The EU is justifying its adoption of power politics with the accusation that the outside world started it. In fact, the EUโand Germanyโhas been practicing retrograde power politics for some time and is purposefully blocking out the option of returning to its own, better past. There is nothing more pointless than discussing a shitstorm that has already blown itself out, except this one came during a week of much geopolitical messaging by the EU. The high representative and BIG are responding to the command given in by the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, for the EU to become geopolitical.
And their wording indicates that there is now a shared vision of how this euro-geopolitics should look. Note the inference hereโEuropeans need to become geopolitical, and they need to do so in order to adapt to the world outside. The question that bothered Twitter: Is the EU actively neo-colonial or just a little bit clumsy in how it speaks? If the messaging of the last weeks is anything to go by, the answer is neitherโthe EU is defensive not expansive, and ever so careful in how it presents itself.
Borrell and BIG tell a careful story of innocence lost, paradise protected: outside aggression has awoken us to how fragile our orderly corner of the world is; but since the world has stolen our innocence it must be prepared to see us defend it by any means necessary. Any honest observer can see that the EU is already geopolitical.
And if the EU has found the outside world an increasingly hostile place, then that is in no small part because we Europeans have been subjecting them to a retrograde form of power politics for at least five or six years.
Far from preserving Kant at home whatever that means exactly , this has made us more protectionist, top-heavy, and expedient in our commitment to our own standards, as well as allowing itself to become dominated by the bigger member states.
