The speech by US Vice President JD Vance at the recent Munich Security Conference delivered a blistering critique of the European project and its supposed failings. More important than the detail of the vice president’s tirade, perhaps, was the barely concealed contempt he displayed for the values and principles that have underpinned European cooperation for more than half a century. He also took the opportunity to snub outgoing Chancellor Olaf Scholz and meet with the leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which may help explain the latter’s dramatically increased popularity.
For critics of the European Union, this was an overdue reality check, although the claims about the decline of European democracy were a bit rich coming from someone who is actively working to undermine the American version and who supported violently overturning a legitimate election in 2020. He’s not alone, though. Even The Guardian’s Simon Jenkins joined the pile-on, claiming that Vance and Trump speak “the blunt truth”.
This may mark the first time the US president has been praised for speaking the truth, at least outside the MAGA crowd, which makes it all the more important to take such claims seriously. While it’s no secret that the EU has a serious collective action problem despite – or because of – its substantial bureaucracy, we forget its achievements at our peril.
It’s worth remembering that for hundreds of years, Europe was the most violent place on the planet. Any continent that has a “Hundred Years war” clearly takes conflict seriously. Add industrialisation to a proclivity for violent problem-solving and it’s possible to kill people by the millions, which is precisely what Europe did during the First and Second World Wars.
It eventually dawned on the Europeans that this was probably not a good idea, not least because an enlightened American government prodded them in this direction in the aftermath of the second bout of epic slaughter. Most of the dead, some 38 million, were innocent civilians, more than double the number of deaths in battle.
The rather inauspicious-sounding European Coal and Steel Community was noteworthy primarily for including Germany and some of its former foes in a cooperative economic enterprise. Its success led to the formation of the European Economic Community in 1957, which in turn prepared the way for the creation of an expanded European Union in 1992.
So far so boring, perhaps, but there is no doubt that Europe as a whole enjoyed an unprecedented decades-long period of economic growth, eventually transforming even economies like Poland’s, and helping to make the country more resistant to the allure of right-wing populism in the process.
It’s worth remembering that for hundreds of years, Europe was the most violent place on the planet.
Impressive as all this was, it’s not even the most important or unprecedented achievement of the EU. For half a century or so, Western Europe was at peace with itself and the world. Democracy became entrenched in countries that were primarily associated with fascism, and a genuine sense of “Europeanness” took hold. Young people in particular simply could not imagine crossing unguarded national borders to kill their counterparts in parts of Europe where they had often worked or been educated.
Europe was also the principal beneficiary of the “peace dividend”, especially following the unexpected and bloodless end to the Cold War. Little wonder some celebrated the “end of history”. As we now know, history didn’t end, and the Europeans are consequently castigated as naïve freeloaders unprepared for the seemingly inevitable power struggles and contests that characterise international politics.
If the so-called realists are right, the future doesn’t look good. At best, we may have to live in a world controlled by nineteenth-century-style “spheres of influence”, in which powerful authoritarian states – including our notional protector, the United States – dominate their regions. At worst, an intensifying arms race may end as they usually do: in unwanted conflict. Only this time, it could lead to a nuclear conflagration.
International cooperation is plainly not easy, but the EU, for all its problems, managed to achieve this, albeit by creating powerful institutions that directly impinged on national sovereignty. It is the only example we have of enduring, effective transnational cooperation between sovereign states. Its lessons ought to be studied, not vilified, especially as Europe also provides the most powerful example of all that can go wrong without a commitment to institutionalised forms of collective effort.
Ironically, the United States may be about to demonstrate the dangers of tearing down such institutions, and the rules and norms they embody, as it lurches towards authoritarian rule. Unfortunately, this means Americans are unlikely to provide enlightened leadership for themselves, let alone the rest of the world at this especially fraught historical juncture.
That’s the other thing the European experience demonstrates: leadership matters. In a further irony, it’s important to remember that, as Europe’s post-war reconstruction demonstrates, “American hegemony” really can be a positive and productive force, which is something else we might hope Trump and Vance would remember when they give comfort to autocrats everywhere. Democracy, peace and cooperation don’t happen by accident. Unfortunately, the EU is now looking like a miraculous aberration.
