All the short circuits of Macron and the EU on strategic autonomy
Macron and the European Union have fallen into the trap of sovereignty and strategic autonomy. Meanwhile, China rubs its hands. The analysis by Roberto Menotti, director of Aspenia online
According to the French President, Emmanuel Macron, it is not in Europe's interest to be drawn into a confrontation by Washington with the People's Republic of China over Taiwan. With perfect timing (massive Chinese military exercises around the disputed island), he thus gave himself an Easter present to President Xi Jinping, perhaps even unexpected.
The statements made in the first days of April by Emmanuel Macron on the sidelines of his Chinese trip (and perhaps also directly to Xi Jinping) have left many observers dumbfounded, but they are by no means a bolt from the blue. On the contrary, they come from afar, and the signs have been clearly visible for several years.
In reality, we are dealing with a side effect of the sovereignty intoxication that seems to have affected many European leaders, and not just the French Macron. It may be recalled that France has always had a soft spot for “souveraineté” – especially its own – but the problem is wider and deeper. Brexit docet: the memory of the great slogan "take back control" is still alive, which later proved to be the first step towards a self-defeating choice as well as harmful to the EU.
Even the Commission, from Brussels, speaks more and more often of "technological sovereignty" and "economic sovereignty" – almost as if we were at a festival dedicated to Max Weber. It should also be noted that, at the community level, the economistic declination of "sovereign" ambition masks, not too deeply, a classic mercantilist attitude. It is a completely legitimate attempt, it is clear, in a complicated and hyper-competitive world, but perhaps it should be made more explicit in its implications: in particular, when we declare the desire to reduce dependence on the outside, we can also call it "reshoring" , but in fact in European capitals we mean above all "national champions" and state enterprises; therefore, it remains to be demonstrated that the shortening of the infamous value chains is compatible with European integration and with the single market. In short, while in Paris Macron has clear ideas on where sovereignty is located (at the Elysée, which is conferred every five years by the electorate), in Brussels they have perhaps misunderstood what has been happening for some years.
The current phenomenon is a precipitous return of leaderships towards national sovereignty, even when it makes little sense to make this rush backwards. In essence, evoking sovereignty as a mantra is equivalent to exorcising interdependence, which however does not magically disappear. For example, it can be argued, in theory, that the public debt is "sovereign"; but, if the markets (even before the other governments) are convinced that it will not be repaid, then the economic consequences for the indebted country will be very concrete, and no declaration of sovereign prerogatives will be enough to act as a shield.
The peculiarity of the growing European interest in "sovereign" attributes is that there is a tendency to make no distinction between allies, reliable partners, less reliable partners, problematic counterparts (semi-failed states, for example), and true strategic adversaries. In the festival of sovereignty, a sort of frenzy ends up blurring the vision, and perhaps some rather experienced leaders even go so far as to declare to the Beijing government their frustration over a historic alliance relationship that is considered too biased in favor of Washington. In other words, some Europeans – even in Berlin – sometimes wish to free themselves from the American yoke in order to finally be able to deal on an equal footing with China, after aiming for about twenty years to create a symbiotic energy relationship with the Russian Federation. It is an interesting "grand strategy", which certainly does not strengthen relations of trust with the USA – which in the meantime are obviously being asked to continue to defend us, while we organize ourselves to become autonomous.
Precisely in terms of security, the joint Sino-French communiqué signed on April 7 on a sort of all-out military dialogue is noteworthy: yet, it is certainly not France alone that can influence Beijing's global choices. The points in the communiqué that are dedicated specifically to the war in Ukraine are also in direct contradiction with the collective efforts of the EU to ensure the country a freer, safer and more democratic future. In fact, it will not be Paris that will be able to give serious guarantees to Kyiv, without the support of NATO and without the force of attraction of the EU. Therefore, it is a case that can be defined as sovereign astigmatism, for which Macron does not seem to have focused on reality and in any case wanted to show the world that he is a counterpart worthy of dialogue with the single leader of the single Chinese party.
It is certainly not accidental, then, that among the greatest enthusiasts of the (alleged) European strategic autonomy there is precisely Xi Jinping's China, which relies not only on the possible disengagement of the EU from the United States, but also on the almost certain fragmentation of the " European front” following that undocking; from Beijing's point of view, one thing leads to another.
Thus a double short circuit was triggered: first between the EU and the USA; then within the EU among its member countries (who compete to demonstrate who is more "sovereign" than the others). The show is really curious, if observed from the outside – both from Beijing and Moscow, as well as from Washington. And it should by now be worrying above all for the Europeans themselves.
It has rightly been noted that the world has become increasingly competitive technologically and generally economically; true, but it is also more interdependent than in the recent past, and this makes direct recourse to the dear old category of sovereignty difficult. We risk becoming very sovereign and very poor, or very isolated, or finally very dependent on adversaries (rather than allies). It really seems like a case where the remedy is worse than the disease.
After all, already in the period 2017-2020 the West experienced what it means to have an American leadership wholly focused on its own sovereignty (complete with American First and "settlement diplomacy"); Indeed, the United States itself was the first to experience it, with the aftermath of internal political polarization even worse than the already high one that brought Donald Trump to the White House.
Also in the light of this very recent political phase, the newfound popularity of the "sovereign" within the EU is perplexing, which until a few years ago was proud of its attempt to overcome the national level in order to dilute and, if anything, radically redefine the concept of autonomous and constructive international "actor" – before and better than "sovereign".
At least two macroscopic cases should then advise great caution: Vladimir Putin's Russia, which has defined itself as a "sovereign democracy", as if it were an innovative model to offer to the world; and the People's Republic of China, which understands sovereignty primarily as the reconquest of Taiwan and then as the expansion of its already considerable territorial extension to also include various disputed islands in the South China Sea. It is to be hoped that no one in Europe takes these shining examples of political system and international projection as a reference.
However, it is difficult to deny at this point that there is a specific French problem for the Europeans: President Macron has practically claimed a national role even in the military balances of the East Asian maritime quadrant – very reminiscent of the “Global Britannia” by the Brexiteers. The future will not be kind if the London precedent can be a warning to Paris. In the meantime, however, the damage is being done to Europe and to transatlantic cohesion.
A very sovereign damage.
(Excerpt from an article published on Aspenia online; here the complete version)
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/macron-cina-autonomia-strategica-ue/ on Sun, 16 Apr 2023 05:03:45 +0000.