How United is Europe in 2025? 🇪🇺
From energy security and overregulation to rising populism and lagging innovation in tech, green energy, and defense—Europe faces mounting pressures, says Dr. Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, PhD, Acting President of the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
As the #EU navigates shifting #US priorities and geopolitical uncertainty, its ability to lead on the global stage is being tested. 🌍
“What’s profoundly missing in Brussels today is a deeper, more strategic reflection on the EU’s role in the world,” de Hoop Scheffer tells Jay Sapsford. To rebalance transatlantic relations, the EU must act decisively, “the EU cannot continue to outsource its collective security and defense to others,” she explains.
What do these shifts mean for policymakers, businesses, and investors on both sides of the Atlantic? Listen in 👇🏼
Check out the full episode at: https://lnkd.in/gQRU82mZ#Europe#Geopolitics#TransatlanticRelations#Innovation#GlobalEconomy#EuropeanUnion#TheCall2025
Alexandra, you mentioned fragmentation
is part of that sort of the rise of these, this nativist sentiment among the voters
that we saw in the elections last year. And how might that affect economic policy? Do we see more protectionist,
more restrictions on trade and that sort of thing? I think there's an understanding today
that, an entity like the EU cannot win in the global competition by regulating. Right. Normative power
doesn't make you win, right? It can help you shape policies. At the European level,
at the global level. And we've seen it,
you know, on data privacy and data protection
that the EU has led in many ways, on the sustainability,
the climate the EU has led in many ways. It's not a question
of rewinding on European values, but it's really about,
you know, alleviating some of the bureaucratic, burden
and some of the reporting burden that companies have been engaged
now in terms of reporting, for example,
on their decarbonization strategy. So that's number one. The other thing,
I think that is absolutely necessary. It's not just about, you know, cutting red tape and,
de-bureaucratizing Brussels, and the way the EU, you know, does its work
policies and legislation. I think what is profoundly missing today in Brussels is a much deeper,
much strategic, much more strategic reflection
on the role of the EU in the world. There is a very critical need to update some of the thought processes,
some of the mindsets. Right. That the EU has been used to, to be
and these past couple of 30, 40 years updates their alliances,
update their mechanism. Be careful of not over-regulating. I'm going to give you a very concrete
example. BioNTech probably Europe's most spectacularly,
successful business upstart, decided to move its cancer
vaccine research to post-Brexit UK. Right,
for the reasons that I've just mentioned. And so we have come in Europe
to a terrible paradox where it's better to do business outside of the EU
rather than inside of the EU. And so if the European Commission, von der Leyen number two, is truly serious
about this so-called competing competitiveness compacts, it will have to address these issues very quickly and and very forcefully. And I'll end up by saying again, for me,
there are three pillars that will make the EU a successful player. In, in the, in the global competition. And these are the three pillars,
where Europeans need to highly invest
in its tech innovation. It's of course, the green transition. And it's of course security. And what I would love to do
as the person who, you know, embodies the transatlantic relationship
for the past 20 years, is that we find a way with the Trump
administration to co offer this, this agenda, to set the agenda, together because the US and Europe
are stronger, together.
