EU2.0 Needs an Information Strategy

Europe is learning to defend itself in the information war. The next step is connecting military influence, democratic resilience and communication with societies beyond its borders.

 

For years, Europe has treated information warfare primarily as something done to us. Russia interferes in European information environments.
China has developed sophisticated influence capabilities.
Extremist organizations have used digital media to recruit and mobilize.
Artificial intelligence is making manipulation cheaper and faster, while foreign actors can exploit existing political divisions rather than having to create them.

Europe's response has therefore understandably concentrated on defense: identifying disinformation, exposing foreign interference, regulating platforms, improving cyber resilience and protecting democratic processes. The European External Action Service (EEAS), for example, has developed Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) into a distinct field of activity and now regularly documents attempts to manipulate European and neighboring information environments.[1]

But something is changing.

A recent study by the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri) describes how France has gradually moved beyond this predominantly defensive conception. Experiences with Islamic State propaganda, information confrontation in the Sahel and Russia's hybrid warfare have helped persuade French defense planners that information is not simply a communications problem surrounding military operations. It is itself part of the strategic environment in which conflicts are conducted and political outcomes shaped.[2]

France has consequently begun constructing doctrine and capabilities for information warfare and influence. That may appear to be a specifically French military development. In reality, it points toward a much larger European question.

Europe Is Discovering Information Power

Military power has always involved more than weapons. Countries seek to influence what opponents expect, what populations believe possible, what allies consider credible and what choices political leaders think are available. Digital communication has enormously expanded this arena.

The important development in France is therefore not that Europe is finally learning how to conduct propaganda. Quite the opposite. The French approach described by Ifri explicitly confronts the problem facing democracies: authoritarian adversaries may manipulate, fabricate and deceive in ways democratic states should not imitate. France now accepts an offensive dimension in the information domain while explicitly maintaining its refusal of lying. Ifri argues that preserving law and truth is not simply a handicap but a defining boundary for democratic information warfare.[2]

Europe therefore needs to become better not at manufacturing reality, but at explaining, persuading and making credible alternatives visible. Doing that requires capabilities which Europe has traditionally kept in separate boxes: military information operations; protection of European societies against foreign manipulation; and strategic communication with societies outside Europe. A stronger Europe will increasingly need all three.

Competing in the Information Environment

The military lesson is becoming difficult to ignore. France's experience in the Sahel demonstrated that military capability alone does not guarantee political success.
Ifri concludes that information campaigns helped delegitimize Operation Barkhane, while Russia's hybrid confrontation has demonstrated that the cognitive environment can remain contested long before conventional hostilities begin.[2]

Russia has taken that principle considerably further. The EU already treats information manipulation as part of Russia's broader hybrid confrontation. In 2026 the Council imposed further sanctions on individuals involved in Russian FIMI activities, while the EEAS continued documenting systematic Russian efforts to manipulate political perceptions and weaken support for Ukraine.[1][3]

Information therefore cannot remain an afterthought to European defense. If Europe is serious about developing a stronger European pillar within NATO — and ultimately the greater strategic capability we might call EU2.0 — information capability belongs alongside military readiness, intelligence, cyber defense and industrial capacity.

But that is only the first layer.

Protecting Europe's Democratic Space

Information competition also takes place inside European societies, and here the issue becomes considerably more delicate. Foreign powers do not necessarily need to invent European divisions. Migration, inequality, national identity, distrust of institutions, dissatisfaction with government and arguments over European integration already exist. External actors can exploit these divisions by amplifying particular narratives, supporting sympathetic networks, injecting misleading information or simply increasing the visibility and intensity of conflicts already dividing Europeans.

This is the Threat from Within.[4] But the phrase requires an important qualification. The threat is not disagreement. People opposing immigration policy, European integration, defense expenditure or sanctions against Russia do not become agents of foreign influence simply because Moscow happens to favor similar positions. A democracy that starts treating dissent as a security problem damages precisely what it claims to defend.

