No More Deals Like This One? Then Empower Europe.
Since its signature, the new EU-US agreement has triggered a wave of justified criticism.
Commentators across Europe have rightly condemned the asymmetry of the deal, the latitude granted to the United and the absence of reciprocity in the terms negotiated. They are correct to be alarmed.
But while the content of the agreement deserves scrutiny, what remains largely unspoken is the deeper structural reality it reflects: European leaders are not choosing these terms freely. They are accepting them for lack of alternatives. Not because they are naïve, cowardly or incompetent but because the European Union, as a political bloc, no longer possesses the instruments of power necessary to negotiate on equal footing with its transatlantic partner.
This is not a matter of personality or willpower. It is a question of means. In 2004, the European Union represented 30.96% of global GDP. Twenty years later, it accounts for just 17.41%. Most of its member states depend on non-EU countries, primarily China and the US, for critical raw materials, semiconductors, defense technologies and energy supplies. Collective European defence remains fragmented, underfunded, and subordinate to NATO’s American leadership. Meanwhile, Europe’s demographic base is eroding: eighteen member states report fertility rates below 1.5 children per woman. This is not a union prepared for long-term projection of power. It is a continent increasingly constrained to react. The explanation lies not in a failure of intelligence among our leaders, but in the long-term dismantling, sometimes conscious, often justified as enlightened, of the levers of power that make sovereignty operational.
Over the last two decades, by a mix of naïveté, condescension and, in some cases, excessive repentance, Europe has outsourced its industrial capacity, abdicated its strategic autonomy, and neglected the foundations of its demographic resilience. We dismissed production as outdated, military investment as dangerous, and border control as reactionary. We assumed that diplomacy could replace deterrence, that trade would replace factories, that values would replace strategy. This agreement with the United States is not an exception but a symptom. And it will not be the last.
As long as Europe continues to disarm itself — economically, militarily, and demographically — it will continue to sign such deals, not because it chooses to, but because it has no real alternative. The danger is not this agreement in itself. It is the series of silent concessions that will follow in supply chains, in security policy, in migration patterns.
Empower Europe is an initiative launched to reconnect the continent with the strategic capacities it has lost. We are building a network of political, economic, academic actors who believe in restoring Europe’s industrial base, its defence credibility, and its demographic ambition. If you believe sovereignty must be rebuilt, not only discussed, we invite you to join us and subscribe to our monthly Brief.
