“Despite the warm sea breeze, icy winds batter European leaders.” The headline makers of the news medium Politico are always resourceful around European summits, and this week’s summit in Cyprus was no exception. Politics needs drama, otherwise people won’t care. And the 27 heads of government discussed, among other things, the coming multi-year budget. An unedifying spectacle, in which each country tries to pay as little as possible into the joint European pot and to extract as many subsidies as possible. The European budget is always peanuts (1 percent of national budgets). That is why the 27 manage to cut back on the European foreign service at a time when the world, and certainly Europe, needs more diplomacy than ever before. Cheers.
But today we are not talking about those embarrassing budget negotiations every seven years. It is about how almost everything that European countries do together is seen as something that is actually impossible and doomed to failure. Whether it is about European defense, or about the energy crisis resulting from the Iran war, or about Ukraine’s accession to the European Union or about other important topics of discussion in Cyprus – the implication is that we are doing something wrong if it is all so difficult. All Menschen became BrothersPeople often say, isn’t that what European integration was about? Well, little Brüderif the French only want to buy weapons in their own country and the Germans continue to make a fuss about their own income for the EU, so that Brussels has to go around begging every time the member states ask for more Europe.
Due to the great geopolitical urgency, the 27 heads of government are now making compromises in record time
But then take a few big steps back, so that you have a good overview of the battlefield. The EU is not a federation. Member States are largely behind the wheel themselves. More and more, actually. They are the ones who make the big decisions, in most areas – because they want to share power if there is no other option, but do not want to hand it over. Each Member State wants to get the most out of itself. This is how European decision-making is structured. That is why there have always been these difficult negotiations. Even in the early years, when there were only six Member States. People are nostalgic about that now, as if there was pure idealism and goodwill and solidarity then, and not anymore. Nonsense. Even then the capitals quarreled from early morning until late at night. About the budget, about fishing quotas or the accession of new countries. Even the questions asked in the first European opinion polls (the Eurobarometer) in 1974 tried to manipulate. “Fragmentation and dysfunction are part of the political normal of European integration,” wrote historian Kiran Klaus Patel in his book Project Europewhich should be compulsory in all secondary schools in Europe.
In short, ever since six countries placed their war industries under supranational authority in 1952 and founded the European Coal and Steel Community (not a resounding success, by the way), arguing and then seeking compromise has been the common thread in European politics. That remains the case. The biggest difference with the early days is that a handful of government leaders sometimes took twenty years to find a compromise (example: the European patent) and that the 27 are now doing so in record speed due to the great geopolitical urgency. And about tougher topics too. Read how Parag Khanna, an Indian geopolitics guru who packages his advice in global bestsellers, views Europe. After decades of committees that never led to any action, he wrote recentlyEurope finally decides to ‘whatever it takes‘: “It accelerates plans for defense and nuclear autonomy, tech sovereignty, one capital market, a banking union and countless other initiatives to pool power. European stock markets overshot the S&P500 in 2025 and for the first time more Americans have moved to Europe than the other way around.”
He’s right. Others play land grabs, Europe becomes its own autonomous hub, negotiating and compromising. It is much better at this than it sometimes thinks.
