Europe is only wake up from its long sleep

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Rola Khaleda, FT editor, chooses her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The innocence of that summer touches now. In a distant past called 2024, when Britain elected a party government, the optimists made the bull issue for the country. Emmanuel Macron faced budget problems in France and Germany a recessionTherefore, the United Kingdom struck them as a relative haven. (As if there were three countries on the face of the earth to invest in it.) Instead of the continuous madness of the bond market revolution, there will be people responsible for the end to borrow the spending. (The bond market revolution soon followed.) “Britain has returned, and the world wants a piece” one of Addresses That ranges from the ages of milk.

Taurus, in fact. We now know that the British directing Shrink In January. This is before increasing the government tax and its regulations for employers becomes law. As always, smart people allowed conservatives to get to know the amazing naivety about their opponents. It does not matter, except for British problems in a mini -Europe: there is not enough growth, so there is not enough financial revenues, so there is not enough defense spending, at least without sacrifices elsewhere, there is not enough public support.

Perhaps, then, we must stop the idea that, as one of the officials other than Bramani said during the Balkan crises in the 1990s: “This is the hour of Europe.” The note of victory has recently infiltrated, which is assumed that Donald Trump’s betrayal of the continent proves to be made. This depends on – what?

Germany is dangerous. Bondstag voice This week for the theoretically unlimited borrowing for re -deportation. But defense obligations in other places are seriously funded. The Spanish Prime Minister will not reduce “One Sent” From social spending. Work suffers from internal conflict due to benefits reforms that will not provide 5 billion pounds annually until the end of the contract. Citizens are ready to abandon private consumption or the luxury of defense is not a test, at best. The historical turning point is only a historical turning point if the public agrees to this.

The financial question is not even the most difficult Europe. The consensus on more defensive spending deserves only a consensus to actually spread power. Nothing of this type exists. Dooning Street hints to a “A large number” The countries ready to send the forces to Ukraine. Which countries? How many soldiers each? Under what rules of engagement? If Russia does not accept NATO forces in Ukraine, whether it is on NATO energy or not, does Europe insist? Besides these questions, which the continent does not have years to answer, the issue of financing is a picnic.

I wonder whether these months will be mentioned that they are not in Europe united, but at the moment when its division has become from the north and the south the main truth of continental policy. Georgia Meloni, who is supportive of Ukraine for an Italian popularity, Reject The idea of ​​sending her mother’s soldiers there. Spain wants defense spending its investments in the Internet and climate, because Russia is almost “brings its forces through algebraic“. community Nowadays, which is not.)

It is a good idea to talk about Europe as a formula -free military force, capable of inviting more people from 340 million America, but southern Europe is not a small share of these population. Bar Poland, the countries of the continent who spend more on defense as a share of income, such as Latvia, are among the smallest. Even if Germany joins them in time, the potential workforce in Europe begins to look less magnificent without the Mediterranean. This does not calculate the possibility that Berlin decides that the field forces in the east bear a lot of historical freight that cannot be tolerated.

This month, a graphic of analysts in Global S&P Categories My path came, and the ridicule was dissipated inside me. The X -Axis is the capital distance from Moscow in kilometers. The axis p is its defensive spending as a share of national production. With some exceptions-Greece-there is a reverse relationship between the two, with a well-protected southern Europe, and the exposed northeast spending over the NATO brand of 2 percent of GDP. What compounds this problem is the concerned population. Portugal, one of the lowest expenditures, has more people from all the three Baltic countries combined. Spain is greater than Poland. If the threats and defense contributions are diverged on both sides (almost), the forty -fifth parallel, it will be important.

There is no disadvantage in searching for hope, even wrong hope. Optimism is very vital for survival so that there are complete arenas of literature about whether it has been chosen. But there is optimism, then there to twist in ugly abnormalities to deny reality. The American version of this is the continuous support of the strategic thought of every Trump and mine reaction (“he does a The opposite of Nixon“).

European version? Early talk about a unified and dangerous continent: everything is better because it is the unintended creation of an American president who hates it. We do not know what European citizens are ready to abandon re -arms. We know less than any of them will carry these weapons, where. Until this changes, the giant movement borrowed after all is very long. The continent is half a awake, with a rum in its eyes, and it may still hope to ignore the alarm.

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