Europe therefore faces a difficult balancing act: becoming considerably better at identifying manipulation, covert financing and organized foreign interference while continuing to protect political pluralism and open argument. Significantly, the French doctrine described by Ifri recognizes essentially this boundary: military capabilities may act toward an adversary, while protection of domestic civilian society should not become an attempt to influence that society.[2]

A European information strategy must therefore protect the democratic information environment without trying to control it. That distinction should become one of its governing principles.

Defense Is Only Half a Strategy

There remains another asymmetry. Russia communicates actively into Europe. Europe does much less to communicate strategically into Russia.

Europe sanctions. Europe condemns. Europe supports Ukraine. Europe strengthens NATO. European leaders explain these policies primarily to Europeans and other governments. But what political future does Europe communicate to Russian citizens?

That question was central to Europe Needs a Strategy of Confidence Toward Russia’s Citizens.[5] Its proposition was deliberately different from either appeasement or regime change. Europe can make clear that its problem is not Russia's existence, Russian culture or the Russian people's legitimate desire for security and dignity. Its problem is an imperial conception of security under which neighboring countries are denied the freedom to determine their own futures.

That leaves open another possibility. A Russia secure within its internationally recognized borders, no longer seeking domination over neighboring states, could progressively rebuild a peaceful and mutually beneficial relationship with Europe.

That proposition matters strategically because deterrence by itself describes only what Europe wants Russia not to do.
It says remarkably little about what Europe wants eventually to happen.

Deterrence Needs a Political Destination

Consider the strategic choice presented to Russians today. Continued confrontation means Ukrainian resistance, stronger European defense, NATO reinforcement, sanctions, economic separation and continuing insecurity. Europe has become increasingly credible about that side of the equation.

The alternative remains much less visible.

What would actually happen if a future Russia abandoned territorial aggression? Europe could make that possibility more concrete without promising concessions today. Changed behavior could progressively create possibilities for sanctions relief, restored travel, scientific and educational exchange, cultural reopening, economic cooperation and eventually a different European security relationship.

The important word is conditional. Europe would not be offering rewards for aggression, nor would it determine Russia's political system. Russians themselves determine Russia's political future. Europe would simply make one proposition credible: Russia's choices affect Europe's choices.

That directly challenges the narrative that permanent confrontation is unavoidable because the West will remain Russia's enemy whatever Russia does. Europe's answer can instead be that another relationship is possible, but that it depends on another relationship between Russia and its neighbors as well.

This is strategically important. Deterrence raises the costs of aggression. Conditional cooperation increases the potential benefits of changed behavior. Communication makes that alternative knowable. None works as effectively without the others.

From Information Warfare to Societal Communication

This is where the emerging French doctrine and the European Russia question meet—but they should not be confused.

Military information warfare and communication with Russian society are not the same activity, nor should they become one. Military organizations need capabilities appropriate to conflict and adversarial information environments. European societies need protection against covert foreign interference. Independent journalists, researchers, cultural institutions, universities and Russian-language voices need the freedom and means to communicate across borders.

Governments can provide infrastructure, access and strategic clarity without determining what independent communicators are required to say. That distinction allows Europe to build influence capability without constructing a European propaganda ministry.

Much of the required ecosystem already exists.
Europe has broadcasters, independent media, universities, research institutions, cultural networks, Russian-language journalists, technology companies, diplomatic services and civil-society organizations. The missing element may therefore be less the creation of an enormous new apparatus than strategic coherence, sustained access, sufficient scale and political continuity.

Europe Already Has Something to Communicate

There is another reason Europe should not imitate authoritarian information warfare: Europe possesses its own story.

The WE ARE EUROPE series identified values that Europeans have gradually built into their societies: personal freedom, democratic voice, equality before law, protection against arbitrary power, solidarity, tolerance of difference, peaceful compromise and rejection of political deception.[6] Those values are not merely something to protect inside Europe. They are also part of Europe's attractiveness outside it.

This changes the purpose of European strategic communication.
Europe does not need to manufacture an artificial story about itself. It needs to make its actual society — its disagreements as well as its achievements, its failures as well as its aspirations — together with its intentions and possible relationships with others, visible and accessible in information environments where competing powers increasingly restrict or manipulate that visibility.

The values ecosystem therefore becomes strategic infrastructure. Not because European values become propaganda, but because they give European communication something credible to communicate.

