The European Union has a real issue concerning its strategy. It is necessary to build a project that can give a lot of aspects to its policy of development. Anyway a long term strategy process is detrimental. To this extend it is possible to say that the European Union needs a real balance and strategical assets.
First the European Union needs to be very balanced concerning its strategy. Long term thinking has too often been forgotten. Philosophers like Hegel built their theory around this aspect : concerning the reason in history, Hegel thought that it was necessary to find sense in history about this aspect. That is the reason why it is possible to say that history makes a lot of sense to this extend. The green pact of the European pact on migration may lack this kind of strategy. Concerning the environment agreements like the CETA can threaten the credibility of such project ; concerning migration nationalist policies and the rise of the extreme right everywhere in Europe can be worrying.
It looks necessary to promote a social economy of market which can be a specificity of the European Union. The neo liberal views are today dominant in the United States, even if it is less the case than before and it is good news ; the other great power, China, is totalitarian and more and more maoist. It is the reason why an alternative has to be found with the European social market economy. Misfortunately it is not going this way. Even the Northern countries like Sweden, with a conservative government, is cutting more and more budgets to the education. It is the reason why it looks necessary to engage for these values.
But the industrial political strategy needs to be thought in the long run. Investing in the technologies of the future is necessary to this extend. The chips, the future rivalries in space or in the submarines are approaches that can be necessary to put in place. However it looks in the debates about the European elections that there is a serious lack of industrial strategy. There are plans for the environment like the Green Pact, or about migrations, but no ambitious project is debated around the industrial strategy. This year of election could be on the contrary an opportunity to talk about this strategy and also to make it more compliant with the environment. Misfortunately there is no real ambition, nothing trying to make it compliant with the environment and even less a strategy. It is a real problem not to be underestimated.
Those factors show that it is detrimental to think more strategically. It is not normal that the biggest European in capitalization is a luxurian company, LVMH. To this extend investing in the long run in strategic assets looks to be a real issue for our sovereignty and the European long term success.
The observer 