While geopolitics dominates the media with its conflicts, controversies and about-turns, Europeans would be well advised not to forget what really matters:
Power depends first and foremost on strength. Economic and financial strength, which enables the development and maintenance of military power and genuine diplomatic influence.
Europe remains a true economic power, with a gross domestic product that still rivals that of China and the United States, but the outlook is much bleaker. Growth is sluggish, which is undermining social peace and political stability and fuelling extremism.
Lacking hope, people are worried and rebellious. They are increasingly unwilling to tolerate the very things that made them wealthy in the first place: open borders for people and goods. They are turning inwards, towards their nation, or even their regional particularities.
The emergence of new rival and competing powers is adding to the anxiety already fuelled by technological advances that are disrupting many of the established codes.
Citizens of democracies are demanding answers to a new and, until recently, unimaginable context.
Only growth in wealth, accompanied by the hope of a better life for oneself and one's descendants, can attempt to stem, both in people's minds and in reality, a sense of decline with deadly consequences.
For Europe, challenged in the East, abandoned in the West and contested everywhere else, the absolute imperative is economic.
It can only be achieved at the cost of huge investments, drastic deregulation and increased economic coordination, based not on constraints but on objectives.
The economic rules we apply to achieve this are largely obsolete.
The aim must be to produce more goods and services by being at the cutting edge of technology. There is no need to fear debt if it is entirely devoted to productive investment. At the same time, of course, it will be necessary to reduce current expenditure, which weighs heavily on activity to a considerable extent that is often ignored.
Aligning our rules with global competition is a necessity. Europe has no right to lecture economies that are more successful than it is, regardless of whether it pursues its own social or environmental objectives.
Adopting a monetary policy that unleashes energy rather than focusing on the inflation rate will very quickly become a necessity.
A return to growth will ensure that wages can rise again, which is what citizens are clamouring for; it will ensure that we can finance the essential defence effort and rise to the immense technological challenges as we should. This will then allow us to reduce our debts.
Politically, this is no easy task. Unless we undertake it with courage and self-sacrifice, there is a good chance that it will be imposed on us after tragedies, as has often been the case in the history of the continent.
The European Union has embarked on this change, but it is still too slow and lacks commitment. To ensure a successful future, we must align ourselves with the new global economy and equip ourselves with new means to rebuild one that is more agile, inventive and productive, thereby giving us the means to face the dangers that lie ahead.