An Emerging EU2.0 Capability

The significance goes well beyond Russia. A more autonomous Europe increasingly requires several forms of capacity simultaneously.
It needs military capacity to defend itself and economic capacity to finance defense, prosperity, technological development and the welfare state.
It needs diplomatic capacity to formulate European positions rather than automatically inheriting those of Washington or merely responding to Moscow and Beijing.
It needs democratic resilience so outside powers cannot easily exploit internal divisions.
Increasingly, it also needs information capacity: the ability to understand information environments, defend its own, operate in adversarial ones and communicate convincingly with societies beyond Europe's borders.

These capabilities are beginning to appear. France's developing information doctrine is one indication. Europe's expanding efforts against foreign information manipulation are another. The growing recognition that Russia's hybrid confrontation extends into European societies provides a third.[1][2][3]

But the pieces remain fragmented. EU2.0 would bring them into a coherent strategic architecture while maintaining the boundaries appropriate to a democratic society. Military information operations should remain subject to democratic authority and law. Protection against foreign interference should not become policing of political disagreement. Independent media should remain independent. Strategic communication should remain anchored in demonstrable reality. And Europe should be capable not merely of describing what it opposes, but of communicating the futures it is prepared to support.

This also suggests a broader way of understanding EU2.0.
The WE ARE EUROPE series asked what Europe is and what Europeans want to preserve. [6]
EU2.0 increasingly asks a complementary question: What capabilities does Europe need in order to preserve it?

Power Also Means Persuasion

Europe's geopolitical awakening has understandably begun with defense. Russia's invasion of Ukraine made military weakness impossible to ignore. American uncertainty has forced Europeans to reconsider strategic dependence. Chinese industrial competition has exposed economic vulnerabilities. The information dimension is now becoming visible as another part of the same transformation.

The lesson should not be that Europe needs its own propaganda machine. It is almost the reverse. A democratic Europe needs the confidence to believe that truthful persuasion can itself be a form of strategic power.

That means protecting Europeans against manipulation without protecting them against disagreement. It means confronting hostile information operations without copying their methods. And it means speaking beyond governments to societies whose choices will ultimately shape Europe's security environment.

Europe cannot choose Russia's future. Nor can it choose America's, China's or anyone else's. But Europe can decide whether those societies encounter only Europe's sanctions, regulations, military preparations and diplomatic objections — or whether they can also understand what Europe stands for, what it seeks and what another relationship could make possible.

That is why information strategy belongs in EU2.0.

Deterrence tells others where Europe will not retreat. Communication tells them where another road could lead.

References

[1] European External Action Service (EEAS), 2025 Report on EEAS Activities to Counter Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI), 24 June 2026. 

[2] Laurent Bansept, Convaincre pour vaincre. La France et la structuration d'une doctrine de guerre informationnelle, Focus stratégique No. 135, Institut français des relations internationales (Ifri), 7 September 2026. 
https://www.ifri.org/fr/etudes/convaincre-pour-vaincre-la-france-et-la-structuration-dune-doctrine-de-guerre

[3] Council of the European Union, Russian hybrid threats: four individuals added to EU sanctions list for information manipulation activities, 16 March 2026; see also the Council's June 2026 sanctions concerning Russian FIMI and propaganda actors. 

[4] WE ARE EUROPE — Keeping Europe European: The Threat From Within, August 2026. 
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/08/we-are-europe-keeping-europe-european_01764668262.html

[5] Europe Needs a Strategy of Confidence Toward Russia’s Citizens, June 2026.
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/06/europe-needs-strategy-of-confidence.html

 [6] WE ARE EUROPE - Key Notes to the Series - The European Environment We Have Built Around Ourselves, European Values series, August 2026. 
https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/08/we-are-europe-key-notes-to-series.html

 

 

The Other War Over Ukraine - Can Ukraine Last for Two More Years?

 

The Other War Over Ukraine

Can Ukraine Last for Two More Years Under Russia's Evolving Air Offensive?

Most reporting on Ukraine understandably follows the front line: Russian advances, Ukrainian defenses, territorial gains and losses, and the continuing struggle for soldiers and weapons.

