The European Union is absolutely devastated. It remains unclear exactly why this is happening. Some say it is because the United States has abandoned it, shifting their attention from Europe to the Pacific, particularly to China. Others argue that the EU’s fear stems from its inability to defend itself against threats, particularly from its arch-enemy, the Russian Federation. Still, others claim that the despair is due to the loss of leadership, which is ironic: so much talk of freedom, yet Europe seems afraid to be free. Europe is scared to break away from the U.S., and in the face of this possibility, it feels abandoned.

BY Hugo DIONÍSIO

Whatever the reason, all these explanations boil down to one thing: the loss of its centrality. The European Union, often confused with “Europe” by those who do not understand what “Europe” truly is, is terrified of losing its centrality once and for all. Dubbed the “old continent,” Western Europe has, for centuries, been the seat and cradle of the most advanced ideas of civilization and the recipient of the world’s plundered resources. European “civilization” represented, in terms of importance during that period, what the ancient civilizations of Greece and Rome once represented.

From ancient Greece to republican and imperial Rome, from Enlightenment France to liberal England, and ending with socialist Russia, Europe has been the birthplace of some of the most transformative ideas in human history. These ideas, with all their inherent contradictions, pushed the world forward. But Europe has also been the source of some of the greatest tragedies of our time, from the Inquisition to despotism, from the slave trade to slavery, from savage capitalism to fascism and Nazism. It has always proven that for every moment of action, dream, and adventure, there is a corresponding reaction, nightmare, and dystopia. Europe would not be what it was, or what it is, without these two sides of the coin, as no civilization would. It is part of the human condition. We must not forget that the hegemonic and imperial United States and the super-industrial socialist China are also concrete results of European influence and its central ideas of civilization. It is as if each represents an opposite pole of the ideological dispute that took place within Europe itself.

But this Europe, particularly Western Europe, even in its current state of decline, has grown accustomed to being the center of attention, the center of the world, the contested world. If China once was known as the “Middle Kingdom,” in another historical period, Western Europe also aspired to be the center. During the Cold War, it was in Western Europe that the ideas of system convergence were sold, blending Anglo-American private liberalism with Soviet scientific socialism, resulting in a mix of utopian socialism and capitalism, which we called “social democracy.” This was only because it did not deny the main political rights to the rich, allowing them to create parties and seize power through their economic might. Today, we see the result of such democracy, entirely anchored in parties that represent the wealthiest, funded by them, and often with “entrepreneurs” as their representatives. When Jeff Bezos declares that only his opinions on “freedom and free markets” will be published in The Washington Post, we realize that the sublimation of liberal democracy lies in revealing its own democratic limitations.

Western Europe attempted, and in some dimensions succeeded for a time, in synthesizing the contradiction between the neoliberal, individualist, and minarchist United States and the collectivized, socialist, and highly centralized USSR. Between the individualist vision of “every man for himself,” of “winners and losers,” and the collectivist vision of “no one left behind.” This was the era of reformist social democracy, an ideology aimed at preventing the transition to socialism across the entire European continent. Beyond continuing to do so, the EU now finds itself trapped in centrist and status quo fanaticism, ideologically immobilized. It is a Europe clinging to the superficial to avoid changing the core and fundamental issues.

In short, the loss of European centrality is reflected in the historical obsolescence of Europe’s “social market economy,” a concept that has become redundant in the face of the emergence of a China that successfully combines socialist direction with an ultra-dynamic market and broad freedoms of initiative, not confined to traditional “private enterprise.” The loss of geographical centrality parallels the loss of ideological centrality. When we hear von der Leyen claim that Europe has a “social market economy,” what we witness is the passing of an unrealistic idealist certificate, inconsistent with her intentions, the intentions of the forces that support her, and, even less, the current needs of the European peoples, who have been robbed of their dreams, their idea of perpetual progress and development, replaced by a fallacy called the “end of history,” which celebrates “free markets” and the freedom of the super-rich to live off the labor of millions of poor.

It is ironic that, to a large extent, Fukuyama’s “end of history,” eagerly embraced by European elites, ended up representing “the end of this chapter of European history.” Without realizing it, the celebration of the end of history, with the fall of the Soviet bloc, also marked the end of Europe’s ideological centrality, the end of its virtue, the end of the central relevance of its ideas. In this new world, Europe has nothing to offer that is not offered more effectively by others. Europe, the European Union, has not only lost its centrality; it has lost its relevance. Europe has ceased to synthesize two opposites. By succumbing to the neoliberalism of the Washington Consensus, the EU transformed the central pole it represented between two opposing poles into a world of only two poles. With two poles, centrality ceases to exist; it becomes physically impossible.

