“A Europe that protects”—that was one of the ideas that animated French President Emmanuel Macron’s first Sorbonne speech back in 2017. When the young president first coined the phrase, little did he know how urgent this requirement would be seven years on, and in its most direct and literal sense.
Europe faces threats of a magnitude unseen since the end of the Cold War. Russia, which European leaders such as German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said numerous times “must not win” its criminal war of aggression against Ukraine, may end up doing just that, thanks to Europe’s indecisive assistance. Should US voters elect Donald Trump as president on November 5, then Europe’s peril will be greater still.
Politically, Macron is a much-reduced figure now, due to his misfired parliamentary election gamble (see Joseph de Weck’s PARISCOPE column on the appointment of center-right Michel Barnier as prime minister). When Macron visits Berlin in early October to see Scholz, whose government may face an early end, it seems clear that the duo will now be unlikely to end up in the history books as the builders of “un Europe, qui protège” its citizens against the military threat emanating from President Vladimir Putin’s Russia, with President Xi Jinping’s China lurking in the background.
Others will have to fill the void. In this issue, which is dedicated to European defense policy, Daniel Fiott argues that there’s a good opportunity for Ursula von der Leyen and her new European Commission to get things going in a more effective way than in the past. Meanwhile, Barbara Kunz shows the extent to which the “Franco-German engine” has misfired now and in the past when it comes to forging a common European defense policy that both Berlin and Paris are fully behind. Defense policy insider Jan Jireš tells us how the Czech Republic has played an outsized role in European defense, especially in providing military assistance to Ukraine at a time when others were still reluctant to do so.
Then there is the money question. Markus Jaeger makes the case for a national “defense tax” as the best way to finance Europe’s obvious spending needs. Once the Europeans—the EU and its member states, but also the United Kingdom and Norway—have built up their defense capacities, there is an important role for them to play in the Indo-Pacific, writes Max Bergmann. And Andrea Rotter points to the promising foundation Europe has built when it comes to the space domain. Here, too, bold action and spending are required.
At the end of the day, it really isn’t (just) rocket science: To build a Europe that can protect itself militarily, Europeans need to invest much more in defense and security. That is also what large majorities across the EU want.
Henning Hoff is Executive Editor of INTERNATIONALE POLITIK QUARTERLY.