But another war is developing above and behind that front.

It is fought over Kyiv, Odesa and other cities; over power stations, railways, ports and factories; and increasingly over the daily functioning of Ukrainian society. Russia is combining ballistic and cruise missiles with mass-produced attack drones while introducing faster and more difficult-to-intercept variants.

Ukraine is adapting. Europe and NATO are supplying weapons, financing production and beginning to build a broader air-defense architecture around lessons learned in Ukraine.

This creates two urgent questions.
- Can Ukraine and Europe develop and manufacture defensive systems quickly enough when Russia is setting much of the technological and production tempo?
- And can Ukrainian civilian society withstand another two years of an intensifying air war?

A Second War Above Ukraine

Russia's air campaign is not new. The same strategy of attacking Civilian Infrastructure and Civilians as they did in Cheniya and Syria. Ukrainian cities and infrastructure have been attacked since the full-scale invasion began in 2022.
What is changing is its scale and composition.

The Iranian-designed Shahed drone, produced in Russia as the Geran, helped transform the economics of long-range attack. Instead of relying only on expensive missiles, Russia could send relatively cheap one-way attack drones in large numbers.

Ukraine adapted with electronic warfare, mobile gun teams and increasingly interceptor drones. The principle was simple: do not use an expensive surface-to-air missile if a much cheaper weapon can destroy the same target.

Russia is also adapting and faster...

During 2026 it has increasingly introduced faster jet-powered Geran variants. These sharply reduce the defender's detection and interception time and make some inexpensive Ukrainian countermeasures less effective.

The ballistic threat is evolving as well. Russia has modified missiles in the Iskander family to make interception more difficult, including through terminal maneuvering and other countermeasures.

More important than any individual weapon is how Russia combines them. Slow drones, faster jet drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles can arrive as part of the same attack. Ukraine must identify them, determine which present the greatest danger and allocate scarce defensive weapons accordingly.

Russia therefore does not need to invent an unstoppable weapon. It can make successful defense increasingly difficult, by the numbers and by the costs.

The Economics of Air Defense

A less visible contest behind the explosions over Ukrainian cities.
A defender that destroys a relatively inexpensive drone with a million-euro missile may win the engagement while gradually losing the economic competition.

Ukraine therefore needs layers.

Electronic warfare and guns can deal with some drones.
Interceptor drones can destroy others.
Short-range systems deal with more demanding targets.
IRIS-T and NASAMS provide another layer.
Patriot and SAMP/T must be preserved for the most difficult threats, particularly ballistic missiles.

The objective is to match the cheapest effective defensive weapon to each incoming threat.

That makes mass production of inexpensive defensive systems almost as important as acquiring additional Patriots. If Russia can manufacture attack weapons faster and more cheaply than Ukraine and its partners can replace interceptors, even an effective air-defense system can eventually be exhausted.

Ukraine Has Become Europe's Air-Defense Laboratory

This is also changing Ukraine's relationship with Europe.
For much of the war the direction appeared straightforward: Europe and the United States possessed advanced weapons; Ukraine needed them.

Ukraine still urgently needs Western systems and interceptors. But knowledge is increasingly travelling in both directions.

No European NATO military has Ukraine's experience of defending a large country against years of mixed drone and missile attacks. Ukraine has learned to combine sophisticated missile systems with electronic warfare, cheap interceptors, mobile units and rapid technological innovation while under continuous attack.

That experience is becoming directly relevant to Europe's own defense.
European-Ukrainian cooperation increasingly connects battlefield experience with European financing, research and industrial capacity.

The relationship is gradually changing:  Europe → Ukraine  to  Europe ⇄ Ukraine.

Ukraine needs Europe's industrial depth.
Europe needs Ukraine's combat experience and extraordinarily rapid cycle of adaptation.

Europe Is Building a Shield — But It Is Not There Yet

Europe's response can appear confusing because it consists of overlapping national, EU and NATO programmes.

The German-led European Sky Shield Initiative remains an important part, encouraging participating countries to acquire and coordinate layered air- and missile-defense systems.

But a larger architecture is emerging around it.