The loss of ideological relevance eventually led to the loss of geographical relevance. Situated between czarist Russia, first rural, backward, and feudal, then the collectivized socialist USSR, and now the Russian Federation with its reconstituted capitalism but vehement defense of its sovereignty, a civilization that, in its various reincarnations, was more oriented toward its Western, Europeanist side, seeking acceptance into the elite of world nations that constituted Western Europe, this Europe had, to the west, a United States highly focused on its relationship with the USSR, first, and later, still living in Cold War mode, overestimating the “threat” of Russia and its military capabilities. A United States that had not yet completed the task it set for itself when it caused the collapse of the USSR. The task was to fragment that entire territory.

This Europe, which on one side had a friend saying, “Don’t join Russia, they are a threat,” feeding and being fed by the idea of a permanent need for military buildup, viewing the European continent as a vehicle and battlefield for the conquest of its vast natural resources, and on the other side had a “threat” that repeatedly tried to convince it that it was an equal nation, a European nation, as if saying, “Don’t see me as an enemy, I want to be your friend,” was, as a result, a Europe that represented the center of attention of two of the world’s greatest powers, around which much of the world orbited.

If, in the U.S., this Europe drank in its neoliberal ideas, foreign direct investment, capital, and accessed the world’s largest consumer market, in the USSR, and later the Russian Federation, Europe had the cheap energy and resources it needed to fuel a globally competitive industry. These resources on one side and the market on the other side of the Atlantic, combined with trillions of capital accumulated from colonial and neocolonial plunder, allowed the EU to finance its expansion and extend its centrality for a little longer. The attention of two opposing poles allowed the continuation of its synthetic version, its mediating role, the connection between two opposing worlds. The fact that the U.S. still saw Russia as a version of the USSR contributed to this centrality. This position of relative independence — consider Schroeder and Chirac’s stance on the Iraq War—gave Europe a few more years of life as the center of global attention.

But there were dark clouds over Europe. It was not just a matter of failing to protect itself from these clouds, of anticipating their arrival and taking necessary precautions. It was worse than that. The EU first decided to pretend not to see them, and as they approached, already caught in the heavy rain, it decided to say it was sunny, even as the storm froze our bones. From there to canceling anyone who appeared wet in front of it was just a step. We can debate the reasons why this ultra-bureaucratized European Union, this omnipresent and omnipotent European Commission, was unable to see, analyze, and deal with the approaching storm. The answer, I think, can be found in a book about the USSR called “Socialism Betrayed,” which objectively and clearly discusses the causes that led to the fall of the Soviet bloc and which stem from the co-optation of its elites by interests antagonistic to the service of the enemy.

The European elites were also widely co-opted, and the resistance we witnessed during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq no longer happened. Massive investments in “Fulbright” courses, “Leadership” programs, and a lot of USAID in mainstream media resulted in an Americanized European elite, without any trace of independence but with all the marks of subordination. Gradually, we saw the decline of European GDP relative to that of the U.S. (in the 1980s and 1990s, U.S. GDP was lower than that of Germany, England, France, Spain, and Italy) and the dominance of American capital structures in Europe. With economic power established, the conditions were set for the definitive takeover of political power, as had been planned since the Marshall Plan and the creation of the European Coal and Steel Community.

The intention not to dissolve NATO in 1991 was one of the first dark clouds that the EU did not want to face. This inability to welcome the “new” Russian Federation into its fold translated into European actions the intentions of the White House to help that country as little as possible. Not content with maintaining security tensions within the European continent, at its own borders, successive European administrations and respective states first witnessed the expansion of NATO towards the borders of the European country that was one of its economic pillars, and later, the instrumentalization of the EU as an extension of NATO itself. If it doesn’t go to NATO, it first goes to the EU and then has a clear path (“fast track,” as the “American” Von Der Leyen says). Initial European resistance to the entry of former Soviet states was removed over time.

Not content, the European Union embarked on the Orange Revolution, Euromaidan, and the persecution of Russian-speaking peoples in Ukraine. It was a Europe incapable of preventing U.S. maneuvers in its space, incapable of preventing support for neo-Nazi, fascist, and xenophobic groups. This Europe made Russophobia its main agenda and, under its guise, canceled many of its own citizens, ostracized others, censored, cut ties, severing one of its economic pillars, the one on which its need for cheap energy and minerals in large quantities rested. Instead of pushing the U.S. away and saying, “In Europe, we solve our own problems,” it allowed itself to be conditioned and instrumentalized, watching impassively as its own infrastructure was sabotaged. Ukraine became the EU’s raison d’être.

