Region: Europe and Eurasia

Escaping Europe’s oil straitjacket with decarbonization

The current global energy crisis reveals, once again, that Europe remains highly dependent on imported fossil-fuels. Experts argue that now, it is clear that the only way to secure Europe’s energy security is through rapid and ambitious decarbonisation. 

In Ireland, Norway, France, and the United Kingdom, protesters voice displeasure at the near-doubling of fuel prices following the ongoing energy price shock from the tolling and blocking of traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. As people take to the streets and urge action to protect citizens against rapidly rising energy costs, Europe reels from the consequences of its dependency on fossil fuel imports.

If this sounds familiar, it should. 

The current energy crisis is only the latest revealing again how Europe’s energy dependency leaves it vulnerable to geopolitical instability. 

As Europe’s political leadership rushes to find solutions to protect citizens’ pocketbooks in the short term, analysts argue that temporary bandaid measures must not come in the place of more comprehensive policies to transform Europe’s energy system. 

The EU should suspend spending debt and deficit rules and rapidly expand funding for renewable energy projects. Oil windfall profits should be taxed while programs alleviating unemployment and high energy prices for workers will provide immediate relief. . EU member states should follow the examples of Spain, rapidly expanding its renewable capacity and decouple electricity prices from international fossil-fuel markets States should directly invest in public energy projects to ensure renewable power generation is built and held sovereign States must identify key industries to support and protect for economic and geopolitical security.

And yet, while the current shock has hallmarks of previous crises, analysts Kate Mackenzie and Tim Sahay of the Polycrisis argue that this time is different. It’s the first time that renewable alternatives are both cheap and accessible, saying that the current crisis is accelerating our transition towards an “electric world order.”

Alex Chapman, senior economist at the New Economics Foundation (NEF), says that if there is one lesson to be taken from the current crisis it is “that we need to have an economy that is less dependent on fossil fuels and more self-reliant on domestic renewable energy sources.” 

Leaders may seize the opportunity and frustration caused by the latest crisis to steer their economies away from fossil fuel dependency. But first, they will have to minimize the pain felt by workers from the price hikes. 

Polycrisis Management

In the immediate response to the current crisis, Europe must implement measures to protect workers and purchasing power in the short-term, says Judith Kirton-Darling, General Secretary of IndustriALL-Europe, the trade union federation representing Europe’s industrial workers.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) estimates that the average annual energy bill for European consumers will rise by around €1800 Euros ($2100) unless immediate actions are taken. The ETUC also notes that EU consumer spending is plummeting, putting even greater pressure on the continent’s economy. 

Kirton-Darling calls for the EU to implement a “SURE 2.0” employment protection program that was used during the COVID pandemic that would provide financial support to prevent layoffs in the short-term.

She also calls for the taxing of windfall profits for fossil-fuel companies – a measure that was taken during the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine when fossil-fuel companies made record-breaking profits. Oil giants are already expected to make enormous windfall profits by the end of the year. 

Policies that would protect the most vulnerable consumers from energy costs are important, argues Chapman, noting that the most impactful intervention during the energy hikes resulting from the invasion of Ukraine was a scheme that gave all households a specific amount of subsidised energy at a lower rate. 

These policies will offer short-term relief. To escape the cycle of crisis and temporary relief, experts argue that Europe must wean itself from its reliance on imported fossil fuels and address the systemic vulnerabilities it results in. 

Europe’s energy woes are longstanding and systematic

Europe’s energy prices have long been significantly higher than other countries like the United States and China. This contributes to a profound crisis in Europe’s key energy-intensive sectors, such as steel and chemicals, since international competitors can produce with far-lower energy costs. 

“We have an essentially existential crisis in our foundation industries because of energy prices. We’ve already lost something like 100,000 jobs in European steel in recent years. We’ve lost something like 30,000 jobs in the chemical sector”, says Kirton-Darling. 

These high prices are impacted by Europe’s dependency on fossil-fuel imports for its energy. According to Eurostat, the EU’s energy dependency rate is around 60% for all sources of energy; with the shares rising to 85% for natural gas and 97% for oil and petroleum products. 

While much of this energy came from Russia before the invasion of Ukraine, the bloc shifted towards other countries for energy, increasing reliance on the United States and Qatar. Just four years after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump’s voluntary war against Iran jeopardizes this reliance, as the Trump administration willingly weaponizes Europe’s energy dependence. Switching suppliers likely prolonged, rather than resolved, Europe’s state of dependency. 

The price that Europeans pay for energy is exposed to international gas market volatility in other ways as well. 

European hourly wholesale electricity prices operate in a way where the price is set by the most expensive source of power in the energy mix at that time. This system of marginal pricing means that when renewables don’t produce enough electricity to meet demand, the market price often gets set by international gas and coal market prices. 

Coupling the price of electricity to the most expensive source means that when international gas prices are volatile and rise sharply, and when renewables are insufficient to meet demand, wholesale electricity prices can rise dramatically. 

A rapid uptake of renewables would mitigate this phenomenon, ensuring that they provide the bloc’s electricity for as much time as possible. An analysis by the policy thinktank Breugel argues that “scaling up non-fossil generation and thereby reducing the share of hours when gas sets the electricity price is the only structural approach to decouple Europe’s electricity prices from fossil prices and future shocks.”

We already see benefits for countries that have gone the furthest in terms of renewable energy capacity. Spain has doubled its renewable capacity since 2019 and as a result, the amount of time that electricity prices were set by fossil fuel prices has dropped by 75%. 

As evidence mounts that greater investment in renewables can offer lower prices and protection against global instability, significant challenges remain stalling Europe’s capacity to install new capacity and expand investments. 

Europe’s homegrown constraints

In the EU, rules dictating the amount of debt and deficit that countries can run in their public budgets mean that governments can be blocked by the EU from increasing public spending, potentially presenting a barrier that prevents governments from raising their investments in transforming their energy systems. 

“At the moment, we have our hands tied behind our backs because we have 7 member states who are subject to fiscal restraints processes”, says Kirton-Darling, who calls for a suspension of these rules given the scale of the emergency at hand. 

Chapman from the NEF also calls for greater coordination between central banks and governments: “central banks are inclined to act to reduce inflation by increasing interest rates, but increasing interest rates makes it harder to invest in the technologies that we need for our own security.”

He also argues for greater state-led initiatives that do not just depend on providing incentives for private capital investments: “we argue that states should be more confident to directly invest and own levers of production and to take some risks on developing new supply chains rather than paying exorbitant amounts of money to de-risk for the private sector.”

Beyond just increasing the amount of renewable capacity in Europe, the continent will have to invest in the infrastructure supporting it. Europe’s underinvested electricity grid is already struggling to handle new capacity. Moreover, the overall electrification of the EU economy has stalled at just over 20%. This means that much of the EU continues to be nearly as dependent on non-electric sources for final energy consumption, like gasoline for transportation, as nearly 20 years ago. 

Nevertheless, we are already seeing decisions from Europe’s political leaders to move quickly to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. The UK government has recently mandated that all new homes be built with heat pumps and new plug-in solar capacity; France has doubled its public aid for electrification. 

Whether or not Europe’s leadership can meet the demands of the current moment, it serves as a potent reminder that a rapid energy transition towards domestically produced renewable energy is not only driven by ecological concerns, but also a pathway towards security in the face of repeated geopolitical tumult. 

Nevertheless, this drive also reflects a newfound geopolitical terrain on which Europe will have to find its footing. 

Castell de Savallà (Savallà del Comtat) MARIA ROSA FERRE ((CC BY-SA 2.0))

New geopolitical terrain and China as the rising victor

The sharp rise in fossil fuel prices and repeated energy price shocks in recent years has already ignited action in countries beyond the EU, most notably within China. 

Sahay and Mackenzie write in the Polycrisis that China is rapidly emerging as an “electrostate”, positioning itself as an alternative global hegemon to the US petrostate model. Through massive investments in the technologies necessary for decarbonization (Electrical Vehicles, Batteries, and Solar), it has made rapid progress in reducing its reliance on fossil fuels while developing cheaper and better technologies at a blistering pace. 

