Global Crisis: the new normal for Europe?

This week, so far, the authoritarian president of the United States has said he was going to be “very nice” to China, and that he had “no intention” of firing the US Federal Reserve chair. And Elon Musk is reportedly going to spend more time with Tesla, as its profits drop 71%, and less with Doge. Well, we can always live and hope.

But the ‘new normal’ in global affairs is uncertainty, crisis, a retreat from democracy, deprioritising of climate change and widespread insecurity, both in economic and defence terms. Several commentators, as we all try to navigate this increasingly unstable and uncertain world, have suggested this new era is, in fact, the moment to build a positive new global order. The European Union, we are reminded, often grows and moves forward in response to crises.

Yet, in the face of the US moving towards all the characteristics of an authoritarian state, tariffs going up/down/suspended, and Trump seeming to adopt all Russia’s lines in his latest push-retreat from efforts to get a ‘peace’ deal between Russia and Ukraine, what might a new global order look like?

If we look at Europe’s response so far, including the UK, it has been a mixed effort. There’s a general scramble to increase defence spending, including a determined effort to place increased defence spending off the fiscal balance sheet to enable politicians to say their self-imposed fiscal rules are still being followed or only slightly redefined.

There’s no fiscal redefinition in the UK for pensioners, or the disabled, or for families living in poverty with more than two children (‘the cap is popular with key voters’ one Labour source told the Guardian – key voters doubtless being Reform voters). But the UK government very much wants to be part of any European new defence funds – and to make those not count in any fiscal deficit reckoning.

Some have suggested this could turn into Europe’s hour. It can lead on protecting democracy and the rule of law, on keeping open economies and good international relations through new alliances of democracies, more trade deals, better relations with developing countries. And, perhaps, all the defence spending will revitalise the EU economy not least Germany’s stuttering economy. The EU-UK summit on 19^th May will surely agree a new defence partnership and probably set the ball rolling further forward on reducing, at the margins, post-Brexit trade barriers.

Standing up for democracy and human rights is always welcome. And European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, is still talking tough on the big tech firms. So far, as well, the EU has agreed but paused tariffs in response to Trump’s initial steel and aluminium tariffs and credibly threatened more counter-measures on the US if Trump’s 90 day pause, on his 20% tariffs on the EU, doesn’t produce a Trump retreat.

But it’s still hard to imagine a new global order out of this current geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty and new great powers’ games. European reactions look more like an attempt to, at least, defend and keep as much of what’s there as possible. That’s a reasonable response, at least in the short term.

So, on the economy and trade, we have the goal of keeping international trade going, of finding ways to new trade deals, of not letting US tariffs lead to any more protectionism between other countries or blocs. That’s fine as far as it goes. But in the face of inflationary and recessionary pressures driven, most of all by Trump’s damaging and erratic policy decisions, it may not take us very far.

On climate change, other states are not leaving the Paris climate agreement. But political parties and businesses are backsliding. In the EU, the centre-right European People’s party (EPP) continues to shift closer to the far right on its efforts to undermine and weaken climate targets and legislation. Last week, the head of the EPP, Manfred Weber, said the EU should drop its ban on new combustion engine vehicles from 2035.

The UK government, meanwhile, is pushing forward some green measures while promoting new runways at Heathrow and Gatwick and assuring the wider public their lifestyles do not need to change. Labour insiders’ muttering about Ed Miliband, as if tackling the climate crisis is a political embarrassment and vote loser (though it’s not what polls show), will surely worsen as Nigel Farage’s attacks on net zero increase.

And there are other problems with the argument that the EU can lead on a new global order while managing its own far right. Some of the suggestions for reinforcing international alliances sound rather much like saying the EU, and UK, must make sure it gets on well with its fellow OECD members, get on with the remains of the ‘west’ without the US. And sure, there’s the G20 too. But there’s little sight of any radical new thinking about international relations, not least relations with the global south, as equals not just (or at all) recipients of aid. The UN doesn’t seem to figure much either in these inevitably vague new order ideas.

Promoting democracy, the rule of law and human rights is vital – but it’s always at risk of hitting the stumbling blocks of ‘do what we say, not what we do’. The EU’s pushbacks on migration and the egregious, often illegal, ‘policing’ of EU borders is one case in point. The EU’s continued Association Agreement and meetings, in that context, with the Israeli government, as the destruction and aid blockade of Gaza continues, will stain the EU into the future (and the UK).

And the biggest elephant in the room of any efforts in leading a new, positive world order, is the fact that the EU and UK want to keep the erratic, authoritarian Trump on side, while they take a decade to upgrade their own hard security and defence. We are still barely three months into Trump’s presidency. What the world will look like in another three months, never mind years, is quite unclear.

Events will keep moving much faster than a slow, steady response to the break-up of the west can match. Today, US, European and Ukrainian officials and politicians were due to meet in London. But apparently, on the US side, both Marco Rubio and Steve Witkoff pulled out from the event. Meanwhile, China looks on mostly much cheered by the US upending of the global order.

Geopolitics was already unstable and threatening in many ways before Trump won November’s election. It is now much more so. The EU is in a much stronger position than the UK, as a strong bloc of 27 countries, to stand up for itself. But the EU and UK have also recognised a need for stronger relations between the two, particularly on defence and security.

But creating strategic order out of chaos is unlikely. Rather, a mish-mash of interests, values, occasional bits of strategy or at least plans, and a lot of knee-jerk reaction to events, is probably much more the order of the day.