World News: Europe Fears Becoming Global Also-Ran --- Underarmed and fractious continent feels way forward in a transactional era

 

“BRUSSELS -- In the contest between great powers, Europe is struggling to keep up.

 

The continent's leaders have long worried they will be left behind as the U.S., China and Russia vie for economic, technological and military dominance.

 

Officials now fear they have reached that point.

 

Their mood darkened over the summer as the U.S. and China sought to reset the rules of global trade. It became bleak this month when the White House presented a plan for ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict without consulting European leaders.

 

In response, the European Union crafted a counterproposal more acceptable to Ukraine, and member states are rushing to rearm as the bloc seeks to break its institutional gridlock. Change will be hard and take time, something many European officials worry the continent doesn't have.

 

"Battle lines for a new world order, based on power, are being drawn right now," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her annual address to EU lawmakers in September. "A new Europe must emerge."

 

How to make that metamorphosis happen is concentrating minds in Europe.

 

Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank president who was asked last year to design a plan to make Europe more competitive, is pushing for groups of countries to conduct joint defense research and procurement, and to design common rules allowing European tech companies to scale up quickly. Draghi, a former Italian prime minister, wants European industrial giants to pool investments in strategic sectors such as semiconductors.

 

"I think that we are finally getting realistic," said Latvian President Edgars Rinkevics. "You can't change the dynamics if you don't have real power -- be it political, military or diplomatic."

 

Global shifts have dislodged the tentpoles of Germany's economic success: cheap gas from Russia, booming export markets in China and the U.S. defense umbrella. In response, Berlin has eased its debt brake, allowing it to pour 500 billion euros, equivalent to around $580 billion, into a decadelong rearmament program.

 

A rearmed Germany combined with the toughened up militaries of Poland, Scandinavian and Baltic states, and the extra layer of defense offered by nuclear-armed Britain and France, could create a coalition to check Russia, says Nico Lange, a former chief of staff at the German Defense Ministry.

 

Yet obstacles abound. Defense ministries won't easily surrender control, nor will Europe's big industrial players easily pivot to collaboration.

 

The need for consensus, which defines the 27-member EU, often leaves it flat-footed.

 

"I think we are in the most difficult and dangerous situation since the end of the Second World War," Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said last month.

 

Events over the past few months have hammered those anxieties home.

 

 In July, the EU had to swallow a lopsided trade deal with the U.S.

 

President Trump ignored European calls to pressure Moscow and rolled out the red carpet for his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, in Alaska in August. "Europe's not telling me what to do," Trump said on the way to the summit. Then he sidelined Europe in drawing up his Ukraine cease-fire plan.

 

The trade clash between Washington and Beijing threatened Western access to rare earths, critical to Europe's defense and green transition. When a meeting between Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Trump brought about a temporary truce, it demonstrated to European officials that the continent isn't the master of its own destiny.

 

French President Emmanuel Macron in 2017 called for the EU to bolster its military, economic and industrial independence. Last year he warned that the European project could die.

 

"It all depends on the choices we make and these choices need to be made now," he said.

 

Pierre Vimont, a former senior EU and French diplomat now at Carnegie Europe, said "the whole Brussels institutional framework" wasn't tailored for the current period of "power politics, confrontation, highly brutal competition."

 

Looming over it all is the U.S.'s hardening stance toward Europe. Trump's covetous comments about Greenland, an autonomous Danish territory, deepened concerns.

 

Europe had always believed access to its wealthy single market gave it real trade clout. But July's trade negotiations with Washington punctured that belief, showing that the U.S. would wield security leverage over Europe to win a trade clash.

 

Europe had sought to avoid confrontation with China. But Beijing continues to flood Europe with cheap imports as its own economy slows, while China's technological edge and mass market have seen it pull ahead of European competition in industries such as electric vehicles, forcing significant job losses in Germany.

 

Washington has vacillated between pressing Europe to hit China with tariffs to cutting its own deals with Beijing.

 

The coming years will tell "whether Europe will remain an independent economic power" or "become a pawn of the major economic centers in Asia or America," German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said last month.” [1]

 

1. World News: Europe Fears Becoming Global Also-Ran --- Underarmed and fractious continent feels way forward in a transactional era. Norman, Laurence.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 29 Nov 2025: A7.