Already, China produces four-fifths of the world’s solar panels and batteries and has considerable control over the supply chains necessary to produce renewables. China’s investments have resulted in the price of new renewable capacity installations falling sharply: now, the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) estimates that new renewable installations are cheaper than new fossil-fuel power alternatives in 91% of cases. 

Pakistan has emerged as an unlikely victor as it has shifted a meaningful share of its energy production to renewables in recent years and is estimated to have saved billions by replacing Liquid Natural Gas imports. 

The war in Iran is accelerating China’s sale of renewable technologies and the Chinese electrical vehicle manufacturer BYD has seen a doubling of their orders in some Asian showrooms since the war began, presenting a significant risk to Europe’s historically important car manufacturing sector. 

Concerns persist within Europe on whether these developments mean yet another shift of its energy dependencies on a new international partner. The EU manufacturers a shrinkingly small share of new global renewable capacity and will undoubtedly have to rely extensively on China for new capacity supplies. 

Nevertheless, Alex Chapman says that this reflects a different kind of dependency than that on fossil fuels: “it isn’t necessarily the same kind of reliance. It isn’t an indefinite, permanent relationship the way that our reliance on fossil fuels is.” 

In other words, geopolitical shocks like the blocking of the Strait of Hormuz would not result in suddenly wiping off already installed renewable capacity and doesn’t create a kind of persistent dependency the way that fossil fuels do. Fossil fuel extraction is geographically concentrated and prone to disruption; once a solar array is installed, no one can blockade the sun.

Nevertheless, these changing relations reflect a rapid reconfiguration of international geopolitical relations where we may be witnessing more profound transformations. Sahay and Mackenzie write that “increasingly, the US is not so much the gatekeeper of the world’s only energy system, but the paranoid guardian of an ailing oil order that is rapidly losing primacy. Clean energy alternatives are becoming more attractive, cheaper, and—most importantly—more reliable.”

Europe’s roots in the old order are deep, and the continent has shown itself reluctant to make significant moves that can adapt to new realities. Nevertheless, the European Union is working to boost its own investments in clean tech, partially through the Industrial Accelerator Act, which seeks to invest in modernizing and decarbonizing Europe’s ailing industries. 

Kirton-Darlin says that IndustriALL-Europe is a “proponent of the act and measures to to boost European domestic production of key technologies”, while Chapman adds that countries will need to establish framework of the industries that are fundamentally essential to sustaining quality of life” and take the necessary steps to protect them.

At the same time, however, there continues to be a rising and persistent internal threat: that of the far-right political parties that continue to have steadfast presences in the European political arena and place anti-decarbonisation policies at the centre of their visions of the future. 

Moreover, there is evidence that the perception of worsening economic conditions can drive voters to far-right parties, meaning that the current energy crisis may in fact further push Europe’s voters to parties that would implement the exact parties that may exacerbate the likelihood of crises in the future. 

Chapman notes “this [crisis] is happening against the backdrop of a drive from the right wing across Europe to roll back on green progress, which, in the light of the way our reliance on fossil fuels has been exposed, seems just unfathomable, but that is the reality of where we are.”

While the fears of a revanchist fossil-fuel right are real, European leaders can put decarbonization in the driver’s seat by mitigating price shocks in the short term, and then actively pursuing a policy of renewable power generation and electrification. Twice already this decade, right-wing leaders have launched wars of choice that disrupted European access to fossil fuel energy and plunged the continent into crisis. Freedom from the whim of autocrats comes through lessening their power over power.

Wouter van de Klippe is a freelance journalist focused on labor and politics. He is committed to revitalizing Europe’s labor beat and writes on labor, economic, social, and environmental justice, and social welfare states.

Against those who sow fear: Europe and the end of American Dependability

In 2016, as the world reeled from the surprise election of Donald Trump to his first term as President of the United States, writers across Washington looked for signs they could have missed about how this real estate mogul turned reality star could become president. Writing in The Daily Beast, journalist Ronald Radosh recalled a conversation in the District three years prior. Trump’s campaign manager Steven Bannon, then just the director of far-right Breitbart.com, told Radosh that “I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment.” 

Deep into Trump’s second term, Bannon’ s invocation of the destruction of an ancien régime reads less like a provocation and more like a statement of intent. Despite the fluctuating relationship between Bannon and the U.S. president, the disruptive, quasi‑revolutionary authoritarian rationale he articulated has become increasingly visible in the trajectory of U.S. politics.

This development is hardly confined to the domestic sphere. The U.S. foreign policy characterized by the erosion of bilateral and multilateral agreements in favour of unilateral arrangements has generated growing concern among the United States’ partners, particularly in Europe. While the rise of reactionary politics is a global phenomenon, the democratic regression of a country with the structural influence of the United States carries disproportionate consequences. Should this trajectory consolidate, it risks accelerating similar dynamics elsewhere, including in Europe, where such tendencies have already taken hold.

Europe should mobilize an additional €10 trillion in investment in sustainable energy sources by 2050, alongside green and technological reindustrialization. To foster a knowledge-based digital economy built on research and technology transfer, promoting digital humanism and environmental sustainability, and strengthening low-emission technological solutions. Member States should allocate at least 1% of their GDP to renewable energy and energy efficiency. Before increasing defence spending, existing resources must be shared more effectively to prevent duplication and address the inefficiencies present in many national armed forces. The EU and member states should increase foreign aid funding for democracy work, to fill gaps caused by a decline in US spending and ensure that pro-democracy activists are not abandoned in their aspirations.

This transformation is already reshaping the strategic environment. As uncertainty surrounding U.S. commitments deepens, states and regions that remain invested in a rules-based international order are increasingly compelled to reassess their partnerships and seek more stable and predictable counterparts.

In this context, democratic actors within the United States retain a central role in reversing institutional erosion. Their efforts will likely continue to find resonance among European counterparts. Yet if current trends persist, Europe will be forced to adapt to a more inward-looking United States, recalibrating its alliances in response to a more fragmented and volatile global landscape.

Regardless of the path Washington ultimately takes, the European Union faces an urgent imperative: to address its own structural vulnerabilities by deepening unity and strengthening sovereignty. Should democratic backsliding in the United States intensify, Europe may find itself assuming a more central role in upholding democratic norms at the global level. The geopolitical void created by a retreating United States offers such a possibility, provided Europe is willing to reduce long-standing dependencies and act with strategic coherence, and stand as a bastion for pro-democracy forces globally.

Democratic Backsliding and its Transnational Effects

The assault on the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021, marked a watershed in contemporary U.S. politics. Initially perceived by some as an isolated rupture, it increasingly appears as a precursor to a broader and more sustained process of institutional erosion. Trumpism has evolved into a political phenomenon with clear affinities to contemporary far-right movements, reflecting deeper structural tensions within the United States democracy.

In the years since, this regression has not abated. Developments associated with Trumpism, particularly during the president’s second term, pose a systemic challenge to democratic resilience in the United States. For Europe, this evolution is significant for both normative and strategic reasons.

First, the United States is falling short on the expectations that the western and liberal world had placed in it as a central pillar of the liberal democratic order, even though such expectations may have been somewhat unwarranted and even exaggerated. Its current trajectory raises fundamental questions about the durability of democratic institutions, even in what some consider to be historically consolidated systems. Second, Trumpism has demonstrated a capacity to project itself beyond U.S. borders, leveraging transatlantic networks to influence political dynamics in Europe. Initiatives linked to figures such as Bannon, including attempts to establish far-right training centers and think tanks across the continent, illustrate the increasingly transnational character of these movements.

Europe’s dependence on the United States spans multiple domains, but it has not, and should not, do so when it comes to the sphere of ideas. Indeed, the United States is no longer simply affected by global democratic backsliding; it has become one of its principal laboratories. The implication is clear: if institutional erosion can occur in a system as established as that of the United States, it can occur elsewhere.

The Strategic Logic Behind Trump’s “Peace” Agenda

During his second term, Donald Trump has increasingly framed himself as a promoter of peace. This positioning, often interpreted as linked to his stated ambition of receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, has nonetheless produced uncertain and, at times, contradictory outcomes.

