We are in the midst of Europe’s Big Week, as 9 May marks the commemoration of the Schuman Declaration, which gave rise to the historic project that is today’s European Union.
And, to whet the appetite, the Euroamerica Foundation, chaired by the Basque Ramón Jáuregui, and the European Parliament’s Office in Spain, headed by María Andrés, held their traditional annual seminar, which this time could not have had a more fitting title than “The Defence of Europe in the Face of the New International Order”.
Javier Solana, a staunch pro-European with such an impressive track record in transatlantic relations, did not mince his words. He is the former Secretary-General of NATO and the first EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy. “I could never have imagined in my wildest dreams,” he said, sounding both surprised and disappointed, “that a US president [Donald Trump] would claim that ‘the European Union was born to annoy and hinder his country’, all the more so given that the true origin of our EU is the Marshall Plan, designed and named after the American general who championed it to rebuild a Europe devastated by war.”
Javier Solana at the event “The Defence of Europe in the Face of the New International Order”
It was the first wake-up call in a debate that brought together MEPs Nicolás Pascual de la Parte (EPP) and José Cepeda (PES), alongside General Miguel Ángel Ballesteros, former director of the Department of National Security and the Institute for Strategic Studies, moderated by José Ignacio Salafranca, first vice-president of the Euroamerica Foundation.
Whilst all agreed that Europe must achieve strategic autonomy as soon as possible and strengthen its military deterrent, relying less and less on the American superpower, the stark reality is that “today Europe does not have the capacity to defend itself”, a blunt statement by General Ballesteros that none of the speakers dared to contradict.
Above all, we are facing a major problem of political will, as Ambassador Pascual de la Parte emphasised, pointing to the “enormous amount of money already raised or budgeted to modernise European forces and armaments”. And, like MEP Cepeda, he highlighted Europe’s technological lag, quantified as an astronomical gap of ten years.
“The Defence of Europe in the Face of the New International Order”
A gap so vast that it could not be bridged immediately, even by pouring in vast new resources. Europe, in effect, has been asleep at the wheel and has allowed too much time to pass before realising that leaving technological research in the hands of others would weaken it to the point of being sidelined from the key decision-making tables where the world’s future is decided.
In the gradual and predictable disengagement of the US from Europe, the latter must accelerate the “Europeanisation” of NATO, that is, assume as soon as possible the leading roles in the various areas that today make up the organisation’s structure.
Currently, of those six major areas, four are headed by American generals, compared to just two Europeans. Such a structure must change as soon as possible, although such a drastic change cannot, ultimately, be achieved overnight. In any case, the upcoming NATO summit in July will be crucial for the organisation’s future and its corresponding consequences. Trump has not yet confirmed his attendance in Ankara, but the general consensus is that his disengagement is irreversible. There is also a general consensus that Europe, in one way or another, will continue to be of interest to the US, but it would be to deny reality not to admit that today’s geopolitics are not those of the post-war era from 1945 onwards.
“The Defence of Europe in the Face of the New International Order”
At the roundtable, there was indeed unanimity in presenting irrefutable evidence that the United Kingdom, despite Brexit, remains as deeply embedded in European defence policy as before, and that there is no security forum or intelligence-sharing mechanism in which it does not participate with the same or even greater intensity than before its departure from the EU.
And, with a view to facing the future seriously, the panel urged all European forces and leaders to become increasingly convinced of their belonging to a Union, above and beyond their national allegiances, if only because of the indisputable reality that none of the Twenty-Seven, however powerful they may believe themselves to be, is capable of defending itself and competing in the new international order, which is radically different from the one humanity has experienced until now.