Dr. Miklos K. Radvanyi
Although the European Union is not yet collapsing, this multilateral organization is increasingly unable to translate its economic, demographic, technological, and diplomatic resources into commensurate political power. The European Union remains relatively wealthy, educated, technologically sophisticated, and institutionally stable. It possesses a single market of roughly 450 million people and collectively represents one of the world’s largest economies. Yet, in 2026, it finds itself strategically insecure, economically sluggish, politically fragmented, militarily heavily dependent on the United States of America, demographically troubled, and increasingly uncertain about what European integration is ultimately supposed to accomplish. The main problem is not that European integration has completely failed. It is that yesterday’s European Union is attempting to survive in tomorrow’s world.
Any serious criticism necessarily must begin by acknowledging what the European Union has thus far accomplished. After centuries, in which European states repeatedly slaughtered one another, Western Europe constructed an extraordinary system of reconciliation. Born from a unique conundrum of idealism, fear, exhaustion, and necessity, the continent has taken after 1945 the first steps to ultimately become one political community instead of remaining a chain of ad-hoc association of sovereign states. In this respect, Robert Schuman’s famous formula was essentially that a peaceful and stable Europe would not be constructed in one grand constitutional act, but would emerge through practical achievements that created solidarity. In other words: integration first, federation later – perhaps. As a result, France, the then truncated Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Luxemburg created the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951-1952. Then came the Treaties of Rome in 1957, establishing the European Community and Euratom. From the different dreams of Europe by Jean Monnet, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle, Atlanticist Europe emerged under American strategic protection. This arrangement has created what could be called the European Paradox. The continent has become economically powerful mainly because it remained strategically dependent upon the United States of America. After the so-called Cold War era ended between 1989 and 1991, the western, central and eastern parts of Europe were fairly quickly reunified. This reunification was legitimized by the Maastricht Treaty of 1993. The single market simultaneously institutionalized the four freedoms: movement of goods, services, capital, and people. Yet, the core issue that presented the deepest weakness of the European project has remained unresolved: Europe created institutions faster than it created Europeans. As a result, this uniquely European “integration” has created a political as well as a constitutional hybrid that was neither a federation nor a traditional international organization. More importantly, Brexit demonstrated something psychologically very important: European integration was reversible.
The Russian Federation’s illegal invasion of Crimea on February 20, 2014, and its subsequent annexation, followed by a full scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, has returned Europe abruptly to the past – the strategic world of war, deterrence, and power. Even more importantly, the Kremlin’s quest for old-fashioned strategic supremacy has created a recurring central dilemma: too little integration produces weakness; too much integration without democratic legitimacy leads to rebellion. Thus, from “never again” to “can Europe survive,” the challenge is again whether the European Union can become sufficiently cohesive to remain an important center of civilization and geopolitical power throughout the 21st century and beyond.
Clearly, the European Union must change and, therefore, must be reformed. The most urgent task is to end the pervasive economic malaise. The most devastating criticism of the European Union’s economic position came from the former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. His landmark competitiveness report identified slowing productivity, demographic pressures, high energy costs, and intensifying international competition as threats to Europe’s prosperity. The numbers remain uncomfortable. The European Commission’s Spring 2026 forecast projects EU GDP growth of only 1.1.% in 2026, down from 1.5% in 2025, while inflation is projected at 3.1%. Moreover, the European Union desperately needs deeper capital markets, cheaper energy, greater investment, more entrepreneurial risk-taking, fewer barriers within its supposedly unified market, and dramatically faster decision making. As a result, the European Union is experiencing an additional paradox: It possesses capital but cannot mobilize it efficiently; possesses talent but often loses it; possesses markets but fragments them; possesses universities but struggles to commercialize their discoveries. All this is not a shortage of resources but the failure of institutional architecture. In this context, the so-called “Brussels effect” must be reexamined. Presently, there is a dangerous temptation to confuse regulatory influence with geopolitical power. The truth is that the European Union cannot regulate its way to strategic greatness. Rules cannot substitute for semiconductor factories, artificial intelligence companies, energy independence, military capability, technological innovation, or productivity. Therefore, there is something fundamentally defensive about the European regulatory mentality. Regulation attempts to control consequences. Innovation accepts uncertainty.
There is also a deep political problem: the democratic deficit. The European Union exercises enormous influence over citizens’ lives, while remaining psychologically remote from many of them. National elections remain emotionally powerful because citizens know whom they are electing and whom they can remove. European governance is considerably more diffuse. Political and legal authorities are distributed among the European commission, European Parliament, European Council, Council of the European Union, European Central, Bank, European courts, and national governments. This complexity produces sophisticated checks and balances. It also produces diluted political responsibility. When policies succeed, national governments claim credit. When policies fail, governments blame Brussels. Brussels, in turn, blames states for inadequate implementation. Everyone governs, nobody appears to have responsibility. These paradoxes contribute enormously to the emergence of irresponsible European populism. Finally, illegal migration is the European Union’s self-inflicted political crisis too.
Equally essential is the ongoing strategic infantilization of the European Union. Peace ultimately depends upon the capacity to defend it. And Europeans must be willing to pay for them. At last, the European Union has twenty seven foreign policies masquerading as one.
In closing, additional enlargement without major institutional reforms would be reckless and dangerous. Accordingly, the European Union must become serious again. It must secure its borders. It must restore economic competitiveness. It must finish the creation of the single market. It must encourage technological entrepreneurship. It must simplify regulations. It must rebuild military capability. It must return decisions to national governments where European action adds little value. Yet, above all, the European Union must rediscover political realism. If these reforms are not instituted quickly, the European Union will sink into deep irrelevance.