Beyond its personal dimension, this posture reflects a broader structural logic associated with relative decline. Historically, declining empires facing economic strain—characterized by rising debt and inflation—have sought to secure access to strategic resources and maintain influence through coercive or violent means, frequently under the rhetorical cover of stability or peace. The United States and Donald Trump have in fact taken the concept of peace and turned it into subjugation, the notion that under the direction of the President the country is entitled to rob, exploit, dominate, and undertake any course of action to ensure that existing privileges—by being an empire—are maintained and protected.

Recent U.S. actions can be interpreted within this framework. Trump’s threats against Greenland’s sovereignty marked a significant rupture in transatlantic relations. For many European governments, it challenged a longstanding assumption: that the United States would not question the territorial integrity of allied nations. The episode has accelerated debates across Europe regarding strategic autonomy, particularly in defense, technology, industry, and energy.

Economic relations have also come under strain. Tariff measures targeting key European sectors, including automobiles, agri-food products, steel, and aluminum, have been widely interpreted as a direct challenge to the transatlantic economic partnership. As a result, confidence in the United States as a stable and predictable partner has been significantly weakened.

At the same time, in conflicts such as Ukraine, Palestine, and Iran, U.S. positioning has often appeared misaligned with that of its traditional allies. At the same time, Trump has shown greater synergy with the aggressors, like Putin and Netanyahu, than with the victims, like Zelenskyy, who have suffered public and televised humiliations coming from the U.S. president. This perception has contributed to a growing sense of strategic divergence across the Atlantic.

Public opinion reflects this shift. Survey data in recent years indicates a decline in European trust toward the United States, with increasing skepticism regarding its role as a security guarantor. Longstanding alliances, especially NATO, are being reconsidered amid growing doubts.

Europe in an Age of Strategic Reassessment

For decades, Europe, like much of the Western world, outsourced key dimensions of its sovereignty. Industrial production shifted to Asia, energy dependencies formed with Russia and North Africa, and responsibility for defense was largely delegated to the United States. This model has created the structural vulnerabilities that today undermine Europe’s position on the global playing field.

In a global environment increasingly defined by geopolitical competition and authoritarian tendencies, such dependencies are no longer tenable. Yet this moment of disruption also presents an opportunity. The European Union has the capacity to redefine its role, positioning itself as a central actor in the defense of democratic governance without replicating the coercive dynamics of traditional great powers.

Strategic autonomy, however, should not be equated with disengagement. Europe faces a strategic inflection point: adapt to instability and redefine its role in international order. This includes strengthening multilateral frameworks, investing in international institutions, and building coalitions with like-minded democracies.

To translate potential into capacity, structural adjustments are required. Reindustrialization and the revitalization of the primary sector are essential to reduce dependency on external supply chains. Equally critical is the development of an autonomous energy strategy centered on renewable sources. In parallel, advancing a coordinated European defense framework would allow for more efficient use of resources while reducing reliance on external actors.

Therefore, and willing to synthesize the lines of action that the European Union should adopt in order to move towards a strategic reassessment that brings more sovereignty, the following recommendations should be applied:

  1. To mobilize an additional €10 trillion in investment in sustainable energy sources by 2050, ensuring a green transition that allows us to achieve climate neutrality objectives while maintaining a competitive industrial base. 
  2. A European plan of public social and ecological investments designed to reindustrialise Europe, with a focus on the new economy and the green and technological industries, while also strengthening our autonomy and sovereignty.
  3. To foster a knowledge-based digital economy built on research and technology transfer, promoting digital humanism and environmental sustainability, and strengthening low-emission technological solutions.
  4. Investing in the energy transition: Member States should allocate at least 1% of their GDP to renewable energy and energy efficiency. The European Commission should present a multiannual investment strategy to plan the investment needs for the EU’s energy transition. We estimate that public and private investment needs in energy efficiency, renewable energy and sustainable technologies across the EU amount to €1.7 trillion by 2030.
  5. A common European security and defence policy, based on genuine cooperation in security matters across the EU. Before increasing defence spending, existing resources must be shared more effectively to prevent duplication and address the inefficiencies present in many national armed forces.
  6. The EU and member states should increase foreign aid funding for democracy work, to fill gaps caused by a decline in US spending and ensure that pro-democracy activists are not abandoned in their aspirations.

Conclusion: From Dependency to Agency

As the United States becomes increasingly inward-looking and more authoritarian, Europe faces a decisive strategic moment. The erosion of U.S. position within the democratic international order does not automatically produce a successor, but it does create an opening.

Whether the European Union can assume a more central role will depend on its willingness to act collectively, invest in its own capabilities, and articulate a coherent vision for its place in the world. This is not simply a matter of geopolitical positioning; it is a question of political responsibility.

If the United States no longer defends the democratic order, the question is no longer whether Europe should act, but whether it can afford not to.

Oriol Junqueras i Vies is the leader of the Catalan party Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. He was the Minister of Economy and Finance of the Government of Catalonia from 2016 to 2017. He also served as a Member of the European Parliament (2009–2011 and 2019–2020), as a member of the Spanish Congress (2019), as a Member of the Parliament of Catalonia (2012–2019), and as the mayor of Sant Vicenç dels Horts, near Barcelona, from 2011 to 2015. He holds a degree in Modern and Contemporary History and a PhD in History of Economic Thought from the Autonomous University of Barcelona.

Exiting American Hegemony Under A French Nuclear Umbrella 

Transatlantic relations since World War II have followed a familiar, and often toxic, pattern: one side pushes, while the other insists it wanted to be pushed all along. As Europe recovered after 1945, its leaders, particularly in France, periodically declared their plans and wishes for greater autonomy, while American presidents urged Europe to take on more responsibility. Yet in practice, this dynamic has resembled an unhealthy family relationship: a parent demanding independence from a child, but resisting it when it happens, and a child that ultimately returns when faced with real life constraints. While this struggle has repeated about once a decade since the 1960s, it is time for Europe to grow up, and move out of the American nuclear umbrella and into its own stable shelter against catastrophe. 

Donald Trump began 2026 straining US relations with Europe. His stated desire for a US annexation of Greenland, often dismissed as a meme on the campaign trail, suddenly became a stark possibility, rather than just an attention-grabbing remark. In response, European decision-makers presented a strong and united front and said, “absolutely not”. 

France led the conversation, from Emmanuel Macron’s sunglasses in Davos to his “for sure” speech and even private messages leaked by Trump. Close behind was the UK’s Keir Starmer, who, alongside the wave of TikToks, shared an AI-generated meme of himself and Macron as Top Gun characters. Germany joined in as well, with Foreign Minister Wadephul and official institutions posting a nihilist penguin edit to showcase European unity. Sunglasses sales soared, memes circulated, and political popularity followed, drawing even younger audiences, however briefly, into conversations on European unity and strategic autonomy.

This unity was not only shown through social media, but also through military deployments to Greenland from Denmark, France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, UK, Finland and Netherlands. While this deployment was framed as a joint exercise against Russian and Chinese threats, diplomats and analysts also concluded that it was meant to show an example of NATO defence without the US. Furthermore, at the Brussels’ ambassadors summit on January 19, European officials planned an anti-tariff retaliation, while the ratification of the US trade deal was paused. This has led to Trump taking a step back from the Greenland idea, at least for now, and to Europe catching a glimpse of what coordinated messaging and unity can achieve.

Draft a concise, independent ESS that sets Europe’s priorities rather than reacting to the US. Develop contingency plans to support and protect Ukraine if US backing falters. Define a coherent Middle East strategy based on European interests, not American imperatives. Coordinate with France and the UK to outline the scope, obligations, and operational rules of a potential joint nuclear umbrella, with an emphasis on No First Use in keeping with best deescalatory practice. Ensure that smaller European powers are protected and not overshadowed by leadership from stronger states in the bloc.

