letting Europe's choices and priorities be subjected to drastic twists in volatile US politics, and to adversarial measures.

Germany's commitment to connect its national reform and investment agenda with Europe's, in ways that reinforce both, will be crucial to create a new political momentum and generate new resources, including through joint borrowing and an adequate EU multi-annual budget. Chancellor Merz's visits to Paris and Warsaw on his first day in office mark a first important step to structure the new political spine of Europe. The imperative is to mobilise shared leadership to meet the expectations of disgruntled electorates, as opposed to letting fraught domestic politics preclude joint efforts.

Differences will not dissipate overnight: negotiating and implementing transformative change among several EU member states will always raise thorny issues. But setting out a transformative political agenda will provide a much needed sense of purpose: a narrative of opportunity and progress backed up by tangible investments to deliver European public goods. Further shaping this agenda will require a collective assumption of responsibility via targeted European Council meetings as well as cooperation through other formats for deeper integration, delivering results directed to strengthen the EU as a whole.