europe
Europe must remain open, free, and united — while becoming capable of acting decisively in an increasingly competitive world
A Continent at a Crossroads
A Continent at a Crossroads
Europe must find its teeth, fast.
Europe's greatest achievement is not its GDP. It is the quality of life it offers its citizens.
Affordable healthcare, public services, worker protections, public safety, social cohesion, and democratic institutions remain outstanding competitive advantages. As AI and automation reshape the economy, Europe should build on these strengths, ensuring that technological progress translates into broadly shared prosperity rather than allowing its gains to become increasingly concentrated in ways that undermine social cohesion.
This does not mean insulating the European model from change. The continent faces weak productivity growth, demographic pressures, rising inequality, and growing demands on its welfare states. Nor can ever-higher levels of migration serve as a sustainable substitute for productivity growth and demographic reform, particularly where they strain housing, public services, integration capacity, and social cohesion. Sustaining what makes Europe exceptional will require reform, but the answer should not be to compete with the United States in a race to the bottom in pursuit of growth.
Europe needs to find its lustre — and its teeth. It must become capable of legislating and acting as one where common European interests demand it.
Europe's greatest achievement is not its GDP. It is the quality of life it offers its citizens.
Affordable healthcare, public services, worker protections, public safety, social cohesion, and democratic institutions remain outstanding competitive advantages. As AI and automation reshape the economy, Europe should build on these strengths, ensuring that technological progress translates into broadly shared prosperity rather than allowing its gains to become increasingly concentrated in ways that undermine social cohesion.
This does not mean insulating the European model from change. The continent faces weak productivity growth, demographic pressures, rising inequality, and growing demands on its welfare states. Nor can ever-higher levels of migration serve as a sustainable substitute for productivity growth and demographic reform, particularly where they strain housing, public services, integration capacity, and social cohesion. Sustaining what makes Europe exceptional will require reform, but the answer should not be to compete with the United States in a race to the bottom in pursuit of growth.
Europe needs to find its lustre — and its teeth. It must become capable of legislating and acting as one where common European interests demand it.
Strategic Autonomy Requires Action
Europe's greatest liability is not its lack of ideas.
It's a lack of speed.
The world is increasingly organised around continental powers. Europe can only protect its interests through deeper internal cooperation on defence, energy, technology, and industrial policy.
Waiting for unanimous agreement among all member states is becoming a strategic liability. Where necessary, coalitions of willing states should move forward first, while leaving the door open for others to join later.
A genuine Capital Markets Union should be one of Europe's highest priorities. Europe cannot finance its future with 27 fragmented capital markets. If Europe wishes to compete in AI, strengthen its defence capabilities, and secure its energy future, it must become better at mobilising its own savings and investment capacity. European investors must also allocate more of their funds into domestic growth capital — instead of continuing to finance Silicon Valley's nth lap around the EU tech sector.
The world is increasingly organised around continental powers. Europe can only protect its interests through deeper internal cooperation on defence, energy, technology, and industrial policy.
Waiting for unanimous agreement among all member states is becoming a strategic liability. Where necessary, coalitions of willing states should move forward first, while leaving the door open for others to join later.
A genuine Capital Markets Union should be one of Europe's highest priorities. Europe cannot finance its future with 27 fragmented capital markets. If Europe wishes to compete in AI, strengthen its defence capabilities, and secure its energy future, it must become better at mobilising its own savings and investment capacity. European investors must also allocate more of their funds into domestic growth capital — instead of continuing to finance Silicon Valley's nth lap around the EU tech sector.
Europe cannot finance its future with 27 fragmented capital markets.
Over time, this will also require greater fiscal coordination. Common European public goods increasingly require common European financing. While fiscal integration should remain democratically accountable and carefully designed, the direction of travel is clear: strategic autonomy cannot be achieved without stronger economic integration in select areas.
Over time, this will also require greater fiscal coordination. Common European public goods increasingly require common European financing. While fiscal integration should remain democratically accountable and carefully designed, the direction of travel is clear: strategic autonomy cannot be achieved without stronger economic integration in select areas.
Democratic Legitimacy Counts
Democratic Legitimacy Counts
Brussels must become more strategically unified without becoming politically detached from constituents.
Greater European coordination should not come at the expense of democratic accountability. Stronger institutions in Brussels must be matched by stronger parliamentary oversight, greater transparency, and meaningful participation from national and local levels of government.
Brussels' challenge is not simply to become more powerful. It is to become more capable while remaining democratic and popular across its constituencies.
Greater European coordination should not come at the expense of democratic accountability. Stronger institutions in Brussels must be matched by stronger parliamentary oversight, greater transparency, and meaningful participation from national and local levels of government.
Brussels' challenge is not simply to become more powerful. It is to become more capable while remaining democratic and popular across its constituencies.
European Identity
European Identity
A confident Europe neither erases its cultures nor retreats fearfully into them.
European identity is not built on ethnic uniformity or cultural homogenisation. It is rooted in a shared inheritance of democratic governance, scientific inquiry, individual liberty, human dignity, and hard-earned historical lessons.
Europe's future depends not only on institutions and policies, but also on confidence within the polity that its values remain worth defending.
EU policymakers should seize this moment of overlapping crises and fraying external alliances to accelerate integration. But they must do so by responding to, rather than running ahead of, an emerging sense of European political belonging. Integration must therefore be fundamentally a cultural project: strengthening a common European identity that can provide the democratic foundation on which deeper institutional integration ultimately rests.
European identity is not built on ethnic uniformity or cultural homogenisation. It is rooted in a shared inheritance of democratic governance, scientific inquiry, individual liberty, human dignity, and hard-earned historical lessons.
Europe's future depends not only on institutions and policies, but also on confidence within the polity that its values remain worth defending.
EU policymakers should seize this moment of overlapping crises and fraying external alliances to accelerate integration. But they must do so by responding to, rather than running ahead of, an emerging sense of European political belonging. Integration must therefore be fundamentally a cultural project: strengthening a common European identity that can provide the democratic foundation on which deeper institutional integration ultimately rests.