As the previous article in this series argued, fear lies at the core of the anger that has been festering in Europe over the past 15 years. Those who are afraid want a quick deliverance from the causes of this fear. That is why they vote for people who promise quick fixes.

Several such quick fixes are on the horizon. Assuming the far right manages to form, or sway, governments in several key European countries, we will likely see policies that strongly restrict migration and that might even attempt to reduce existing immigrant communities in some parts of Europe.

We will see policies that seek to maximise national interests as opposed to the collective good of the European project, as envisaged by its architects half a century or more ago. By extension, we will see policies that attempt to shift economic and financial concerns in several European countries onto the European Union, effectively collectivising problems more than benefits. In turn, we will see a dilution in the power and momentum behind new visions for Europe.

Many European governments will avoid big initiatives, seeking to find Europe-wide solutions for festering socio-economic problems instead. We will also see more nationalistic political-economic perspectives in foreign affairs, trying to use foreign policy to address the concerns of each country, as opposed to contributing to a shared view that shapes Europe’s position in the world.    

All of this is understandable: societies have the right to maximise their own benefits versus those of a collective, even if that collective is as powerful and successful as the European project has been over the past half century. Societies also have the right to attempt to kick the can down the road, postponing handling some important social-economic problems because of the assessment that some economic or technological changes in the future might provide solutions for some of them. Societies could also decide to leave some problems for future generations to address and pay the price for.

The weight of priorities also differs. There are clearly groups in Europe today that place a bigger weight on the cultural aspects of immigration than on the consequences of rising socio-economic trends, such as the ageing of the population or the difficulty of finding human resources to meet a large array of jobs. This might not be to the liking of many policy experts, but it is politically legitimate for societies to prioritise their concerns as the majorities in them wish.

Europe can also afford to ignore some problems today. It has managed, through the success of many of its countries, as well as, crucially, as a result of the success of the European project over the past few decades, to accumulate the kind of wealth that means it can divert its eyes from hard-nosed political and economic calculations and instead assuage its cultural and emotional concerns.  

The problem, however, is that the current period is a transition onto a new world in which the European way of doing things over the past few decades will no longer be possible. Decisions made today based on the priorities European societies focus on will have mighty consequences in the foreseeable future.

This transition period is marked by various key characteristics.

Among them is the divide between the wealthy and the poorer Europe that has widened over the 15 years since the world financial crisis of 2008-2009. Interest differentials on sovereign bonds might have narrowed, but that was precisely because the European project proved itself, in the years during and immediately after the crisis, to be credible enough for the international markets to see that wealthy Europe bailed out poorer Europe.

However, the underlying economic fundamentals have not changed. In some respects, they have widened in favour of wealthy Europe.

This leads to the second characteristic of Europe today. With the exception of a few very wealthy European countries, and very specific industries, European competitiveness, relative to that of many Asian economies, has been decreasing, particularly as Asian talent, technology, and capital have been gaining ground.   

A third characteristic is that when it comes to the research areas that are shaping the future of humanity – quantum mechanics, bio-engineering, advanced computing, and artificial intelligence – the leading European companies operating in these areas are increasingly more linked to counterparts in the US than they are to the rest of the European economy. This might result in a situation, similar to that in several major economies of the Global South, in which there are pockets of excellence with immense wealth that are largely detached from the rest of the economy.

These problems are particularly perilous in Europe, because unlike in the US, China, or the big economies of the Global South, Europe’s political economy after World War II was founded on egalitarianism and building and sustaining a large and powerful middle class. The more the three characteristics mentioned above are entrenched in Europe’s political economy, the weaker the European middle class will become and the less egalitarian European societies will be. This will further inflame the anger and fear that is increasingly coming to the surface across the continent.

Europe’s place in the world will be affected. The more Europe’s political economy becomes infused with these ills, the more we will see a dilution of European power in the world. This will be particularly problematic, because Europe will increasingly be on the receiving end of the dynamics of the nascent confrontation between the US and China. Europe might even return to the place it was in during most of the Cold War, when it did not have cohesive and strategic decision-making processes and was, in all key strategic domains, strongly attached to US objectives.

This situation is very different from the strategic autonomy that some European leaders and thinkers have been promoting over the past few years.

While quick fixes might have some immediate benefits, they do not address the causes of the fear that has been lurking for some time in large parts of Europe’s collective psyche. For Europe to address the causes of that fear, it must look into the causes of the problems that have been festering in its political economy over the past 15 years and since the financial crisis of 2008-2009.

This will inevitably entail imagining a new European ideal, one that must not conjure up a nativistic Europe that idealises what was never ideal and that at times has led Europe to slaughter millions of its own people at the altar of false gods.

This ideal must also shed the illusion that Europe can continue to ignore its socio-economic concerns without consequences for its place in the world. It must be realistic enough to posit that the coming decades will be geopolitically vastly different from the past few decades in which the European project prospered.

Imagining this new ideal of Europe could be a generational opportunity for a secure and confident Europe to emerge. Europe, the product of the achievements of the European experience over the past six decades, should stand up to the forces that see only demons in the shadows in the European house and courtyard.

A serious new European ideal emerging from the European experience of the past few decades and not from its opposition would ensure that the respect and admiration that many people across the world have for Europe continue. Its soft power is Europe’s mightiest force, and it is one that translates into tangible results in trade, tourism, investment, and international relations.  

As I have argued in Al-Ahram before – and was quoted as saying in the European Parliament in January 2022 by its president – “Europe has curated for itself, over the past few decades, the most beautiful and refined way of living humanity has even known.”

To allow fears in its collective psyche to destroy the foundations upon which that beauty and refinement have been built would be a tremendous loss for Europe and the world.

 

The writer is the author of Islamism: A History of Political Islam (2017) and Egypt on the Brink (2010).

* A version of this article appears in print in the 4 July, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly