Europe’s Power Problem: Big Ambitions, Thin Tools

The European Union has stopped pretending that economics and politics can be neatly separated. Its 2024-2029 priorities place a “strong and secure Europe” alongside competitiveness, democracy and enlargement, a clear admission that the bloc now sees itself operating in an era of strategic rivalry rather than benign globalization.[2]

That shift is not cosmetic. EU institutions have increasingly embraced what analysts call a geopolitical approach to economic statecraft, using trade, industrial policy, regulation and market access as tools of power in response to great-power competition and the weaponization of interdependence.[5] The Commission has also pushed new economic security and defence-industrial initiatives, reflecting the view that Europe can no longer rely on a stable external environment to protect its interests.[3]

But the gap between ambition and capability remains obvious. A bloc built for compromise, law and market integration still moves slowly when speed, coercion and deterrence are what the moment rewards. The EU can set standards and mobilize capital; it cannot yet act like a single state when crises demand one voice, one command structure and one chain of responsibility.[1][3]

That weakness matters because the global order the EU depended on is eroding. One major analysis argues that the combination of a weaker United States as hegemonic leader, a wider desire to preserve an open global economy and Europe’s own security needs could force the EU to help shape a new order rather than merely adapt to it.[1] That is an opportunity, but also a test: without sharper institutions and faster decisions, Europe risks remaining a rule-maker in a world that increasingly rewards rule-breakers.

For now, Brussels is trying to do two things at once: preserve the legal, open and multilateral system that made the EU prosperous, while preparing for a harsher age of industrial policy, border security and defence investment.[2][3] The strategic question is whether Europe can become more geopolitical without becoming less European.