Much attention is rightly being paid to the well-documented tendencies in most of the world’s regions for autocracy to have been gaining some ground in the last two decades at the expense of democracy. Europe has not been immune from the impact of the several megatrends and profound systemic shocks that seem to have been favouring these autocratic tendencies – namely climate change, the Covid pandemic, Western macroeconomic shocks and above all the roles of China and Russia as autocracy’s superpowers. But paradoxically these same, extremely heterogenous disorders have seen the EU also responding with unprecedented initiatives, strengthening its powers and competences.
However, Putin’s attack on Ukraine mounts the case for further steps, notably for the EU’s further enlargement now to be cast as a security project, to be supported by major advances in military defence capabilities under the heading of a European Defence Union. The gravity of the threat to democratic Europe from the autocratic superpowers could then result in a strengthening of an integrated Europe to a degree going beyond what has so far been politically feasible.
Funded under the European Commission’s Horizon Europe programme, project ID No. 101132446.