All of this was followed by foreign relations enthusiasts’ favourite holiday: the Munich Security Conference. In the shadow of last year’s J. D. Vance’s speech, the more polished one delivered by Marco Rubio still sent the same message: the US would pursue its own interests, and Europe needed to get on board. France, under Macron, placed the European project at the centre of the debate, urging Europeans to take pride in their values, noting that “a stronger Europe would be a better friend to its allies.” He also moved beyond Charles de Gaulle’s traditional anti-Anglosaxon and go-it-alone approach, instead emphasizing the indivisibility of European and British security and calling for greater coordination and spending. While Keir Starmer reaffirmed the importance of the US alliance, he also supported reducing dependence on it, pointing toward deeper UK–EU defence integration and a more European NATO, which certainly is a turn in their foreign policy, which previously relied upon being the closest American partner in Europe, at the cost of their relations with fellow Europeans. Chancellor of Germany Friedrich Merz struck a more cautious tone. Although he acknowledged the breakdown of the international order and supported greater European cooperation, he ultimately prioritized Germany’s role as a reliable partner to the United States, suggesting that European strategic autonomy should not come at the expense of alignment with Washington. 

The Umbrella of Île Longue

On March 2, Emmanuel Macron delivered a speech in Brittany, one that is perhaps the most significant speech on nuclear policy by any Western leader since the end of the Cold War. Speaking at Île Longue, the base for France’s nuclear submarines, Macron outlined a strategic shift. Notably, the original French nuclear deterrence, force de frappe, was never meant to be able to defeat Russia (USSR at the time) in a nuclear stand-off, but rather to be able to inflict enough damage and guarantee that the United States would have no choice but to come to European’s defence, with full force. Charles de Gaulle never trusted Americans to defend Europe as they would their own country, no matter who was in the office. Force de frappe was created as a symbol of national pride and independence, part of de Gaulle’s bigger plan to restore French grandeur after World War II. Through the Cold War and beyond it evolved pragmatically: de Gaulle pulled France from NATO’s integrated military command in 1966; Mitterrand in the 1990s and post-Soviet collapse cut costs by scrapping land missiles and reducing subs, but kept the core – no first use, defensive only, and total control in Paris. Hollande and earlier presidents reaffirmed this amid terrorism and new threats without big shifts. While Macron continues to uphold Gaullist independence and the policy of no-first strikes, since 2020 he has introduced a response to multi-domain threats that go beyond state borders, such as cyberattacks, into the French nuclear doctrine. Alongside this, he has announced arsenal growth, for the first time since 1992.

What Macron is offering is broadly familiar: the shelter of a French nuclear umbrella for Europe is the offer that has been on the table since the 1960s. What is new this time is that Europeans seem more inclined to accept it. The UK, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, Greece, Sweden and Denmark have agreed to participate in a new “advanced deterrence” strategy. Macron set to increase the size of the French nuclear arsenal, and to no longer share with the world what that arsenal contains. This is another example of him breaking away from the past French doctrine, that has since 2008 meant a self chosen obligation to have less than 300 warheads. Unfortunately, this opacity aligns with the lapse of bilateral arms control agreements like New START (expired in February 2026), mirroring US and Russian trends toward reduced disclosures. France frames it as enhancing “strict sufficiency” deterrence without proliferation risks, maintaining its NPT commitments and abstention from stockpile growth races. Macron has declared that the reduced transparency is just a dynamic update to the previous doctrine, now needed in order to keep scaring away the enemies, but without entering into an arms race. He has also emphasized that the new goal of the arsenal is that “no State, however powerful, could shield itself from it; and no State, however vast, could recover”, in case of France’s red lines being crossed. Notably, the concept of red lines has been kept deliberately vague, except saying that they do go beyond France’s national borders, in contrast to being strictly defined during the de Gaulle era. 

This proposal ultimately reinforces a return to power politics and spheres of influence. And while Macron presents it as a path to peace, Ronald Reagan’s warning still holds: “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought”. Moreover, the concept of the nuclear umbrella relies on enemies fearing it, and allies trusting their guarantor. In a context where great powers are increasingly moving away from transparency, as Emmanuel Macron calls on middle powers to unite in response to the dominance of the United States and China, and as Europe seeks to reassert its role on the global stage, France, together with its partners, would be better served by setting a stronger precedent of transparency and cooperation, and by upholding and reinforcing the non-proliferation community, rather than following in the footsteps of the prevailing hegemons.

Prime Minister Robert Golob is on a working visit to Paris, where he met with French President Emmanuel Macron. They stand under French umbrellas

A few days before Macron’s speech, Germany officials stated they would not be footing the bill for an arsenal that is only French, and recent issues with the Franco-German-Spanish project FCAS (Future Combat Air System) go to show they mean it. FCAS is a joint €100 billion project, launched in 2017 to build a 6th-generation fighter jet by 2040, as well as drones and a “combat cloud” network. At the beginning of the year German officials stated that they would not pay equal share for a fighter customized to French needs: nuclear-armed and carrier-launched. Macron himself stated that the usage of the nuclear arsenal remains solely at France’s discretion, more precisely, the President’s – hence, his. One of the main reasons why this concept has never come to fruition before certainly is because Europeans trusted the external ally, the US, more than they trusted each other. And even if they have overcome this, France is set to hold presidential elections in 2027, and Macron cannot run. So, what happens when someone new is in his office? While most French presidents have ridden the de Gaulle wave of foreign policy, no one more than Macron, there is no guarantee that his successor will be of the same beliefs. The umbrella could contract as easily as it was unfurled.  

Many have urged the UK to act as a second guarantor, the only other European country with a nuclear arsenal. Yet while France’s force de frappe has always been independent, the British arsenal was built for NATO use, with sovereign UK authority limited to cases of “immediate grave danger”, a term never fully defined. Still, London has noticeably shifted away from the US and closer to continental Europe. Case in point: their backing of Macron’s nuclear umbrella project and the cooperation agreement signed with France last July, which has created an Anglo-French “oversight committee”. Germany, meanwhile, published a joint statement on March 2, showing alignment with France, but the very next day while Merz was in Washington, Trump used this occasion to publicly berate Spain, as their prime minister strongly refused the possibility of the US using Spanish military bases for attacks on Iran. The German chancellor stayed quiet and did not defend its European ally at all – although he later claimed he did so in private. When Merz visited the UK only a day after Macron last July, it was seen as the return of the E3 group, as the driving force of European security. If we take the history lessons into consideration, it would most likely be Germany to back away from any real European autonomy and go right back to the US. After all, if European countries do go through with it, the place of the American closest ally within Europe will be available, and Trump has already favored Merz in comparison to other European leaders.

Strait Talk

The beginning of March also brought the US and Israeli war against Iran, a true test of Europe’s united front and its seriousness about independence from Washington. Remarkably, European leaders have stood firm: this is not their war, and they will neither participate nor allow the US use of their bases. True to form, Trump expressed disappointment, warning that their choices could imperil NATO, a body he has long treated as little more than a burden. Yet even if Europe stays out of the fighting, the consequences ripple across the continent: soaring oil and gas prices, and a missile striking Cyprus in early March. While it starkly resembles 2003 and European discontent with the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq, this moment will reveal whether European unity is performative theater or the first steps toward genuine strategic autonomy.  

The central question remains: is Europe’s new push for sovereignty real, or merely an illusion crafted to capture Washington’s attention? The answer will emerge in the coming months, but policy must act now. Recommendations for the European Commission, as it develops a new European Security Strategy (ESS), are clear: 

  1. Draft a concise, independent ESS that sets Europe’s priorities rather than reacting to the US.  
  2. Develop contingency plans to support and protect Ukraine if US backing falters.  
  3. Define a coherent Middle East strategy based on European interests, not American imperatives.  
  4. Coordinate with France and the UK to outline the scope, obligations, and operational rules of a potential joint nuclear umbrella, with an emphasis on No First Use in keeping with best deescalatory practice.  
  5. Ensure that smaller European powers are protected and not overshadowed by leadership from stronger states in the bloc.

What emerges from this analysis is that a more militarily autonomous Europe has the potential to act not as a destabilizing force, but as a moderating one. Moving beyond its longstanding role as a deferential ally, Europe must begin to trust in its own collective strength and in the reliability of its partners within the continent, rather than defaulting to external guarantees. For too long, both European foreign policy and, at times, internal political dynamics have been shaped by electoral cycles in the United States, with each new one bringing a recalibration of priorities. Strategic autonomy would allow Europe to break from this pattern and act with greater consistency and confidence, engaging the United States as an ally when interests align and as a competitor when they do not. Freed from automatic alignment with Washington’s strategic choices, Europe could position itself as a more cautious and deliberative actor on the global stage, one less inclined toward interventionism and more committed to diplomacy, multilateralism, and restraint. Unlike in past decades, where European support often enabled US-led wars of choice, a truly independent Europe could instead serve as a counterweight, slowing escalation rather than facilitating it. In doing so, Europe would move from being a geopolitical battleground for great powers to an actor in its own right, contributing to a more balanced, stable, and predictable international order.

