Let’s end the pretenses. The European Union is not in a “crisis”. It is in decline. And its decline is not circumstantial. It is structural , political and ideological . If until yesterday anyone who said so was stigmatized as a “populist”, as a “conservative”, as a “fascist”, but today the core of European power itself confesses it. The Chancellor of Germany, Friedrich Merz , (the friend of “our” willing Kyriakos Mitsotakis), said it bluntly from Davos. Europe has failed . Period!
It failed because it suffocated production in bureaucracy , destroyed competitiveness with over-regulation , froze reforms and squandered its potential . The “single market” ended up a global champion of stagnation, pain and suffering for its people. And the result is that within two decades, Europe has collapsed economically in relative terms , losing more than a third of its share of global GDP. This is not a cycle of economic growth with “ups” and “downs”. It is a downward spiral.
And as if that weren’t enough, the European leadership consciously chose two suicidal strategies that accelerated the breakup: the Green Deal and the war in Ukraine . The first skyrocketed energy costs , deindustrialized critical sectors , pushed businesses out of Europe , and punished citizens with precision. Today, European energy costs double and triple that of the US. No economy can withstand that.
The war in Ukraine, which was called “defense of values”, exposed the absence of a strategy . It revealed a Europe that was inactive , fragmented , without a unified will . Even Volodymyr Zelensky admitted that the frontline countries remain exposed , while European structures cannot guarantee security . NATO? A shadow of itself. An organization that was established to defend the interests of its member states, but became a subordinate of the Franco-German (and clearly pro-Turkish) axis!
At the same time, the world seems to have changed . And the European elites did not understand it . Globalization is over. It is over as a doctrine, as a narrative, as a mechanism for imposing policies on nation-states and their citizens . The great powers have already accepted it. Europe has not. It insists on a dying model , defending its ashes.
That’s exactly where Donald Trump steps in. With raw power realism, he attempts to rearrange the system , break the blocs , push back against Eurasianism , lower energy costs , and close fronts. Because Trump is a patriot, no matter how much he is ridiculed, insulted, and done everything they can to hinder him, inside or outside America.
Europe? It is discussing Greenland. For a territory outside Europe , with the right to self-determination , while it cannot defend two of its member states, Greece and Cyprus . While permanent faits accomplis are being imposed on half of the Aegean , where the casus belli remains, where the “Blue Homeland” is being implemented, Brussels is wandering around on secondary issues . This is not incompetence. It is disintegration.
Europe does not need “PowerPoint reforms” . It needs a break with failed doctrines. It needs a return to sovereignty , to production , to security , to political responsibility . If this does not happen, then the decline will become dissolution . Not because Europe’s “enemies” want it. But because its leaders chose it, including its willing “follower” Kyriakos Mitsotakis, who managed to be insulted and cursed by 70% of Greeks…
MAXIMOS TH. KYPRIANOU
