THE SCRAMBLE FOR EUROPE IS JUST BEGGINING / THE FINANCIAL TIMES OP EDITORIAL

The scramble for Europe is just beginning

As the EU struggles to defend its interests, outside powers play divide and rule

Gideon Rachman

© James Ferguson

For centuries, Europe imposed its will on the world. 

Now the world is beginning to impose its will on Europe.

A photo taken at Turnberry golf course at the end of July captured the situation. 

The European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen was pictured smiling weakly, with her thumbs-up, next to a beaming Donald Trump. 

The EU had just meekly agreed to accept a 15 per cent base tariff on EU exports to America without hitting back. 

Von der Leyen and her staff literally had to grin and bear it.

The moment was all the more chastening because trade was thought to be the one area where the EU could stand toe-to-toe with global superpowers. 

The European single market is comparable in size to the economies of China or the US. 

The EU acts as a single unit on trade issues. In the months running up to the Turnberry debacle, there was plenty of talk in Brussels about European retaliation against the Trump tariffs.

In the end, the EU folded — largely because the Europeans feared that if they tariffed the US, the Trump administration would hit back by reducing its security commitment to Europe. 

With war raging in Ukraine and fears growing about a broader Russian threat to Europe, that was a risk they were unwilling to take.

Europe’s weakness on security had negated its potential strength on trade. One form of frailty had led to another.

If this were an isolated incident, it might be dismissed as an unfortunate combination of circumstances. 

But, in fact, examples of European weakness or irrelevance are piling up.

At the beginning of her term as commission president, Von der Leyen expressed the aspiration to lead a “geopolitical commission”. 

But the EU is being diplomatically sidelined — even when wars are happening right on Europe’s borders and directly affect the continent’s interests.

European countries are now the largest providers of military and financial aid to Ukraine. 

But when Trump tried to end the war earlier this year, he chose to negotiate directly with Vladimir Putin — with the Europeans desperately lobbying the White House before and after the summit. 

It was the same story with Gaza. 

This is a conflict raging on the edge of the Mediterranean. 

But the decisive diplomacy to secure a ceasefire centred around the US, Qatar, Egypt and Israel. 

Europe was once again reduced to chipping in from the sidelines.

The brutal war in Sudan will certainly lead to new refugee flows towards Europe. 

But the key outside players, fuelling the conflict and shaping its outcome, are the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Turkey and Russia. 

French influence in west Africa has also been in sharp decline. 

In Mali, first Russia and now jihadist forces seem to be filling the vacuum.

So why does Europe seem so powerless? 

The deficits that are most often pointed to are military and financial. 

But these are not the most serious issues. 

There is a large European defence industry and Europe remains a rich, if indebted, continent.

The bigger problems are structural, political and even psychological. 

Brussels is a bureaucracy. 

It is good at process and law. 

But it is incapable of acting quickly and ruthlessly like the European great powers of the past, or like the US and China today.

European appeals to morality and international law over issues such as Ukraine often fall on deaf ears in Africa and Asia — whose countries’ histories were shaped by centuries of ruthless European imperialism.

At the height of the European imperial age, the great powers of the time — Britain, France, Germany, even Belgium — participated in a “scramble for Africa”. 

Now, with European power in retreat, we may be beginning to witness what the Oxford scholar Dimitar Bechev calls a “scramble for Europe”, as outside powers begin to assert their influence across the European continent.

In the western Balkans, whose countries are theoretically on the path to EU membership, the influence of Russia, Turkey and China is growing. 

A recent paper from the European Council on Foreign Relations documented the influence that Beijing exercises through infrastructure projects and loans.

The scramble for Europe also threatens the EU’s internal unity, as outside powers play divide and rule. 

One of the reasons that Europe was unable to hit back against Trump’s tariffs was that different EU countries and industries had different interests, which the US could play upon.

The EU response to the “second China shock” of manufacturing exports that threaten Europe’s industrial base is likely to be similarly confused as blandishments from Beijing disrupt efforts to form a collective European response.

Even European unity over Ukraine — which has so far been impressive — could begin to break down as parties more sympathetic to Moscow win elections in EU countries such as Slovakia and the Czech Republic.

Europeans sometimes take comfort from the fact that, while the continent lacks hard power, it still has soft power in abundance. 

It is very attractive to both the world’s richest and poorest people. 

If you want a gourmet meal or a benefits’ cheque then the old continent is the place to come.

But the wealth and security that underpins these markers of a civilised society may ultimately come under threat, if Europe cannot find a way to exercise hard power.