EU, the crisis of the idealistic and normative model and soft-policy

It's 2025, and we're witnessing a slow death throes for the institutions of the international and multilateral liberal order born in the middle of the last century. It was in this context of progress and prosperity, of human, civil, and political rights, of diplomacy and Western peace, that the European Communities project was born—a liberal, idealistic, normative, and regulatory project. Everything proceeded normally until the 1970s, when the Bretton Woods system—that is, the gold standard based on the dollar—was declared to be over. Currencies shifted to a floating exchange rate regime, and the European Economic Community began to refer to the monetary snake, the European monetary system, the exchange rate mechanism, and the European accounting unit (ECU). In 1992, the Maastricht Treaty was the European response to recent geopolitical changes, namely the end of the Cold War, German unification, and the collapse of the Soviet Union. The European project advanced in its integration process, thus giving rise to the internal market, economic, social, and territorial cohesion, and the single currency, the euro, which entered into circulation in 2002. Between 1992 and the great crisis of 2007/2008, we witnessed a type of Western unilateralism that left profound marks on the system of international relations, particularly in neighboring Russia, which saw not only its Eurasian empire crumble but also NATO and the European Union expand toward Eastern Europe and its borders. It is therefore not surprising that 2008, 2014, and 2022 were clear signs that the geopolitics of proximity was not going through a good moment. Meanwhile, the US and China gradually shifted the main geopolitical axis of their foreign policy to the Indo-Pacific region, thus relegating Euro-Atlantic and Eurasian relations to the background.

Having arrived here, I can only state that, faced with a constellation of great powers founded on a nationalist, populist, warmongering, and autocratic ideology, the beautiful and inspiring liberal, idealistic, and normative ideology of the European Union is now on the brink of collapse. Therefore, I leave, for later reflections, the 10 major questions, in simple terms, that currently face the construction of the European project:

1. More federal Europe or more intergovernmental Europe? A more federal Europe, with a European Senate as the second chamber of the European Parliament and a greater number of majority decisions, or a multi-speed intergovernmental Europe, with more Eurogroups, executive mission structures and intergovernmental directories?

1. More European defense within the NATO framework or more autonomous European defense? Greater political-military coordination and joint forces within the framework of NATO or greater geostrategic autonomy for the Union and Europe with their own political direction, joint forces and industry?

1. What techno-digital strategy for European security? A specific policy or diplomacy with major American and Chinese technology companies aimed at making joint investments in Europe, or a technology policy specific to European technology champions?

1. What energy policy and interconnection network does the European Union have? A common energy policy that focuses entirely on the network of European and extra-European alternative energy interconnections, or an energy network with variable geometry and various national energy speeds and mixes?

1. What industrial and technological policy for the European Union? A European industrial policy based on joint investments and financing as a commitment to research, innovation and reindustrialization in Europe and its strategic autonomy, or a mere regulatory and competition policy that accepts different national industrial policies?

1. What ecological and environmental transition and regulatory policy? An ecological and environmental transition policy that provides incentives and believes in good practices, sustainability metrics, and regulates market behavior, or a transition pact to promote the Great Transformation of the European ecosystem?
2. What social market economy in the European space? A post-Keynesian European social pillar that focuses on innovative demand-side and income-side policies, or a policy of joint supply-side investments that promote the reindustrialization of the internal market?
3. What expansion and neighborhood policy? A realistic policy of good neighborliness and cooperation with all neighbors, where economic diplomacy replaces sanctions, or a hardening and escalation of these relations toward a dangerous threshold of collective security?

1. What foreign policy, bilateral and multilateral, in the international framework? A foreign policy of international cooperation, trade and joint investment with third countries, or a foreign policy of areas of influence and power politics translated into sanctions and trade wars?

1. What fiscal and monetary policy for the European Union? A jointly coordinated budgetary and monetary policy, with more of its own revenue, an integrated capital market and European bond financing, or a Europe that is always suspicious of national public debt?

Final Note

I'll end as I began. We're living through a critical moment in the European Union's political sphere. Europe is wedged between an Atlantic power and a Eurasian power. Europe isn't a power on the geopolitical and geostrategic level. During Donald Trump's presidency, anything can happen. Will we continue to sail by sight, waiting for the storm to pass, or will we make serious, serious political decisions in the near future, within the next four years, that will somehow trigger the Great Transformation of the European Union, its geopolitical and geostrategic rebirth?

Between chance and necessity, what to do? I'll come back to that.