Tijana Bauer (Tijana Bauer | LinkedIn) is a researcher and writer working on European security, transatlantic relations, and nuclear deterrence, with a Master’s degree in Comparative International Relations from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Her work combines primary-source research, OSINT, and policy analysis, and has appeared in academic and research publications on European autonomy, Balkan security, and intelligence cooperation.

Can a Deal Be Reached to End Russia’s War in Ukraine? Matt Duss on Latest Diplomatic Efforts

Executive Vice President Matt Duss explains why ceasefire talks with Russia face major obstacles and what the human cost of the war reveals about the stakes of diplomacy.

Nearly four years into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, over half a million lives have been lost or severely affected. Duss highlights the staggering toll: 111,000 Russian military casualties, roughly 400,000 Ukrainian casualties, and tens of thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia. He warns that while negotiations continue, Vladimir Putin’s ultimate goal of controlling Ukraine remains unchanged, and compromises will be complex and painful.

Click here to watch the FULL INTERVIEW and hear Duss break down the 28-point plan, Ukraine’s strategic gains, and what a realistic path to peace could look like.

Jeffrey Sachs & Matt Duss Debate U.S.-Russia Talks to End Ukraine War

As top diplomats from the United States and Russia meet in Saudi Arabia to discuss ending the war in Ukraine and improving relations between Washington and Moscow, Economist Jeffrey Sachs and foreign policy analyst Matt Duss joined Democracy Now! to offer their analysis.

Duss emphasized that Ukrainians have agency and the conflict cannot be reduced to a question of NATO participation. “If there is a workable peace agreement to be had, that’s good,” he says, but attempting to decide Ukraine’s future without Ukrainians at the table is unlikely to be successful or sustainable.

Duss explains:

Putin’s vision for Russia’s role and for the eventual dispensation for Ukraine is that this is something to be worked out between Russia and the United States, between these two great powers. He sees Russia as a rising force. Again, he’s trying to kind of reestablish Russia as a great empire, a great force in global affairs. And his vision of how global affairs should work is that the great powers make decisions, and the lesser powers just have to deal with it. Their concerns are of very little concern. And unfortunately, I think that is something we’ve seen from the Trump administration, too, whether it’s Ukraine, whether it’s Gaza. It’s that the powerful make decisions, and the weak just deal with it. I don’t think that’s just. And more importantly, I don’t think that’s going to lead to a sustainable peace. So, listen, if they do — if they do come out of these talks with a workable and sustainable and durable peace agreement for Ukraine, one that protects Ukraine’s democracy, one that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty, we should all support that. But without the participation of Ukraine, I’m very, very skeptical that we’re going to get anything like that.

Some additional positive side effects could include reducing the corrosive power on our democracy and foreign affairs of the U.S. military-industrial complex. If NATO countries step up their security commitments, Duss notes, “that could have potential positive consequences for the United States, given the way that the US security architecture in Europe is something that helps buttress our own military-industrial complex & diminishes & really corrupts our own democracy.”

You can find the full interview and transcript on Democracy Now! here.

Additional Resources:

Security Dilemma – Ari Tolany on Arms Sales and Oversight

What kind of relationships does the United States build when it gives or sells arms to countries abroad is a big question, one that sits at the heart of day-to-day foreign policy. Ari Tolany, Director of CIP’s Security Assistance Technology, and the Arms Trade (SAM) program, recently went on the Security Dilemma podcast to talk about arms transfers, transparency, and what it means to attempt to build friendships through the promise of weapons.

Said Tolany:

“Basically we’re losing a lot of transparency and granularity in our reporting, and I know it seems wonky, and it seems technically, but fundamentally, the way that so many people engage with the United States is not with our soft power or the various aspects of American culture we like to think of as promoting a US brand around the world, it’s at the barrel of a gun. When we have less information about that, we are less able to conduct effective oversight or check-in on concerning issues around defense companies like graft and corruption.”

The episode, hosted by AJ Manuzzi and John Allen Gay of the John Quincy Adams Society, walks through popular arguments and counter-arguments to arms transparency, the way arms sales make the US a participant in the wars of partners and allies, and what happens when the US tries to tie arms sales to respect for human rights, without ever threatening to withhold sales should weapons be used to violate human rights.

Tolany also discusses the shallow fear that the US not selling a country arms means irreparably harming that country’s relationship with the United States. Says Tolany:

“The notion that arms transfers are a solid foundation for international partnership building is flawed. If a partner can just as easily turn to China and Russia, I would argue that arms transfers are only papering over a relationship that is fundamentally misaligned.” 

Listen to Ari Tolany on Arms Sales and Oversight at the Security Dilemma podcast.

Maintaining Transparency in US Security Assistance to Ukraine

Patrick Bodovitz is a Security Assistance Monitor intern at CIP

From February 24th, 2022 to September 27th of this year, the United States has provided $61.3 billion in military assistance to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s war. This figure leaves out the non-military aid to Ukraine from the US, and it excludes the tens of billions of aid provided to the country since Russia’s initial invasion of Ukraine in 2014. This is a staggering amount of assistance to a country that the United States did not have a close military relationship with before Russia’s annexation of Crimea. While the sheer amount of aid has caused political disputes in Washington, it has been a relatively successful program so far. The ongoing conflict remains confined to Russia and Ukraine, avoiding greater escalation, regional conflagration, or great power war. There is also little evidence that US-supplied munitions have been used in war crimes by Ukrainian forces, apart from one unit of foreign volunteers mentioned in the New York Times. Lastly, there has not been any evidence of weapons going to Ukraine being diverted elsewhere as a result of criminal activity, although this problem could emerge if and when combat ceases. Other US arms shipments have gone to countries where this has proved a systemic problem. 

If the US government succeeds in helping Ukraine defend its territory without the arms being diverted to forces outside Ukraine, or used by Ukrainian forces in acts in violation of international humanitarian law, it could emerge as a useful precedent for promoting transparency in U.S. arms transfers, informing procedures and policies for future transfers.

US Security Assistance to Ukraine

Since 2015, the United States government has trained and equipped the Ukrainian military through Operation Atlantic Resolve. In August 2021, the Biden Administration began accelerated deliveries through the presidential drawdown authority (PDA). Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, and on March 15th, Congress approved the first major supplemental bills that set aside funding for the White House to purchase military gear for the Ukrainian military. Drawdowns and supplemental bills have become the main methods to appropriate funds for Ukrainian assistance, including humanitarian aid. 

Initially, the US supplied light weapons and small arms, like Javelin anti-tank missiles, and has since expanded to include artillery, tanks, and long-range ordinance like the Army Tactical Missile. These weapons helped Ukrainian forces to keep fighting. While Ukraine has managed to win back some of its territory, it remains locked in heavy combat, and Russia shows no sign yet of coming to the negotiation table. With an incursion into Russia’s European territory, Ukraine has expanded the battlefield to include both legally Ukrainian and Russian soil.

Since the Trump Administration, the United States government has been more transparent about security assistance to Ukraine than arms shipments to other countries. In the 1990s, Ukraine’s government had horrific corruption scandals in its defense industry, such as false production numbers and illegal weapons sales. In September 2002, the State Department announced that two years prior, Ukraine’s president Leonid Kuchma illegally sold missiles to Iraq, and in light of this, the US put a hold on a portion of its aid to the country. Scandals like this, in addition to Ukraine’s political instability, meant the US government was reluctant to provide military aid to the country. After 2014 and the events of Euromaidan, officials in Kyiv promised to crack down on corruption throughout society, including in its defense sector. 

