{"id":82298,"date":"2025-09-18T08:14:34","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T06:14:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-lestiu-de-la-humiliacio-europea\/"},"modified":"2025-09-18T09:43:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T07:43:05","slug":"idees-dactualitat-lestiu-de-la-humiliacio-europea","status":"publish","type":"newspaper","link":"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-lestiu-de-la-humiliacio-europea\/","title":{"rendered":"Idees d’actualitat – The summer of European humiliation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In her recent State of the Union address<\/a>, the President of the European Commission used the figure of anaphora rhetoric to underline the dangerous moment Europe is currently experiencing: “Europe is in a fight. A fight for a continent that is whole and at peace. For a free and independent Europe. A fight for our values and our democracies. A fight for our liberty and our ability to determine our destiny for ourselves. Make no mistake \u2013 this is a fight for our future.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After the Alaska summit held in August between the presidents of the US and Russia, the “European mission” took place at the White House, where the main European leaders, together with President Zelensky, tried to reverse the dynamics of the meeting between Trump and Putin. The resulting image, however, was one of weakness and submission: yet another exercise in flattering the American president, aware that the resolution of the conflict and European security continue to depend on American military power and the moods of its leader.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is difficult to escape the feeling that the world is collapsing around us, the world we knew until now and which allowed Europe to live in peace and prosperity. It is also true that Europe has ignored the many signs that warned that this world would not last forever, that it was changing rapidly, with the unstoppable rise of China and Russia’s successive military aggressions in its neighbourhood, which openly challenged the Western order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The invasion of Ukraine was a warning, but at the time Joe Biden was still in the White House and assured that the United States was a reliable ally, that it would never leave Europe alone in the face of an expansionist Russia. Europe, however, was not prepared for the 180-degree turn in American foreign policy in this second term of Trump, which is having a sharp impact on the destruction of the old liberal international order. For Trump there is no West, no permanent allies, no defence of democracy. There is only the law of the strongest and the idea of dividing the world into zones of influence. With the fallacious argument that the old liberal order only served to make the whole world and, in the first place, the Allies and Europe take advantage of the US.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A world that has also seen Putin receiving honours by his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation<\/a>, along with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who had not visited China for seven years due to the permanent military tension on the Himalayan border. A summit whose real purpose was none other than to show the world that there can be a new international order opposed to the West, led by a China that proclaims itself faithful to multilateralism and the Charter of the United Nations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On this new chessboard where the different powers move their pawns, Europe is increasingly alone. Threatened by Russia, abandoned by Trump’s America, not knowing exactly what to do with Chinese ambition, which it classifies as a systemic rival without opposing a coherent strategy, dependent on the United States to guarantee its security and subjected to US blackmail in negotiations on tariffs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not to mention its role as a mere observer in the Middle East conflict. After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European geopolitical agenda prioritized the eastern flank, while Israel increased its strategy of regional expansion with the destruction of the Gaza Strip, increased repression and colonization in the West Bank, attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon, the brief war with Iran and the bombing of the Palestinian negotiating delegation in Doha. In this context, European contradictions have become more evident: for many months the president of the Commission sided with Israel, while the then high representative, Josep Borrell, and some states such as Spain and Ireland called for respect for human rights and a ceasefire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The European Union is constantly warning of the deterioration of the global security landscape, but at the same time it is moving away from its emancipatory narrative of human security. Lately, the discourse of EU leaders, apart from being alarmist and aggressive, seems to relegate historical commitments to human rights, humanitarian aid, development, and peace. And without a normative horizon, the contradictions multiply: the determination to rearm in the face of Russia contrasts with the silence and inaction in the face of the war crimes committed by Israel in Gaza, in the civil war in Sudan, or in the serious human rights violations in the Democratic Republic of Congo or Nagorno- Karabakh. As Javier S\u00e1nchez rightly points out in Pol\u00edtica&Prosa<\/em><\/a>, the lack of unity has eroded the moral credibility of the EU and its inaction threatens to leave it as an accomplice to genocide, putting at risk its international legitimacy and its very founding values.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With its two main military powers, France and the United Kingdom, immersed in political crises, although of different dimensions, exhausting their forces with the rise of populist and nationalist parties, Europe is seeing how its social model is being challenged by demographics, how its economy is growing below expectations, productivity is stagnating and the reforms essential to make the most of the euro are postponed. Only the reconstruction of the Paris-Berlin-London triangle could offer Europeans politically and strategically effective leadership. But we are very far from that. France has been amid a permanent crisis since the disastrous dissolution of the National Assembly last year, which has already seen three prime ministers pass through. In Germany, the CDU-SPD coalition has not yet been consolidated and the far-right AfD already dominates in the polls. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, Keir Starmer is still looking for the right tone to mobilise a country suffering from the economic difficulties arising from Brexit and to confront the rise of Nigel Farage’s nationalist party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Mario Draghi points out in a  recent article<\/a>, for years the EU, with its 450 million consumers, believed that its economic dimension also meant having geopolitical power and influence in international trade relations. But the events of the last few months show that this illusion has disappeared. Today we see how what counts more and more is the force based on hard power and the denial of universal values and international laws that Europeans believed were also the aim of all humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically, it has always been claimed that Europe demonstrated its strength in times of crisis and came out stronger, but this time the European crisis is not like the previous ones. Europe is much more alone, it has lost its international renown and economic relevance in the face of the United States and China, it reacts instead of acting, it is divided on the degree of ambition necessary to overcome its weaknesses. The hope is that Europe, with its democracies and its values, is the only balanced and open force that can preserve a network of economic and political relations with many countries in the Global South that want an alternative to the hegemonic power of a declining superpower and a new rising hegemon<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To achieve this, Europe will have to rediscover its unity of action, but it will have to do so while it still has enough power to shape its future and transform scepticism into action. The European Union is above all a mechanism for achieving the shared objectives of its citizens, and now its leaders, its institutions and its citizens must decide what the priorities are to ensure a future of peace, security, independence, and solidarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Photography: Donald Trump and Ursula von der Leyen in a bilateral meeting in Scotland, July 27, 2025. Public domain.<\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maria Fari\u00f1a and Arnau Giralt, trainees at the CETC, have participated to this issue of Idees d’actualitat.<\/em><\/sub><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In her recent State of the Union address, the President of the European Commission used the figure of anaphora rhetoric to underline the dangerous moment Europe is currently experiencing: “Europe is in a fight. A fight for a continent that is whole and at peace. For a free and independent Europe. A fight for our values and our democracies. A fight for our liberty and our ability to determine our destiny for ourselves. Make no mistake \u2013 this is a fight for our future.” After the Alaska summit held in August between the presidents of the US and Russia, the\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":81830,"template":"","category_newspaper":[634],"segment":[],"subject":[],"class_list":["post-82298","newspaper","type-newspaper","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category_newspaper-634"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIdees d'actualitat - The summer of European humiliation – IDEES<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/revistaidees.cat\/en\/analisis\/diari-de-les-idees\/idees-dactualitat-lestiu-de-la-humiliacio-europea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Idees d'actualitat - The summer of European humiliation – IDEES\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In her recent State of the Union address, the President of the European Commission used the figure of anaphora rhetoric to underline the dangerous moment Europe is currently experiencing: “Europe is in a fight. 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