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In December 2019, upon the inauguration of her first mandate, Ursula von der Leyen stated that she wanted "a geopolitical Commission". Five years later, the good fairy seems to have gotten the reconfirmed Commission president what she wanted. But the good fairy has a somewhat weird name: Vladimir Putin. Europe conformed to reality and reacted decisively to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But to what extent and in what way will Europe be geopolitical - i.e. assume the role of a relevant actor internationally – in the coming years?
Not only Russia's invasion of Ukraine, but also the Israel-Hamas and Israel-Hezbollah conflicts and China's military build-ups have shown that Europe lacks the international political weight it might aspire to given its economic strength, the number of EU countries and the international weight of many of them. Europe's global influence has been undermined by the frequent difficulty of achieving a common position, as well as by the lack of effective international leverage.
More geopolitics, since we’ve just got a taste for it
The European Union has dealt more than honorably with the conflict in Ukraine, providing massive economic, diplomatic and military support to the country under attack from Putin's authoritarian Russia. It has done it by even managing to resolve the disagreements in the European Council, between the heads of state, with the eternal ideological clown of the continent, Viktor Orbán, opposing almost every sanctions package, however only succeeding in dragging things out or getting an "oligarch exemption" for the Orthodox Patriarch Kiril, Putin's long-time crony, who was excluded from a list of sanctioned individuals.
Despite all the obstacles put in the way by Orban, things are going well, or at least better than we would have expected. Even if it did not believe - like many of us - in the Anglo-American warnings about the Russian invasion on February 24, 2022, the European Union quickly regrouped and did what would have looked impossible before the invasion - among other things, deliver heavy weapons (the Leopard tanks are just one example) to a country in conflict with Russia.
But all these were crisis decisions, tactical and reactive rather than strategic and visionary. Europe's need for defense - it was initially called "strategic autonomy" - has been evident since the time of Trump's mandate in the US. It began to be theorized in documents such as the manifesto of the European People's Party, launched in the spring in Bucharest. There it was about things like a European defense union and the post of defense commissioner, assumed and endorsed by Ursula von der Leyen, who has meanwhile secured her second term as head of the Commission. The last goal turned into a proposal for a European commissioner, in the person of the Lithuanian Andrius Kubilius, a devoted supporter of Ukraine. However, we do not know much more about the declared intentions. The press is wondering what the new defense commissioner will do and the consensus is that he will be a "defense industry commissioner" rather than a "defense commissioner", while the existence of a European army is not even an assumed dream.
The Stickless High Representatives of Europe
"Speak softly and carry a big stick": there is probably no international figure who has conformed less to the geopolitical axiom of US President Theodore Roosevelt than Josep Borrell, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy until the new Commission takes office. His flashy style was mocked by Politico in an article in which the author counted no less than 17 cases, in the course of 2024 alone, in which Borrell took the stand and "condemned" various international events, from the assassination attempt on the Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico, to the situation in Gaza. But personal style aside, it's clear why Borrell can't live up to Roosevelt's axiom: he doesn't have a "stick." Even the quoted article, which headlines: "The Most Useless Job", blames the position and not its occupant. Often ridiculed in Brussels circles, Borrell is essentially "guilty" of the fact that he cannot rely on a decisive mandate from the European states, nor on real geopolitical influence. The alternative to the mocked statements would be, after all, complicit silence.
Continuing the allegory, we can still enjoy the fact that the European Union seems to be determined to manufacture "sticks" for others, after delivering to Ukraine what it had in store. It remains to be seen whom we will distribute them to.
Kaja Kallas and "Europolitical geopolitics"
But even if we don't know to whom, we are starting to understand who will distribute them. It’s the announced successor of Josep Borrell, Kaja Kallas. About the former Estonian (Liberal) prime minister we know things that guarantee at least a certain geopolitical attitude, if not its realization. Coming from a family of politicians, with two of her grandfathers and a mother deported during the Soviet Union, the Estonian entered Russia's "wanted" list because she took the initiative to demolish Soviet monuments in her country. All this outlines something that historian Timothy Garton-Ash calls, in "Homelands”, "the memory engine". It's about everyone's formative experiences, which determine a certain political attitude and, in the case of characters of stature, historical gestures.
At only 47 years old, the new High Representative of Europe seems to be a guarantee (necessary, but not sufficient) of a decisive attitude of the continent towards the Russian issue, all the more since she and Ursula von der Leyen seem to get along quite well, unlike the uneasy relationship between the latter and Josep Borrell during the term that is ending.
Kallas will take up her duties in a climate of "moral superiority" in Eastern Europe, which has repeatedly warned against Russia's expansionist tendencies but has been ignored by the big Western powers. The latter have lost some of their influence anyway as a result of the legitimacy crisis of the leaders of the "Franco-German engine", Olaf Scholz and Emmanuel Macron.
