Making Europe Small Again

I ask the copy editors and the editor-in-chief to make an exception for once and not translate the headline into Slovenian. It is a deliberate use of a foreign language, warning of the danger that in the near future we will all have to speak English. OK, that explanation didn’t come out very well, but still, leave the headline alone—at least the Styrians should understand what I’m talking about.

The digital media conglomerate Politico recently named US President Donald Trump the most influential political figure in Europe. That is roughly as if Zlatko Zahovič were named the most influential football figure in Ljubljana. It may be true, but it hurts all the same.

In any case, it is a choice that says more about Europe than about Donald Trump. If he really is the politician with the most influence on events in Europe, that is above all because European politics enables and allows him to be.

The latest submissive act of self-harm that the European decision-making elite has allowed itself is its response, or rather non-response, to the recent publication of the new American national security strategy.

In this astonishing official document of the US administration, Europe faces the danger of “civilizational erasure.” “The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.”

On the other hand, the document does find some reasons for optimism. It highlights “the growing influence of patriotic European parties,” and so the strategy calls for “cultivating resistance to Europe’s current trajectory within European nations.”

“Europe is dying,” the American President summed up the document briefly and succinctly in an interview with Politico.

When I read all this, despite my numbed expectations of a more spineful stance by European politics toward the US, I nevertheless expected a sharp response this time. Holy spinach, I said to myself, this time they’ve really gone too far. They surely can’t just watch calmly and swallow a traditional ally accusing the European Union of destroying Europe and openly announcing its support for those who want to smash from within the European peace and civilizational project, built as an answer to the Second World War. They surely can’t … But they did.

With rare exceptions among the leading and most influential politicians—among them the President of the European Council, António Costa—the reactions were of the kind we more often hear in tragic cases of domestic violence: but when he’s sober, he still loves me very much. Paradoxically, one of the more principled statements came from the leader of the French Rassemblement National, Jordan Bardella, one of those patriotic leaders to whom the US is offering selfless help in tearing down liberal-democratic Europe. “I don’t need a big brother like that,” responded clearly a politician who evidently follows and understands more carefully what European voters think about all this.

Soon after the strategy was published, the US authorities announced the possibility of screening travelers’ social media posts before arrival, in order to bar those who don’t like the US and speak badly of President Trump. Imagine what would happen if they found content on someone’s account describing the US the way the US talks about Europe.

It is clear, of course, that we live in a complex and dangerous world in which political decision-makers must constantly weigh ethical principles against reality. Moral politics is cool, but it cannot and must not ignore vital security, economic, energy and other interests. The problem is that current European politics is bewildered and lost both in remaining faithful to its most fundamental principles and in asserting its most basic interests. Evidently they hope that this oppressive mess will one day end by itself if only we stay silent long enough and cover our ears.

This strategy is doomed to failure—for at least three reasons.

First, because it ignores the psychological profile of “the most influential political figure in Europe.” He loves flattery but despises flatterers. Any concessions someone manages to win through groveling, gilded gifts and medals can be very short-lived and revoked as soon as the gentleman decides he’s had enough. On the other hand, it has been proven that much more can be achieved with a more principled stance than with constant bowing to ever new whims and demands. It’s not for nothing that Trump is called TACO—Trump Always Chickens Out. It is a nickname Trump earned for backing down every time he came up against an opponent in trade wars who didn’t immediately drop his trousers.

Second, because ahead of possibly decisive midterm elections to the US Congress next fall, there are signs that things in the US are changing after all. Trump’s iron grip on his own party, his support among voters and the sense that no one can stop him from tearing down democratic institutions are under growing pressure. Far be it from me to advocate interfering in American domestic politics the way the US interferes in ours. It is American citizens who must decide how they will live in the US. But when the image of his absolute power is crumbling from within, Europe perhaps doesn’t need to throw him a lifebelt by maintaining the perception that he is still the only and strongest boss on the international stage.

Finally, European politicians must also be aware of how their weakness and their bowing to the humiliating US policy toward Europe—because the “foreign strategy” really cannot be described otherwise—affect their own voters. Europe faces the most difficult existential crisis it has ever known. Whether it manages to overcome it and preserve its civilizational model on the foundations of values that current American policy is openly tearing down depends also on its ability to convince and mobilize its citizens to defend those values. What it is doing now in response to Trump’s open attack on those values has, to put it mildly, the opposite effect. Invoking the hackneyed slogan about how the EU comes out of every crisis even stronger will not help it. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Perhaps—but only until it kills you.

What will happen in the US, we don’t know. It is quite possible that changes will come there. The question, however, is whether Europe will survive until then. We don’t need to fight our traditional ally. But when it behaves the way it does, we must stand up for ourselves. Find a backbone and courage. We may never be bigger and we may never be stronger, but at least we will be able to look ourselves in the mirror. And still decide our own fate.

As for English, we can learn it in any case.