Europe is looking into a Donald Trump’s second term in the United States with the risk of “a new trade war in which we would all lose”; it is gambled before “the emergence of a power, China, which is produced in an increasingly confrontational way”; is tested against a Vladimir Putin who “does not seem willing to sit at a table” from which he comes out with a piece of Ukraine, because his claim is much greater”; and he attends without clear guidance to the resurgence in Syria of “jihadists who have exchanged the turban for the blazer” blue, which are the same, but have a different appearance.
They are brushstrokes with which Joseph Borrell This Tuesday, he painted the disturbing international situation in which the European Union finds itself. After five years of performance, the former High Representative of the EU for Foreign and Security Policy and former Vice President of the European Commission, has described a panorama full of unflattering variables for “a Europe surrounded by a circle of fire,” he said, referring to the title of his latest book.
“What we see today is the failure of the post-Cold War order,” a situation in which Borrell sees these symptoms expanding: “Lack of respect for international law, increase in protectionism, erosion of multilateralism, lack of a peaceful solution to conflicts.” conflicts, regression of democracy, return of war to our borders and systematic violation of international humanitarian law in the Middle East.” In other words, “none of what we imagined 35 years ago has come to pass.”
This Europe surrounded by conflicts requires, in his opinion, unity and awareness of the danger. And both “to make decisions that are postponed.” Among them, that of rearming: “The security of Europe cannot depend every four years on the mood of North American voters“, he declared.