It was clear what would happen if Europe were to antagonize the Russian Federation. Not only would it lose all the advantages of having nearby what it now has to seek from afar, of having easy access to what is now costly, and of having cheap what is now expensive. But it did even worse, allowing the distancing and the turn of the Russian Federation towards the East. Not wanting to buy Russian gas, lubricants, paper, cereals, gold, or aluminum, the executive led by Vladimir Putin did what was expected of him: he turned to China, in a move that, at its core, was as natural as it was contradictory in relation to Russian history over the last 30 years. Even the USSR always lived in doubt about its Eastern or European identity. Russia’s turn towards China not only reinforced the Asian superpower but also allowed the Russian Federation a resounding victory in the Ukrainian issue and further removed Europe’s centrality. Europe would no longer be important to Russia or to the world. Over time, it would also cease to be important to its leader, the U.S.

Since centrality only exists when it is the object of attention, having one less bloc converging towards Europe would already be a negative outcome. But with the strategic union between the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China, another effect occurred: this reality forced the U.S. to definitively decide what to do about Asia. Faced with a lack of resources to fight on two fronts, the U.S. was forced to “hand over” the defense of Europe to the EU itself and divert resources to the Pacific. Trump only accelerated a process that would have happened anyway, even under Biden and the Democratic Party. The U.S. is not a nation that waits for others; it would always make a decision.

The strategic strengthening of the Chinese economy, represented by the understanding with Russia, forced the U.S. to shift its attention to the East. When the Russian Federation initiated the “Special Military Operation,” Russian authorities stated that this action aimed to “dismantle the hegemony of the U.S. and the West.” The first step was the elimination of the EU from the competition with Russia, a step also desired by the U.S. NATO, which had the objective of “keeping Germany down, Russia out,” and “the others in,” fulfilled its goal of eliminating Europe, instrumentalizing it as a competitor to the U.S.

Today, when we see Trump negotiating with the Russian Federation for cooperation in the area of mineral resources and appropriating, in a neocolonial manner, Ukrainian resources, we not only confirm the suspicion that Ukraine was a U.S. colony but also that, in the end, Europe is being traded by the U.S. as the preferred destination for Russia’s vast mineral resources. But the U.S. also ensured something else: that they receive these resources and Europe does not. This fanatical, Russophobic Europe is incapable of taking advantage of the benefits it has on its own continent, allowing competitors to enter, appropriate them, and prevent Europe from using them. A perfect job, indeed.

The EU, divorced from the Russian Federation, left the U.S. more at ease with the possibility of a union between the two blocs, allowing them to turn to Asia, and suddenly, the two most important gazes upon Europe, those that conferred upon it the centrality it still had, converged on Asia. The People’s Republic of China, two centuries later, has returned to being the “Middle Kingdom,” a centrality achieved also at the expense of Europe, which was unable to come to terms with it. Suddenly, the U.S., wanting to avoid Chinese centrality, ends up handing it to them on a silver platter. First, by forcing Europe to push the Russian Federation towards the East, and then, as a result of that action, forcing itself to turn to the East.

If the U.S. and the EU seem to be at the mercy of events, chasing after losses and reacting to the actions of others, the truth is that, of the two, only the U.S. acts according to its own designs, which is always an advantage. Indeed, of the three competitors in conflict, of which Europe was the center, only Europe finds itself overtaken by events, not acting to counteract them but, instead, acting to aggravate them. The Russian Federation and the U.S., certainly as a result of contingencies, chose to go where they went. The EU has yet to decide anything, nor does it seem inclined to do so.

The People’s Republic of China, suddenly, finds itself at the center, as a synthesis. And it is here that the loss of European civilizational relevance occurs. Once again, China is rejuvenating as a power of innovation. If before Europe had conquered this position by being at the forefront of technology, ideas, culture, and the economy, today it is China and Asia that occupy this space. China achieves a perfect synthesis of mercantile capitalism and socialist direction based on strategic sectors. In modern China, the freedom of enterprise coexists with the freedom of public, cooperative, and social property, all coexisting and competing for more and better. All this, with a capacity for decentralized long-term planning that makes the entire surrounding universe more stable. China provides harmony, stability, and predictability. The EU has come to represent the opposite. Erraticness, indecision, reaction, and inaction.

