The European Union is facing a lot of challenges today. When it was created 70 years ago a main goal was to overcome the Second World War and centuries of wars between European countries. Today it is necessary for other reasons : no one European country, except Germany, is really able to face the changes of international relations, particularly the rise of Asia with first of all the new Chinese superpower. This new time is a normal phase in History with rise and declines of civilizations as they always happened. However the European Union has never been as necessary as today in many ways, particularly in the economy.
The European Union can be a third great power with the United States and China. If the number of countries will never give the same kind of power, its influence can be very important in the future. This influence will be very strong in the economy. Only the European Union will be able, with the collaboration between at least its wealthiest states, to compete with these two countries to finance innovation, great companies able to compete with Tesla or Tencent. If Europe is first an ally of the United States, even if the Trump administration questions this status today, it has at least to be able to compete and to face China, as an ally or the United States or by itself. Trump represents a United States which wants to come back to its core values, doing business and a state turned to itself. Many say the United States have less expansionist ideas than England or France in the past, if there was an economic imperialism it wasn’t political. Trump represents also the Monroe Doctrine velleities, which wants at the same time dominate economically out of the framework of international laws or Human Rights. This idea stems from a United States which doesn’t accept to decline, especially compared to China and overall towards Asia (if you compare the relative influence 30 years ago and today the relative decline is important) and who wants to come back to its basics, being more isolated and more turned into business and economic development. On the contrary the Biden administration represented the part of the United States which accepts to have to do alliances to face China. It is with this part of this country the European Union has to create the most links.
However, in a context the American protection which happen during all the Cold War will more and more come to the end, Europe has to invest more in itself. This investment has to be made in education, innovation, and the population will probably have to work more overall in the future to sustain competition with the United States, China and other countries of Asia as well (for instance India). The European Union has also to defend its redistributive system which is, even if it is very variable depending on countries, the most effective in the world. However the relatively declining Europe has to react to saveguard its model of economy : working more but also investing more in its schools or hospitals. It has also do invest more in innovation which also means to have an ambitious policy for research. China succeeded to rise thanks to a great investment in education and also to attract international companies. There was also the conditions of work that were often horrible, for instance for children in factories, but the long term investment they made had also great positive effects and created a powerful middle class and put 800 millions of Chinese out of poverty in 40 years. Europe has to react to be able to compete in the battle of innovation in the next years. The legacy of neo liberalism, which led to a relative decline of the Western countries and is not able to compete with the Chinese reformism put in place by Deng Xiaoping, has to be abandoned and be replaced by more really humanistic ideas, as for me neo liberalism is quite different from classical liberalism.
The observer 