This Sunday, at a campaign event in Bavaria, German Chancellor Angela Merkel shocked
the geopolitical world by stating that Europe could no longer rely on the United States, United
Kingdom, or Russia, and that “Europe will have to chart its own destiny.” This remark was,
allegedly, a response to President Trump’s intransigence in regards to the Paris climate
agreement. Of course, this speech raises many questions. How can the EU convince its
constituent nations to stay as members? And what destiny will Europe set for itself?
Of course, the immediate danger for the EU is the fact that many of its nations wish to
leave it. Eurosceptic parties play a major role in many of the EUs member nations. The only
way forward to the EU is to democratize. Right now, the EU is largely controlled by unelected
bureaucrats, with the European Parliament little more than a shell body. This will have to
change. The European Parliament must be strengthened, and the various bureaucracies held
accountable by voters. Furthermore, the EU will have to back out of the brutal austerity it has
levied on Greece. The EU will have to meet the needs of all of its member nations if it wants to
transform into a global body. Angela Merkel has the political capital to transform the EU into a
democratic body, and she will need to if she wants it to survive and thrive as a global force. If
she fails to do this, her dreams of a strong, independent Europe will fail within a decade. Of
course, Merkel will also to deal with the creep towards authoritarianism of many EU members,
most notably Viktor Orbán’s Hungary. It will remain a formidable challenge for Merkel to stop
these disturbing trends, but a crucial one if a coherent EU is even a possibility. Of course, the
role of nations, and the ability to secede, as many parts of Spain and Belgium with to, within the
EU will also be in question. The EU will need serious restructuring to be viable as a geopolitical
power.
Furthermore, the question of what vision Merkel has for Europe remains. It is clear that
such a vision will entail Europe being a vanguard of progressive climate policy, given that it is
President Trump’s reluctance to stick with the Paris agreement that spurred this speech from
Merkel, but serious questions remain on how the EU will work with its neighbors. Obviously,
Merkel is no fan of Putin’s Russia, but the EU and Russia will have to come to some sort of
détente. Europe in general cannot survive without strong relations with the US and Russia, and
will furthermore have to worry about how to avoid being used as the puppet of one against the
other. In short, Europe will face serious challenges to be a single, coherent, strong political
entity, and Chancellor Merkel will have to deal with serious issues in attempting to make it into
one. If she succeeds, it will be a tremendous accomplishment, but her failure could be a
disaster for Europe.