Hard energy or smooth energy, Von der Leyen’s dilemma | Opinion | EUROtoday

The speeches of a president of the European Commission are usually predictable and considerably syrupy, like these of our Head of State at Christmas. They are harangues that needs to be comforting, and nothing comforts the markets greater than figuring out that in case you can’t hear them you’ll not lack any related data to optimize your funding portfolio. That is to say, they’re the antithesis of these of President Trump, who you attend to with the apprehension of figuring out that, at any second, he can drop a bomb, figurative or actual, the prior data of which might have allowed you to get wealthy within the buoyant betting markets, similar to Polymarket or Kalshi.

President Von der Leyen’s unorthodox speech on the ninth can be additional proof that the world is quickly turning into Trumpized, together with Brussels, the final nice pure reserve of liberal technocrats on the earth. Keeping the zoological distance, it brought on the identical astonishment as if the director of the Chobe National Park in Botswana, which is the biggest elephant reserve on the earth, had begun to take a position on the magnificence of ivory in inside ornament.

Von der Leyen acknowledged that “Europe can no longer be the guardian of the old world order, of a world that has gone and will not return.” He even appeared to worth a extra aggressive tariff technique, stating that “commerce […] It is energy.” He also said that “safety should grow to be the organizing precept of our motion,” expressly citing the industry. A statement that sounded like an amendment to the traditional European Competition Defense Policy.

In summary, Von der Leyen advocated adapting to this new global disorder of two great superpowers and a possible dozen regional powers, with license to act as prosecutor, judge and executioner in their areas of influence. Which would allow them to apply at will the traditional motto of the British monarchy dieu et mon droit, whatever the name of that God may be and supporting their right in their superior military force against neighboring countries.

Given the criticism she received from Brussels itself, but also from other capitals such as Paris or Madrid, the president qualified her words, two days later, in a more pro-European sense. Criticism focused on the tone of the warmongering discourse (“tears should not be shed for the Iranian regime”), more typical of a president of an incumbent regional power, competencies that she lacks. It was also questioned that he did not defend the software intellectual, made in Europe, who championed the, according to her, now defunct old world order, based on respect for national sovereignty and the mediation of supranational organizations. And although promoted by the United States after the Second World War, he is the intellectual son of great European thinkers. From Immanuel Kant, and his essential treatise on Perpetual Peace, to the brilliant economist John Maynard Keynes, who, in addition, in his prophetic book The economic consequences of peaceconcluded that demanding war reparations from the defeated was the quickest way to repeat conflicts. Something that President Trump could take into account, concerned about passing on the cost of his war adventures to the country that suffers them, such as the millions of barrels of oil that he demands from Venezuela, which, after the disastrous Chavista administration, what it would need is the generosity of the victor in the form of a new Marshall Plan.

But these criticisms ignored other questionable elements of the speech. For example, it does not seem reasonable that the president of possibly the most successful multilateral organization of the old order, the European Union, did not extol its virtues. Since Europe has reaped clear economic benefits thanks to its dominance of the soft power. Starting with the so-called Brussels Effect, defined by Professor Anu Bradford, which has allowed her to define the standards of international trade without having to command aircraft carriers, making prosperity compatible with a solid Welfare State. So perhaps it should be declared, as President Lula da Silva defended, a Democratic Heritage of Humanity.

Nor does it seem like a rational decision not to try to combat or at least slow down the advent of this new global disorder, buying time for the necessary adaptation, since we are clearly not prepared. As a simple measure of our limited hard power We can use the difference between the position that European countries occupy in the ranking of world GDP, compared to what they present in the Global Firepower Index (GFP). This renowned index measures conventional military strength through 60 variables. If we focus on the 11 most populated European countries, which together represent 83% of the EU population, and which would be the main shock force to stop Russian expansionist ambitions, we see that on average our large countries are 10 places below in the GFP, compared to the position they occupy in the ranking of the GDP.

Then, advocate for hard power in front of soft powerit would be like giving up football as the world’s king sport (remember that European teams have won 54.5% of all World Cups held), to defend the benefits of ping pong, where we seem condemned to the Chinese beating us one after another.

Furthermore, before commissioning the funeral for the old world order, the president would do well to remember that the progress of humanity follows a pattern similar to that of economic cycles. Since, although it presents a growing trend over time, it also suffers periods of strong contraction and setback, such as economic crises, in which achievements are called into question.

Therefore, although the multilateral order is once again in crisis, the most probable future scenario, after perhaps painful bloodshed, continues to be its reborn return. Since, among other reasons, it does not seem that there is a new Kant who develops a superior alternative.