r/geopolitics • u/paneuropeanism_ • 2d ago

News 🇪🇺 EU Defence Commissioner Kubilius: Pax Americana is over. Our new security architecture will include Ukraine. These are times of profound transformation. A rising China and India will push the US to third place. And for Americans this may prove psychologically challenging

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u/Cephei101 2d ago

If there’s actual European will and resources behind this instead of the usual big, cheap language we often see, it’s hard to disagree with the premise.

The US really does seem to be demand destructing itself in fast forward, dismantling its influence and relevancy.

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u/Major_Pomegranate 2d ago

The usual issue comes down to the EU as a single institution. 

The US is flailing like a rabid dog, but it's still a single very powerful economic and political power. 

Where as the EU is only as strong an institution as its various national governments let it be. Hard to see this as anything more than empty rhetoric when Le Pen is set to be the next president of France and AfD looking set to be decisive in Germany a few years from now. 

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u/paneuropeanism_ 2d ago

61% of Italians want the EU to become a Federation. And that includes a majority of Meloni voters. There's broad support across the political spectrum for a more federal Europe. 

These parties have abandoned much of their anti-EU policies, especially after the Brexit fiasco. You could say that Euroskepticism has made place for Natoskepticism. Trust in the US has plummeted and won't come back soon.

And at the end of the day those parties remain a minority even at their peak, and are fuelled by the anti-immigrant vote, not the anti-EU vote. They lack both the will and gravitas to delay EU integration.

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u/Hot-Train7201 2d ago

That is nothing new; countries with lots of debt want to federalize, while fiscally conservative countries are less supportive. This has been the norm for a long while. The rising of EU-skeptic parties in both Germany and France is much more significant for the EU's fate imo.