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, the US government has been caught between three competing demands: surging defense articles and services to Ukraine, ensuring accountability for US arms shipments, and managing escalation risks. On September 13th, 2023, the Pentagon agreed to set up an inspection team inside Ukraine to better track equipment moving through the country. This team publishes reports to Congress through the Office of the Inspector General that analyze what is happening to the aid sent through the PDA. Much of this has been a demand by Republicans in Congress, many of whom are skeptical of US aid to Ukraine to begin with and have demanded more oversight. 

An enormous amount of aid has been sent by Ukraine’s backers. The United States alone has sent $61.3 billion since February 2022, raising concerns about how the considerable quantity of weapons will be used and what will happen with the weapons after the war. Jordan Cohen, a defense analyst at CATO, told CNN “the biggest danger surrounding the flood of weapons being funneled into Ukraine is what happens to them when the war ends or transitions into some kind of protracted stalemate.” Besides arms from the United States, many former Warsaw Pact states have transferred their Soviet-origin arms to Ukraine due to their interoperability with the Ukrainian Army.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, receives a demonstration of tactical equipment during a visit to the California Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Air National Guard Base, California, Sept. 2, 2021. The California National Guard and Ukraine State Partnership Program was established in 1993 through the Department of Defense as a means to develop and strengthen the strategic partnership between the U.S. and Ukraine. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Duane Ramos)
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, president of Ukraine, receives a demonstration of tactical equipment during a visit to the California Air National Guard’s 129th Rescue Wing at Moffett Air National Guard Base, California, Sept. 2, 2021. (U.S. Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Duane Ramos)

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) issued a full report on weapons diversion cases in Ukraine and what the Ukrainian government has been doing to address cases of missing weapons. The monitor employed by GI-TOC in Ukraine found that there was no systemic organized smuggling of weapons outside the country. The report also mentioned that any instances where criminal gangs tried to smuggle weapons involved Soviet-era weaponry, not US-origin equipment. This report is the most in-depth analysis done to date on weapons trafficking in Ukraine and validates the assertion that the Ukrainian National Police and Prosecutor’s Office has been closely monitoring the flow of weaponry in the country. 

Some obstacles to transparency persist under the existing regime of monitoring and inspections. In August, the Government Accountability Office found that the State Department and the Pentagon have not always communicated on how to properly ensure that end-use monitoring is being implemented. According to the report, “DOD officials are often unaware of [third-party-transfers] authorized by State until they are identified upon entry to Ukraine, if at all.” While the DOD Inspector General stated that he saw no evidence of weapons diversion of US-supplied defense articles, he concurred that increased inspection was needed.

There are some other challenges that the US now faces in monitoring US-supplied equipment in Ukraine, like the difficulty in monitoring the end use of US-supplied munitions inside Russian territory following Ukraine’s decision to launch an offensive into Russia. While end-use monitoring traditionally has been successful in monitoring the transfer of weapons, it has not been as successful in monitoring the use of said weapons. This is no exception in Ukraine, where the rate of expenditure is very high. Nonetheless, the decision to increase monitoring and publicly release reports about US-supplied weapons in Ukraine is promising and shows that the Pentagon takes seriously concerns about weapons diversion in this war. The monitoring is likely to continue after the war ends to prevent arms being smuggled in the post-war period. 

Recommendations for going forward

Due to the war’s intensity and longevity, the United States is likely to supply Ukraine with arms as long as political will endures. The good news is that the United States government has increased oversight of the flow of weapons into the country. The return of the US embassy has helped by allowing OIG personnel to be based permanently in Ukraine. Additionally, the Ukrainian government knows that it is under intense scrutiny to ensure proper management of its arsenal and is incentivized to comply to ensure the continued transfer of munitions The need for weapons at the front has made it so that people are far less likely to smuggle weapons. Lastly, outside of areas occupied by Russia, Ukraine’s government retains the monopoly of force in the country. It folded volunteer units created in 2014 into the Army and National Guard as part of their reforms undertaken with the intention to eventually join NATO. This is designed to guarantee clear command and control, which is essential for monitoring arms flows. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr O. Zelenskyy observes the completion of the rough turn process for 155mm rounds while at the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Scranton, Pa., Sept. 22, 2024. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. 1st Class Curt Loter)

Nevertheless, there are further actions the US government can take to ensure that weapons flows to Ukraine do not run into any of the risks that have plagued other efforts to arm partners. One major action the US can take is to push Ukraine to modernize its military justice system. The UAF still relies on protocols dating back to before they began to reform their forces. This includes a lack of enforcement authority for the Military Law Enforcement Service and the shortage of military courts. This can affect accountability, although there is little evidence of Ukrainian leadership sanctioning war crimes, making violations of international law easier to remediate. The United States can provide additional funding and specialists to assist with this effort, such as increasing funding for a greater portion of Ukrainian military officers and civilian personnel to undergo training at the  Defense Institute of International Legal Studies (DIILS). It can also condition portions of the aid provided on the Ukrainian government agreeing to modernize its military justice protocols, in a similar fashion to the European Union conditioning membership on Ukraine making necessary changes to its governance. 

The United States should also consider stationing more personnel in Ukraine to help monitor the flow of weapons. Before the war, the embassy in Kyiv employed close to 800 personnel. Now, there are around 100-200 staffers and the military and civilian staff are overwhelmed. While there has been an effort to increase staffing, it has stalled in the face of intransigence from the White House. Russian attacks on the country pose a risk to personnel stationed there, but most staff work in cities protected by air defense systems. If the United States wants effective monitoring of arms flows into the country and other anti-corruption efforts, it will need more staff on the ground to increase transparency. These staff could be under the mandate of the Office of the Inspector General, the Department of State, and the Department of Defense.

Bottom Line

The United States has a responsibility to ensure that arms it sells or provides to its partners are not re-transferred without authorization, nor used in violation of U.S. and international law. The war in Ukraine has become the latest test of if and how the United States can provide massive amounts of arms to another country without risking fueling arms trafficking or violations of the Foreign Assistance Act. Should the United States continue to emphasize transparency and accountability in transfers to Ukraine, these lessons learned can be applied to other contexts to allow for better monitoring and evaluation of the provision of U.S. security cooperation and assistance. The United States has improved monitoring of the transfer of weapons to Ukraine and also ensured that Ukraine’s government has maintained effective command and control over its armed forces. At the same time, room for improvement remains. The U.S. end-use monitoring system must be reformed more broadly to better assess violations of U.S. and international law, and the United States should condition further aid on the modernization of Ukraine’s military justice system. If the US government succeeds in this, Ukraine will be a useful case study of how the US can train and equip partners without sacrificing transparency, promoting diversion or arms trafficking, and facilitating violations of U.S. and international law.

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

After a surprise victory, can France’s left plot a course to 2027?

Alexandre Khadivi was until recently the foreign policy adviser to the “La France Insoumise” group in the French National Assembly. 

On 7 July, the second round of the snap legislative elections called by Emmanuel Macron a month earlier delivered startling results. As voters went to the polls, most observers agreed that Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) would obtain a majority.

In the end, the left-wing New Popular Front (NFP) coalition came out on top with 182 seats, followed by Macron’s centrist bloc with 168 seats, the far-right in third with 143, and finally the legacy centre-right group with 46.

As of writing, and with no bloc having an absolute majority, a new government has yet to form. Despite his gamble failing spectacularly, Macron obstinately refuses to nominate the NFP candidate as prime minister, hoping to find a “consensual,” centrist head of government instead.
 

How parliamentary elections work in France

Since a constitutional amendment in 2000, presidential and legislative terms align for a period of five years. As a result, once the president is elected, the legislative elections a few weeks later usually grant them an absolute majority out of 577 seats, preventing the sort of “cohabitation” impasses of the past whereby the head of state and head of government were from opposing groups.

Both presidential and parliamentary elections have two rounds. In the latter, this usually means a second-round runoff between the top two candidates. In some cases, the runoff can include additional candidates as anyone with at least 12.5% of registered electors’ votes also qualifies.
 

Why Macron dissolved Parliament

Since he was first elected in 2017, Macron has consistently played a dangerous balancing act by slowly and carefully propping up the far-right to weaken the left as much as possible. It’s a well-worn strategy in which left-wing voters have no alternative but to support the “centrist” bloc in runoffs to defeat the RN. As in 2002 and 2017, when the far-right candidate also reached the second round of the presidential elections, in 2022 a “republican front” led to Le Pen’s defeat.

