The world is catching fire at more and more nerve points and Europe is tormented by existential dilemmas. This is how I would euphemistically define this debate, which is part of an endless series of searches for the EU’s place in the global landscape.

Since the beginning of the mandate of the current European Commission, we have been promised that we will have a „Geopolitical Commission”. I listened to the High Representative for Foreign Policy prophetically proclaim: „Europe will be geopolitical or it won’t be.” I do not know if this is true, but Mr Borrell is certainly right when he says that Europe must learn to use the language of power.

And this process can be neither simple nor quick. The crises in Israel and Gaza, Ukraine, Nagorno-Karabakh, Kosovo and the Sahel are revealing of the EU’s place in today’s world.

The European Union is tied hand and foot by a number of dependencies in the fundamental plans: defense, energy, critical raw materials. However ambitious it may be, Europe cannot be a geopolitical actor until it manages to stand on its own two feet. And until then, he would do well to value more the only alliance he has proven to be able to rely on, that of the United States of America.

(written contribution to the plenary debate on „A real geopolitical Europe now”, October 23, 2023)

Mihai Tudose, PSD MEP, member of the S&D Group

https://www.socialistsanddemocrats.eu