EU On the Edge . . . Of Irrelevance

I usually do not re-post what I wrote 3 days ago, on facebook . . . but . . . French President Emmanuel Macron gave a major confirmation of my main point. This kind of clear conversation happens only very rarely. Almost never!!! 

Macron is putting his read of the geopolitical situation after his and von der Leyen's failed China visit perfectly unambiguously: The "long-term goal [is] “strategic autonomy” for Europe." I.e., the French President thinks the EU doesn't have strategic autonomy right now. Nor is that--"strategic autonomy"--even a short term goal. It is a "LONG TERM" goal. (I will ignore, for now, the annoying, perfectly intentional imprecision--reverse synecdoche representation, to be precise--of talking "Europe" instead of "the EU." For I am trying to make another point!)

"Europe [hhhhhhhh] should not become a “vassal” " -- wow. This is, President Macron is, clearly, having a conversation about world order, with the world, no less. We are talking about "returning to the drawing board," as they say. Of. The. World. Order. Back on the drawing board. No less! . . . In other words, the EU is either "a vassal" now or, put perhaps more euphemistically so that the eurocentric majority of the European audience doesn't get a heart attack, the EU is in danger of BECOMING "a vassal."

"Macron said Europe should be a third power in the world order, along with the US and China." The journalist is doing all she can to put this really, really softly for the English reader, saying . . . the EU should be there . . . "along with the US and China". . . but the point is that it is, at this juncture, the EU is BEHIND / BELOW the US and China. The EU is NOT at the "table." It is in danger of becoming a "vassal." 

Macron didn't even care to specify whose vassal we are talking about. It's pretty obvious.

Macron must really, really be on the edge to speak like this. And that is HUGE.

For, that is because the EU is on the edge.

I argued in my 2009 book, The European Union and Global Social Change that the main idea behind the EU's formation, and the point of its continued geopolitical purpose, sustained for three generations, is lending global geo-economic / geo-political weight to the chronically chronically underweight states of western and west-central Europe. 

Putting it simply, that strategy is not working.  It could easily turn out to have been a temporary strategy, a quick fix that has run its course. Time is up for west European Big Man in the world.

The EU is fast becoming an open-air museum, a museum marking a several-centuries long, Europe-centered phase in global history. A memorial to the era of European global hegemony. Like a racist graffito. 

What comes next--a non-"western",  kind of capitalism, or a post-capitalist new system, or a tragic return to an antisocialist, fascist, nazi, imperialist pandemonium--we don't know.

But the EUropean game is up. It really never gets any clearer than this, not in international politics. At least, that is, if we take the French President's words for what they mean.