Europe needs to be a superpower, not a superstate

As a European leader once remarked, Europe should be a superpower, not a superstate. Faced with an increasingly powerful and authoritarian China, global warming, the potentially existential challenge of AI, not to mention an aggressive Russia, chaotic Middle East and Trumpian United States, this argument is more compelling than ever. In a world of giants, you need to be a giant yourself. If we Europeans don't hang together, we will hang separately.

Most Europeans agree with this simple proposition. Indeed, this is one of the big things they want the European Union to do. But is Europe up to the job? The answer is not a simple yes or no. It depends what dimension of power we are talking about. In trade negotiations, the EU, which represents the biggest and richest multinational single market in the world through a single negotiator, is already a superpower. It has made trade...