The bloc has lost its purpose — and, surprisingly, having the former president back in the White House may be the thing to bring it back.
Donald Trump’s attempts to divide the EU by bilateralizing relations with member countries could prove successful, especially if linking issues of trade and defense. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images
November 5, 2024 4:00 am CET
Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He tweets at @Mij_Europe.
A profound sense of malaise has taken over the EU.
Politics within the bloc’s two largest member countries, France and Germany, is profoundly broken — as is the relationship between them. Meanwhile, weak leaders, subdued growth and major fiscal and migration-related challenges have resulted in an acute sense of drift across the Continent.
It was only two years ago that Europe’s prospects felt very different, with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine pushing the bloc to adopt greater geostrategic purpose. Germany committed €100 billion to its Zeitenwende shift in defense and security policy; French President Emmanuel Macron reset relations with Eastern Europe, tossing out his country’s historical aversion to EU enlargement; the bloc overrode its self-imposed budgetary constraints to provide funding for Ukraine and implemented 14 rounds of far-reaching sanctions against Russia’s war machine.
But that sense of purpose has now been lost — and, surprisingly, having former U.S. President Donald Trump back in the White House may be the thing to bring it back.
As it stands, France and Germany have become the biggest contributors to the EU’s present malaise. Macron’s early election gamble resulted in a far less stable and predictable political environment, with the country’s spiraling fiscal deficit tarnishing his economic legacy — and with it, his credibility in the EU. Meanwhile, in Germany, a weak and battered coalition may not even fulfil its term.
The bloc’s problems are, of course, not just Franco-German. The challenges that members now struggle with most — security, defense, migration and fiscal policy — are the least susceptible to EU-wide collective action precisely because they’re intrinsic to nation states: borders, tax and national security. Yet, with limited appetite for pooling sovereignty in these areas, EU leaders will struggle to effectively address their populations’ concerns, further fueling populism and political fragmentation.
This is precisely where Trump could help.
Most EU leaders — except Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and perhaps Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — are praying for U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris to win the U.S. election. Their fears are fourfold: Trump’s possible withdrawal from NATO and the end of America’s commitment to keeping the Continent secure; the unilateral imposition of a cease-fire and peace agreement between Russia and Ukraine in opposition to the interests of Kyiv and Brussels; a damaging tit-for-tat trade war; and Trump’s influence on the EU’s far right.
These are all legitimate concerns. Yet, they’re short-term and short-sighted, and they ignore the galvanizing effect that the shock of a second Trump presidency could have.
A Trump win would immediately revive plans for more common EU debt for the bloc’s security and defense. That idea — initially pushed by Macron and supported by the EU’s new High Representative Kaja Kallas — had even won the tacit support of frugal Northern Europe, but it lost momentum after the French president’s election gambit. The shock of a second Trump term would undoubtedly rekindle it, not least because Germany — the country most reluctant to support Macron’s ideas — is also the country that fears losing America’s security guarantee most.
The same would be true for the Continent’s gloomy economic outlook. Former Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s diagnosis of an €800 billion-per-year investment gap can only be filled by more common financing. It also requires a different approach to EU-wide industrial and fiscal policy that, again, would start in Germany and spill over to rest of the EU — something that a trade war with Trump could help unlock.
Having the former U.S. president back at the helm could also have two further beneficial effects for Europe: First, it would add weight to the European Commission’s attempt to completely overhaul the EU budget and make it more fit for purpose — spending roughly two-thirds of the bloc’s finances on agricultural subsidies and cohesion funds is unlikely to be sustainable when confronted with the existential risks Trump presents. Second, it would spur on the already stalling U.K.-EU reset, as senior officials on both sides already believe his return would push them to find more creative ways to transcend their respective red lines.
There is, of course, the risk that a Trump presidency would promote the EU’s centrifugal instincts rather than its integrative ones. His attempts to divide the EU by bilateralizing relations with member countries could prove successful, especially if linking issues of trade and defense. Moreover, a partial, or possibly full, abandonment of NATO could trigger panic among Europeans, leading to an “everyone-for-themselves” response.
There’s no doubt that a Trump presidency would test America’s democratic culture and the globe’s multilateral institutions — possibly to their breaking points. It isn’t something to wish on the world lightly. But it could also be just the shock needed to prevent the EU from falling into a long, and possibly terminal, decline.
