“Negotiations on Ukraine must be held between Russia and the United States without the participation of any other Western country. We have nothing to talk about with London or Brussels (…). The leadership of the EU does not have the right to speak for many of its member countries, such as Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and others interested in stability in Europe and in a balanced policy on Russia’ (Nikolai Patrushev, Kremlin advisor, member of the National Security Council, in an interview with Kp.Ru, after Donald Trump anticipated his intention to meet with Vladimir Putin ‘very quickly’ after taking office in the White House).

The statements by Nikolai Patrushev, trusted advisor to Vladimir Putin, are a resounding slap in the face to Europe. “Negotiations must be held between Russia and the United States. London? Brussels? There is nothing to talk about with them‘. A dry, brutal sentence that enshrines the geopolitical irrelevance of the EU (as well as the UK post-Brexit). We are not a power, we do not matter. Neither diplomatically, nor strategically.

And as if that weren’t enough, Patrushev increases the dose, listing one by one the European countries that the Kremlin considers already under control or easily manipulated: “Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and others interested in stability in Europe and a balanced policy on Russia“. Translation: Hungary and Slovakia are already in the net, Romania is the next target, while elsewhere we have our fifth columns at work (Germany, France and Italy included). A humiliation that smacks of calculated strategy, a move of surgical precision. We are already waiting for the Orsini and Caracciolo to explain on live TV why Putin is right and how good we would do to dissolve the European Union and get back to trading with the Great Mother Russia (as Limes has done for years, hosting Gazprom advertisements).

Europe: weak, fragmented, irrelevant

Unfortunately, it is not only the Kremlin and its acolytes that consider Europe a marginal entity. Our inability to speak with one voice condemns us to being spectators in the grand theatre of international politics. Trump and Xi know this, as they play out their trade games by trying to open fault lines and rifts between member states: Setting detailed duties on individual products, formally aimed at all European producers of that good, but substantially aimed at the specific European country that holds the bulk of production (e.g. French brandy or Iberian ham), serves to selectively target this or that government, provoke the reaction of local producers against their own rulers, delude individual European capitals into believing that they can build a special friendship with Beijing or Washington that ensures favourable treatment for their own national productions, obviously offering in return acquiescence to Chinese and American demands. In other words, selling parmesan cheese to Shanghai and jamon serrano to Chongqing in exchange for closed mouths on the occupation of Taiwan. So much for an economic giant with feet of clay: this is how Europe becomes a calf with balsa wood feet.

Without reforms, the future is written

The reality is this: either Europe reforms, or it disappears. Radical decisions are needed. A common foreign and defence policy(with more resources), a decision-making system that overcomes national vetoes, a strong, elected and recognised leadership. In short, a president of the European Union who has the strength and authority to pick up the phone (the phone that Henry Kissinger complained he could not see, on this side of the Atlantic) and express the position of half a billion European citizens. Only then can the Union hope to be taken seriously.

How can this be achieved? It is not necessarily possible to arrive at such an outcome by following the ordinary and orderly procedures of the EU, for everyone and with everyone’s consent. It will have to be done with whoever wants it, in concentric circles and in tears.

Standing still, however, is not an option. You end up getting slapped in the face by Putin and everyone else (like by the US on the Greenland case).