The Europe we want

In the presentation of issue 229 of Política Exterior, extraordinarily organized by Belén Becerril, catetrática de Derecho Internacional Público y Relaciones Internacionales de la Universidad CEU-San Pablo, y la sazón, director of the magazine, three invitees who will also participate in this issue, I said what made me think.

Enrico Letta formulated the difference that renews the European dilemma: real oppression in the face of oppression false. The first is the effective ability to influence markets, energy, defense or technology.

The second is the illusion of national control in a global environment where states themselves are hardly a burden. The paradox is evident. Europe has strategic autonomy but continues to function as a patchwork of 27 national decisions.

Ayer, as he predicted in his 2024 report, read the expression in economic terms: the completion of the capital market, it is decided, to have real financial power; act as one in defense without authorizing third parties; create the fifth freedom of knowledge and connectivity; y try to use regulations instead of directives to avoid fragmentation.

Power is shared in the EU; nadie, for eccentrics, that is, check the conjunto

But there is something deeper behind it. What I read at the top of the tape is the need for operational unity and that the idea of ​​shared sovereignty is not a question, but rather the only way to restore it. Whether it may be obvious or not, but it is a topic that you need to reconsider.

I read further a provocative argument that I never minded. The European Union is not happy with the “American risk”. In the United States, an elected mayor can put someone in the presidency who is capable of radically changing the reputation of the country.

Power is shared in the EU; nadie, for eccentrics, that is, check the conjunto. It is certain. However, this small amount of dispersion, which guarantees stability, also limits the action capacity. Europe is resilient but slow and not always effective.

Pablo García Berdoy raised an even more vexing question, such as the observation that European irrelevance is not a technical but rather a political problem. And even more provocative was the claim that voters should demand from their governments that the Union form an explicit part of their national project. Unthinkable in a country where reality is the real deal.

Use Europe when it’s convenient and blame it when it’s annoying. This is ambiguous, erodes legitimacy and dilutes accountability.

If Europe is structural to our prosperity, it must also be included in the national political debate

He also noted another symptom that everyone is aware of: the growing politics of what has emerged as a regulatory architecture that must be secured and stimulate the free economic activity of European citizens.

The explanation for this mutation is that any planned topic is transferred to the field of guerrilla warfare, and this effect also contaminated the regulatory bodies, which eventually lost their technical character. And the Union, which was primarily a legal project, risks turning into an ideological scenario if it does not.

Ana Palacio, on the other hand, focuses on the transatlantic relationship and the realization that soft power is not enough. Standards and trade are no substitute for industrial capacitysecure energy or coordinated defense. Europe wants to be a geopolitical actor, but it continues to act as a regulatory power.

Great expectations, little capacity, the name of cooperation in this number of Professor Becerril. In his words: “He hopes the EU will create problems for those without powers”.

This imbalance creates other phenomena. When the external pressure increases, someone takes up the space that the skills do not take up. The President of the Commission met again with the President of the United States at the White House, although she is not formally the President of the State. I want to think that this is not a personal abuse, but rather a symptom of a structure that I want to project together without fully deciding how to use it.

Europe cannot continue to oscillate between symbolic dominance and incomplete integration. Either you accept that sharing skills is a condition of real power, or you continue to pile on ambitious statements with modest results.

Because the world does not hope. And irrelevance is an option It is very real when expectations systematically exceed capabilities.

Now, well, Where do we ask European citizens?

We are concerned about Europe’s irrelevance in 21st century geopolitics, but we rarely evaluate our political decisions with the same weight. We vote in the home group, discuss in the partisan group, and analyze in the emotional group.

In the block world, choosing national projects without a European project has second- and third-order effects: in the ability to finance our businesses, in our energy costs, in the strength of our industry, in our job opportunities.

This means that irrelevance grows slowly from within, every time we vote, as if the European stamp were an accessory. If Europe is structural to our prosperity, it must also be included in the national political debate.

No more calling him out when it’s convenient, no more blaming him when he blackmails. Demanding a European vision from our governments is not idealism; It is a democratic responsibility. And voting without thinking about that vision has consequences.

The question is not only in Europe that we are asking. The question is, are we willing to vote when we think about it.