For the sake of the future of Europe and Europeans, showing the slightest sign of hesitation or political timidity would amount to a dangerous abdication of responsibility.
In her speech to EU ambassadors on 9 March 2026, the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, called for a radical shift in Europe’s geopolitical self-perception: “Europe can no longer be the guardian of the traditional world order.” She was right to underline the magnitude of the historical turning point confronting Europe. Yet the challenge before us goes far beyond a rhetorical adjustment. It requires a genuine structural transformation capable of ensuring Europe’s political endurance and strategic relevance within an increasingly unstable international system.
The gradual erosion of the rules-based international order reveals not only the fragility of the geopolitical environment surrounding Europe, but also the profound inadequacy of the current European institutional framework. For too long, Europe has attempted to project influence abroad while lacking the political instruments necessary to exercise power coherently and democratically. This contradiction is not new. It has accompanied the European project since its inception and now appears with unprecedented clarity.
The upheavals reshaping the international order may therefore represent one of the last opportunities for Europeans to recognise the structural limits of the current model and to overcome them before Europe risks strategic marginalisation.