Yet a few weeks later, Macron’s bloc failed to gain an absolute majority in parliament, as both the brittle left-wing New Ecological and Social People’s Union (NUPES) coalition and the RN made inroads, illustrating the population’s increasing discontent with the president’s social policies and authoritarian tendencies.

The lack of a clear majority in parliament hindered his legislative agenda and democratic legitimacy for the next two years. This frustration led him to call a snap election right after the European parliamentary elections on 9 June, in which the RN came first with 31%. The various left-wing groups had failed to form a coalition prior to the vote, contrary to 2022.
 

Macron’s cynical calculus, and how pollsters got it wrong (but not entirely)

Macron bet on three things:

  1. The left-wing groups – whose NUPES coalition had fallen apart since 2022 due to infighting – would not be a threat;
  2. As in elections past, most voters would be rational enough to not vote en masse for the far-right either, potentially giving Macron a new majority;
  3. Even if the far-right did gain a majority and formed a government, their incompetence until the next presidential elections in 2027 would turn the population against them.

Most pollsters predicted more than 230 seats for the far-right, based on numbers showing around 35% support for the bloc. Macron’s Ensemble movement would come in second, with the divided left-wing groups at a distance.

But within two hours of Macron’s announcement, the four main left-wing parties – Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise (LFI), The Greens, the Socialist Party (PS), and the Communists (PCF) – formed the NFP coalition. This included the decisive provision that, in each constituency, only one NFP candidate would run to avoid diluting the left-wing vote and increase chances of participating in the runoff.

Without getting into too much detail, the implicit instructions prior to the second round were:

  1. In case of a runoff involving a far-right candidate, the “republican front” would ideally vote for the opponent, e.g.: Macron supporters would vote for the NFP and vice-versa;
  2. In case of a three- or four-person runoff, depending on the first-round results of the specific constituency, the “republican front” candidates would decide on which of them would drop out to decrease chances of the far-right candidate winning.

Therein lie the surprises in the final results. In effect, the absolute numbers were correct:

  1. 400 National Rally candidates reached the runoffs;
  2. Voter turnout jumped from 46% in 2022 to an astounding 64% (the highest since 1981), indicating increasing dissatisfaction with Macron among swathes of the population;
  3. The far-right bloc garnered 37% of the votes, the left-wing bloc 25%, and Macron’s bloc 23%.

Yet the left became the marginally dominant force in parliament.
 

The left moving forward

With the gradual neoliberalisation of French politics since at least the turn of the millennium, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s La France Insoumise movement has steadily become the dominant force on the left.

Macron’s election in 2017 shattered most of the simmering contradictions and tensions in the country’s politics, centralising the neoliberal wings of the centre-left and centre-right under his rule. On the left, the legacy Socialist Party became a shell of its former self.

However, ego clashes, the PS’ comfortable insularity, and LFI’s uncompromising style on fundamental issues have made it difficult for the left to create a homogenous bloc with a long-term strategy.

It took more than three weeks of acrimonious negotiations to settle on a candidate for prime minister. Lucie Castets is a civil society nominee who ticks the right boxes: a 37-year-old woman with the “requisite” academic background, familiar with the intricacies of government, and who has fought her entire career in defence of public services and against neoliberal reforms.

Beyond the short-term, however, the numbers confirm the seemingly irrepressible rise of the RN leading up to the 2027 presidential elections.

In the event of an NFP government, the coalition should therefore lay its cards on the table from day one with two instantly impactful measures: repealing Macron’s undemocratic and wildly unpopular pension reform of 2023, and circumventing the market by fixing energy prices to alleviate the population’s financial distress.
 
 

Without an outright majority, it must therefore be bold, not limit itself to endless parliamentary infighting, and act through decrees when necessary.

In the longer term, tax reform, wage increases, investment in public health and education, and the necessary (socially minded) modernisation of the pension system must be addressed. The NFP’s programme clearly outlines these prescriptions. Without an outright majority, it must therefore be bold, not limit itself to endless parliamentary infighting, and act through decrees when necessary.

The final point is the most contentious: identity politics. Like most Western liberal democracies, these issues have become a lightning rod exploited by both neoliberals and the far-right. A large majority of the parochial Parisian media and political elites have eagerly fed what has essentially become a rabid form of islamophobia in the country. An extensive sociological literature shows that a majority of far-right voters are influenced by this even though their most pressing priorities are economic and social in nature, for which the RN has no proposals.

The left must not shy away from serenely addressing issues such as immigration, religion, and other similarly contentious matters. However, major divisions within the NFP must be overcome, particularly on the question of battling bigotry in all its forms. So far, only LFI has consistently called out islamophobia in a country where religion is an extremely awkward and taboo subject.
 

Foreign policy implications and the left’s divisions

Since the advent of the Fifth Republic, the conduct of foreign policy has been the near-exclusive remit of the head of state.

Barring some acrimonious and mostly “Franco-French” point-scoring over LFI’s unremitting condemnation of Israel’s brutal campaign in Gaza, foreign policy was largely absent from the election debates. The focus should therefore be on the 2027 presidential elections.

A large spectrum of French polity understands that a more balanced, less blindly Atlanticist (read: “neo-Gaullian”) foreign policy is needed, considering the major geopolitical shifts taking place and the United States’ quasi-existential political crises of the past few years. The extent to and the manner in which this should happen are where the major fault lines lie.

Macron’s approach has been scattergun and, all too often, improvised. His first major foreign policy pronouncements explicitly denounced neoconservatism and famously declared that NATO was in a state of “brain death.” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine upended this. He has entirely followed the maximalist NATO script on the issue and even overstepped the mark by publicly opining in May on the possibility of sending French troops directly into the theatre of operations, earning immediate rebukes from Washington, London, Berlin, and Brussels. He also came into office deriding the notion of a European defence pact before suggesting a debate on its feasibility in April, including the potential deployment of continent-wide nuclear deterrence capabilities.
 
 

Macron’s approach has been scattergun and, all too often, improvised.

Paradoxically, the NFP’s primary divisions lie precisely on the different groups’ geopolitical outlooks, with two distinct blocs: LFI and the PCF vs. PS and the Greens.

LFI and the PCF have the same broad sensibilities, the former being more vocal and explicit in its pronouncements. They share an anti-imperialist vision and are critical of NATO, Western military interventions, and neocolonialism.

They both propose leaving NATO, which they consider an aggressive military alliance that has contributed to the destabilisation of Eastern Europe. LFI in particular has consistently criticised NATO’s expansion towards Russia’s borders, warning of the risk of a full-blown conflict as far back as 2014. However, it explicitly condemned Russia’s invasion and supported tactical military aid to Ukraine, while calling for diplomacy and de-escalation rather than an increased military response.

LFI is also fairly radical in its prescriptions and strategy vis-à-vis the EU, which it considers an instrument of domination by the major economic powers (notably Germany). It calls for disobedience to European treaties deemed neoliberal and anti-social and is sceptical of the EU’s entirely market-based approach towards issues such as climate change, agriculture, and energy prices.

A similar dynamic is at play on Israel/Palestine where both parties are aligned but LFI is much more outspoken and insistent, thus bearing the brunt of establishment criticism. It was severely derided for choosing to call Hamas’ attack on 7 October a “war crime” rather than an act of terrorism and refusing to label it as “antisemitic.” It was also the first to explicitly call Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide and has long supported the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movements.
 
 

Moving forward, for the NFP to display a unified front and reach some level of consensus on foreign policy will require a delicate balancing act.

While immediately condemning Hamas’ attack as illegal, immoral, and entirely unjustifiable, LFI’s candid but clumsy attempts to situate it within the context of Israel’s brutal, decades-long occupation of Palestine invited controversy. The deafening noise and extreme emotions that the attack unleashed in France (which has both the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Europe) rendered any attempt at a critical analysis of the situation near impossible, especially in the immediate aftermath of 7 October. Facile accusations of antisemitism have been particularly virulent, especially from establishment circles.

