Europe cannot overcome its existential crisis with cosmetic adjustments. It needs a deep restructuring of its treaties and institutions. And this is not said only by the “bad guy” Donald Trump—whose warnings anger us every time—but also by Mario Draghi, who, unlike Trump, is welcomed with applause when he says the very same things.
By Il Giornale
Ferruccio de Bortoli explains in Corriere della Sera the weakness of the EU, noting that its leaders are “too polite and too weak” to stand up to a White House that yesterday harshly attacked European nations and their leaders, calling the former “bankrupt” and the latter “confused.”
But De Bortoli’s analysis is too mild. If a harsher tone and a more energetic policy were enough, Europe’s problems would still be solvable. The real issue is that the European Union is a body without voice and without muscle—structurally incapable of responding to emergencies. This profound weakness is rooted in the way the European project was created, finalized in 1992 with the Maastricht Treaty, a hymn to Euro-bureaucracy.
Moreover, in the decade that followed, Europe failed to adopt a Constitution that would give it a soul and a compass of values. Behind Maastricht stands the figure of Jacques Santer, an unknown prime minister of Luxembourg who, instead of giving Europe a guide on how to become a major power, placed it in rigid bureaucratic frames — more like an accountant’s manual than a political vision.
The treaty is even more unsuitable for the era in which it was drafted. These were the years when Francis Fukuyama’s The End of History fed the illusion that liberal democracy had triumphed forever. Under such illusions, European leaders focused on economic-legal rules while neglecting what is most lacking today:
a common defence and a fast, decisive foreign policy.
The result is not simply a “fragile Europe,” as De Bortoli describes it, but a lifeless body, incapable of deciding or acting. The absence of a Constitution — a compass of values — leaves the continent without direction and its leaders “confused.”
This syndrome has become evident in every major crisis of the past 15 years:
- the sovereign debt crisis (2009)
- the migration emergency (2015)
- the pandemic
- and now the energy crisis triggered by the war in Ukraine
In every case, the EU has played a minimal, if not irrelevant, role.
Europe cannot overcome this existential crisis with superficial fixes. It needs a profound restructuring of its treaties and institutions. And this is not only the warning of Donald Trump—who irritates many when he says it—but also of Mario Draghi, who, unlike Trump, is met with applause for saying the exact same thing.