We can therefore hope for the clarification of the goals regarding Russia. For "geopolitics", however, we still need something else: China, with the so-called "Global South", linked in other contexts to the abbreviation "BRICS" (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa). International media have repeatedly pointed out that Kaja Kallas does not have a clear attitude towards "the rest of the world". Probably, in the matter of China, she will follow the line set by the President of the Commission, who has repeatedly raised the issue of the relations with that country.
In other words, Europe's geopolitics could become a reality soon rather as "Europolitics", a scaled down, continental version of global involvement. This is likely also since Europe has not been able to play any significant role in the Middle East either. Ursula von der Leyen and Roberta Metsola’s show-off in bulletproof vests in Tel Aviv, in the early months of the Gaza conflict, was memorable and appeared as an antithesis to Borrell's stridently pro-Palestinian reaction. As the vests cannot be used as sticks, the other two “high representatives” of the continent could only "condemn" the situation, just like the real high representative. The European Union's moment of solidarity and efficiency in Ukraine was followed by an ominous failure in the Near East.
Signs of clarification in the European Council
Still: "Who do I call if I want to speak to Europe?" The witticism attributed to Henry Kissinger (even though he denied it) is still valid. In the intricate EU system, the Commission is rather the storehouse of sticks; its key lies elsewhere, in the European Council of the heads of state. Its inability to make clear decisions by unanimity on important issues, as required by the European treaties, is well known. There is, however, a desire to transform the European Union up to the level of treaties that stipulate, for example, the principle of unanimity in the Council. Moreover, Poland's anti-democratic tendencies are history, at least until proven otherwise, since the departure of the Law and Justice Party from government, and Orbán's internal position is no longer so solid, both for economic and political reasons. Possibly, there will be several divergent opinions in the European Council, but they will not refer to Russia in any case.
In the near future, things could get clearer for Europe's geopolitics, also because on January 1, around the time when the von der Leyen II Commission starts the new term, the presidency of the other council, of the European Union, will be taken over by Poland, a country with a very clear attitude towards Russia. That could smooth the way diplomatically and administratively for the decisions to be made by the state leaders.
Romanian geopolitics. Which one, Ciolacu's or Geoana's?
Of course, we are also interested in what role Romania could play in the new geopolitical framework. Our country occupies a strategic position - the southern pillar of NATO's flank - which favors it, but that does not mean that the country's politicians will know how to reap the benefits. Trump’s potential return to the White House is an undesirable scenario for the whole of Europe, but it would have more drastic effects in Romania, due to our country's preferential relationship with the USA, publicly stated in the form of a strategic partnership. An isolated America would leave Romania without a political compass and, against the background presented above, it is not clear how the European Union could manage to fill the void of external influence.
Of course, much depends on the outcome of the presidential elections this winter. Mircea Geoană as President would be a plus from this point of view, due to his experience in diplomacy and in NATO, no matter his pre-campaign TV blunders. As for the Ciolacu hypothesis - or any other - let's say that the measure of Romania's current geopolitical capabilities was given by Klaus Iohannis’ campaign for the position of head of NATO. The author of these lines has not eaten humble pie before, but he going to do so now, because he saw in the campaign a coherent and courageous approach, generating regional leadership not only for the president, but also for Romania, even in the event of the loss of the leadership, at the head of an honorable coalition of states. Incredible as it may seem though, that’s not what Iohannis had up his sleeve. Holding on to his own candidacy until the thirteenth hour, when it became clear that he was supported only by the authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Turkey and his stance may affect the functioning of NATO, the President of Romania showed a stubbornness that clearly denotes political selfishness, which pulled us all back into the category of countries with strange "geopolitical" ideas, and a potential threat to the future of the supranational organizations of which they are a part.
What are we actually talking about? Geopolitics and military power
If, as Orwell observed long before Françoise Thom, political language is designed to "give an appearance of solidity to pure wind” it is appropriate to ask what, exactly, a "geopolitical" Europe means. The encyclopedic explanation of the word refers to the influence of geography on international political relations. As long as geography is in play, however, it is impossible not to talk about military power and power relations, as we did earlier. Of course, Ursula von der Leyen could not clearly state her desire to turn Europe into a military power. But we, as Europeans, feel that we should want something like that. The problem is that, broadly speaking, the European Union is the rule-based consensus of countries that have had enough fighting with each other, and this is proven by the very core of the EU, the Coal and Steel Community, which turned the Ruhr basin into a source of shared prosperity, after it had been the lifeblood of Nazi military power.
Russia's aggression and threat, China's claims to be the number one superpower, and the possibility of a new Trump presidency are strong impulses for the continent to take a decisive and effective stance. However, "a geopolitical Europe" means a Europe cured of cognitive dissonance, which honestly (at least tacitly) assumes its desire to be a military and diplomatic power and harmonizes it, as much as possible, with the goals of peace and prosperity. Until we Europeans are able to do that, our leaders will flounder.
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