Finally, on the “Global South,” both parties advocate for a profound reshaping of France’s relations, particularly in Africa, where they strongly criticise its neocolonial policies (e.g. support for “friendly” dictators, a decade-long and ultimately failed military presence in the Sahel). They call for an end to military and economic cooperation agreements detrimental to local populations and for the promotion of relations based on equality and respect for sovereignty. In LFI’s view especially, this is the first step towards tackling the root causes of migration.

The PS and the Greens are much more Europhilic, the former also carrying a traditionally Atlanticist bent. Neither of them considers leaving NATO and both fully support unconditional military and economic aid to Ukraine. The PS also supports the suspension of arms sales to Israel and targeted sanctions against West Bank settlers but has so far stopped short of calling for general economic sanctions against the country.

Segments of the more assertive anti-imperialist left argue that, while the PS’ and the Greens’ priorities are generally sound, some of their methods and policy positions betray a lack of historical outlook, long-term strategic thinking, and understanding of balance of power. For instance, they view the two parties’ efforts to reform the EU from within as quixotic and argue that the United States’ often “aggressive” and “domineering” conduct in world affairs barely figures in their thinking.

Moving forward, for the NFP to display a unified front and reach some level of consensus on foreign policy will require a delicate balancing act. This will prove difficult because of ideological differences, divergent strategic priorities, historical rivalries, vast and accelerating shifts in global politics, and internal and external pressures.

To subsist until the 2027 presidential election, where its only hope of winning rests on presenting a single candidate, the NFP will need to develop robust internal mechanisms for dialogue and compromise, while respecting the sensitivities and priorities of each group. This will require periodic reassessments of agreements to maintain unity and, most importantly, avoid the French left’s cardinal sin: its self-defeating proclivity for airing dirty laundry in public.
 

CIP Logo Wordless Transparent

In the U.K. and France, There Was a Gaza Vote. And in the U.S.?

Today, Matt Duss of CIP and Daniel Levy of the U.S. / Middle East Project have an article in The New Republic arguing that a Gaza voting block helped the left in France and cost Labour votes in the U.K., and will likely play a pivotal role in the 2024 Presidential election in the United States.

Describing the UK experience, they write:

Among Muslim voters and a slew of progressive and younger voters, positions on Gaza had translated into electoral choices. That had never happened before in U.K. politics. While some of it may have been a luxury vote, assuming an inevitable Labour win, Britain’s governing party is well aware of the consequences for maintaining its rule if this trend cannot be reversed. In sum, the evidence suggests that the narrative that Labour’s aggressively distancing itself from Corbyn-era criticism of Israel by aligning with the Sunak government on Gaza was an essential element of its success was not only wrong but precisely wrong, with that shift acting as a drag on the party in the current circumstances.

Read the full piece here.

The US and EU can build a more democratic world with sports diplomacy

Raül Romeva i Rueda is currently Professor of Global Politics and Sport Diplomacy, as well as the President of the Irla Foundation, a catalan think tank which promotes studies on politics, democracy, fundamental rights and civic republicanism. He is also a former Member of the European Parliament and Minister for Foreign Affairs, Institutional Relations, and Transparency in the Catalan Government.

In the span of my career, from the corridors of the European Parliament and the meeting rooms of the Catalan Government, to the classes of Sports Development and Diplomacy at the University, I have witnessed the ebb and flow of international relations. Today, as we navigate a world fraught with rising populism, the resurgence of the extreme right, and the looming shadow of the climate emergency, the need for a robust partnership between the United States and the European Union has never been more urgent. This transatlantic alliance, founded on shared democratic values, holds the promise not only of addressing immediate threats but also of paving the way towards a more just, inclusive, and sustainable global order.

The Rise of Populism and Extremism 

In the heart of Europe and across the Atlantic, the specter of populism and extreme right-wing ideologies threatens the very fabric of our societies. Twenty years ago we already perceived these movements, often born from disenfranchisement and fear, capitalize on division and discord. Unfortunately, we didn’t care much about them. Too many people thought they were anecdotal. Obviously this perception was wrong.

Nowadays, we have to confront that reality. The transatlantic bond must be a bulwark against this tide, through coordinated policies and shared intelligence that preemptively address the roots of extremism.

Joint public diplomacy initiatives can counter misinformation and promote democratic values. By fostering a culture of critical thinking and resilience, we can inoculate our societies against the lure of simplistic, divisive rhetoric. According to my experience, sports, guided appropriately, can be an extraordinary tool to that end. Let’s see how, with some examples.

Tackling the Climate Emergency: sports sector must take its responsibilities

The climate crisis is a global challenge that transcends borders and ideologies. The US and the EU, as major global players, have a moral and practical obligation to lead by example. Strengthening commitments to the Paris Agreement and setting more ambitious, actionable targets is imperative.

Investment in green technologies and renewable energy must be a cornerstone of this alliance. Collaborative efforts in research and development can accelerate the transition to a sustainable economy. By sharing technological advancements and best practices, the transatlantic partnership can drive a global green revolution, fostering economic growth while safeguarding our planet for future generations.

As a concrete example I’d like to mention the significant responsibility of the sports sector, in general, and football, in particular, both in the US and the EU, in addressing its climate footprint, due to the vast resources consumed and the environmental impacts associated with sports events, facilities, and related activities. Just to name some of them: resource consumption, waste generation, transportation emissions, land use and biodiversity impact, facility construction and maintenance practices. In that regard, collaborative efforts can lead to the widespread adoption of energy-efficient design and technology in new and existing sports facilities, promoting sustainability and setting a standard for the industry.

Good examples of that cooperation would be the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, USA, and the Spotify Camp Nou (the Futbol Club Barcelona Stadium), in Barcelona, Catalonia.

Both are examples of how green technologies can be applied to sports facilities, given the fact that both projects have integrated solar panels, rainwater harvesting systems, and energy-efficient lighting. By sharing these best practices and technologies, sports facilities across the US and EU can reduce their carbon footprint and operational costs.

Strengthening Democratic Institutions, through Sport partnerships

Democracy is indeed the foundation of the transatlantic partnership and again the sports sector (and institutions) have a unique role to play in promoting democratic values, combating corruption, and protecting human rights.

By leveraging their influence and reach, sports organizations can help strengthen democratic institutions both within the US and Europe and extend these efforts to neighboring regions.

There are several ways this can be achieved. For instance, Promoting International Sports Diplomacy, Supporting Grassroots Programs in Neighboring Regions, Hosting International Conferences and Workshops, establishing transparency and accountability programs (Initiatives like FIFA’s compliance program aim to ensure ethical conduct within football organizations), supporting human rights campaigns (UEFA’s “Respect” campaign promotes inclusion, diversity, and respect in football, tackling discrimination and promoting human rights), or, finally, collaborating with Anti-Corruption Bodies (as the International Olympic Committee (IOC) collaborates with INTERPOL to fight corruption and match-fixing in sports).

In sum, policymakers and sports institutions can work together to develop policy frameworks that integrate sports into broader democratic and human rights initiatives. This integration can ensure that sports contribute to the resilience of democratic institutions and the promotion of justice and equality. By taking these steps, sports institutions can play a pivotal role in strengthening democratic institutions, combating corruption, and protecting human rights, both within the US and Europe and beyond.

A Path Forward

As we stand at the precipice of an uncertain future, the transatlantic partnership offers a beacon of hope. By leveraging our shared values and pooling our strengths, we can confront the challenges of our time and build a more democratic, fair, and inclusive global order. This alliance is not merely a strategic necessity but a moral imperative. It calls for visionary leadership, unwavering commitment, and the courage to act in the face of adversity. Together, the United States and the European Union can forge a path forward, turning crisis into opportunities and ensuring that the future we bequeath to our children is brighter, more just, and more sustainable. And what is more universal than the language of sports?

As someone who has navigated the intricacies of international relations firsthand, I remain hopeful. The challenges are great, but so too is our capacity for cooperation and innovation. In the words of the poet Antonio Machado, “Caminante, no hay camino, se hace camino al andar” – “Traveler, there is no path, the path is made by walking.” Let us walk, or run, this path together, forging a future that reflects the best of our shared humanity.

Bearing all this in mind, my impression is clearly that a more pro-democracy United States administration in 2017 might have been a better friend than the Trump administration was. What we can expect from the future is in the people’s hands.