While in the West, in Europe, the European Commission and the White House push for privatization, in China, the freedom of initiative is promoted through new and more diverse historical forms of property, with each individual free to choose how to do it. The result is a technological—and consequently ideological—revolution that will correspond to what the Industrial Revolution was for the world in 18th-century Europe. If before it was to Europe that foreigners came to study the economic system, today it is in China that one learns how to build the future. Everyone wants to know, increasingly, how to emulate Chinese success.

Unlike Europe and the U.S., which impose and propose to others what to do, the People’s Republic of China allows the absorption of the lessons its model offers, without restrictions or conditions, admitting its use in connection with other models, fostering the emergence of new proposals and models of public and private management. Without the rigidity of the West of yesteryear, the superiority of the Chinese model will give the world economic democratization, without which social democratization is impossible. Europe of “values” loses because it chose to build “values” from the top down, from bureaucracy rather than from material, science, or the economy. Instead, it ended up destroying the economic dimensions that gave it the golden years of modern and social democratic Europe, which were based on a more virtuous and symbiotic relationship between different forms of property. Democratic forms of property (collectives, cooperatives, associations, public enterprises) coexisted, generating diverse and innovative production relations, as well as strong social movements, from which democracy emanated. All of this, Europe of “values” has destroyed, to the point where it can no longer teach it to anyone. Everything has been reduced to the minarchist state, the private sector, and “public-private partnerships” that guarantee private rent-seeking from essential public services. The European Union has become indistinguishable from the U.S.

The most interesting aspect of this loss of centrality, by countries, by nations, is that the European Union itself will split apart if it does not find a strategic direction that effectively solves the problems of its peoples, among which, not yet, is war. Not yet! Europe, the EU member states, must build a defense to protect its sovereignty, not to impose on others what to do, considering as threats all those who are not like it. If it does not do this, we will witness the convergence of European nations towards Asia as well.

As a result of the “Special Military Operation,” Turkey itself will become an important economic, industrial, energy, and security hub. Due to its Eurasian position, like the Russian Federation, it will serve as a passage point from East to West. Mediterranean nations will have to turn to it. Here we see how alone France, Portugal, England, the Netherlands, or the Baltics feel. Suddenly, they will have to learn to live with their neighbors, because their patron has turned elsewhere, and the Democratic Party, when it comes, will be able to do nothing. This “new” Europe is in that period of life where one is an adult in age but a child in behavior. This is offensive to children, as they are capable of getting along with their neighbors.

The fear of abandonment that the U.S. suffers from, which led them to manipulate Europe and the EU, has materialized within the European continent itself. By failing to understand that the debate was between itself and the U.S., with the question being which of the two would be left behind in this shift toward the East, Europe, by acting first, has been abandoned by the U.S., left lonely. This Europe, incapable of embracing the Eurasian project, divorced from itself and its own, inactive and immobile, as if frozen in time, has allowed the end of the U.S.’s history to become its own end of history. Had Europe embraced the Eurasian project, uniting with Asia and Africa into a single bloc of development, cooperation, sharing, and competition, it would have been the U.S. left abandoned. This is the level of betrayal we have suffered at the hands of “our rulers.”

Instead, the Europe of Von Der Leyen, Costa, and Kallas decided to abandon itself, and with that abandonment, it was abandoned by those it believed would protect it. One day, they will be judged for such crass and inconsequential mistakes. For now, we will all become a little more insignificant, until one day our minds are able to reinvent themselves and embrace the future. This will only happen when the European peoples realize that the times of greatness and centrality are gone, abandon their arrogance and pedantry, and, with humility, behave as the challenges demand.

The recovery of any kind of centrality will only be possible through a sovereign, fair policy that promotes freedom and diversity, respecting the national identity of each people, each nation-state, leveraging that multiplicity as the driving force of reinvention, rather than restricting or conditioning it through outdated models like liberal and neoliberal ones.

On this path, only isolation and depression await us.

https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/03/06/a-europe-frozen-in-time-and-without-centrality/

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Hugo Dionísio is a Lawyer, researcher and geopolitics’ analyst. He is the owner of Canal-factual.wordpress.com Blog and co-founder of MultipolarTv, a Youtube Channel targeted to geopolitical analysis. He develops activity as Human Rights and Social rights activist as board member of the Portuguese Democratic Lawyers Association. He is also a researcher at the Portuguese Workers Trade Union Confederation (CGTP-IN).

SEE ALSO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3m4vB1FHeI