The EU's European Air Shield is intended to strengthen integrated air and missile defense.
The European Drone Defense Initiative addresses the mass UAV threat. Eastern Flank Watch is intended to combine surveillance, electronic warfare, counter-drone and defensive capabilities along Europe's most exposed frontier. NATO's Integrated Air and Missile Defense system provides the broader command, sensor and interoperability framework.

European-Ukrainian industrial cooperation adds another component: producing drones, interceptors and other systems while incorporating lessons from Ukraine.

These programmes show that Europe increasingly understands the nature of the threat.
But announced capability is not the same as operational capability.

The EU envisages initial Drone Defense and Eastern Flank Watch capacity by the end of 2026, full Drone Defense functionality by the end of 2027 and Eastern Flank Watch by the end of 2028. Other elements of Europe's future air and missile defense extend towards 2030.

Russia's weapons are arriving now. That creates a dangerous transition period.

Concern One: Russia Is Setting the Speed

Russia has an important advantage in this competition: it can continuously test weapons against a real defensive system.

The technological cycle is increasingly measured in months.
Where traditional European defense procurement is measured in years.

Russia has simultaneously made mass production part of its strategy.
The challenge for Europe is therefore not simply to purchase more air-defense systems. It must shorten the entire cycle between Ukrainian battlefield experience, European research, industrial development, procurement and mass production.

Otherwise Europe faces a moving target: a defensive program designed around the Russian threat of 2024 may arrive in 2028 to confront the Russian threat of 2028.

The critical question is whether Europe's much larger economic and technological resources can be converted into military capability quickly enough.

Concern Two: Civilian Ukraine

There is a danger in discussing this contest mainly in terms of weapons and interception percentages.

People live underneath it.

Even if Ukraine destroys most incoming weapons, larger attacks mean that some get through. Damage accumulates.

An electricity substation can be repaired. Repeated attacks on the electricity network create a different problem. The same applies to heating, water, railways, factories, ports, hospitals and housing.

Behind infrastructure stands human behavior.

Families decide whether to remain in Ukraine. Refugees decide whether to return. Businesses decide whether to invest. Workers decide whether they can continue living in vulnerable cities. The government must divert resources into repair. Soldiers have families living under the same attacks.

Air defense therefore protects much more than military installations. It protects economic activity, employment, population retention, public morale and ultimately national resilience.

This is why the next two years matter.

Russia does not have to collapse Ukrainian society to achieve strategic effects. Making everyday life progressively harder can produce cumulative costs: additional migration, declining investment, enormous reconstruction expenditure and greater fatigue after years of war.

Protecting civilians is therefore not separate from sustaining Ukraine's military effort.
It is one of its foundations.

Can Ukraine Last for Two More Years?

There is no simple answer, and current evidence does not justify either confidence or fatalism.

Ukraine has demonstrated extraordinary adaptability and continues to receive substantial European support. European defense spending and production are increasing. Cheap interceptor drones and other new technologies could substantially improve the economics of air defense.

But Ukraine's sustainability increasingly depends on four connected races.

There is a production race: can Ukraine and its partners replenish defensive weapons as quickly as Russia produces offensive ones?

There is a cost race: can cheap attack drones increasingly be defeated by cheap defensive systems, preserving sophisticated missiles for sophisticated threats?

There is an infrastructure race: can Ukraine repair, protect and disperse essential systems faster than Russia can degrade them?

And there is a human-resilience race: can Ukrainian society continue living, working and maintaining confidence under another two winters of repeated attack?

The first two are principally military-industrial problems. The latter two turn them into a strategic European problem.

If Ukrainian air defence weakens because interceptor supplies cannot keep pace, the consequences will appear not only on military maps but in electricity supplies, industrial production, civilian casualties and migration—and eventually in Ukraine's capacity to sustain the land war.

The Race to 2028

There are reasons for cautious confidence. Europe is no longer treating drones as a secondary battlefield phenomenon. Air and missile defence has moved towards the centre of European defence planning. Production is expanding, and Ukraine is increasingly becoming a partner in European technological and industrial development rather than simply a recipient of Western weapons.

But the timing remains uncomfortable.

Russia is already deploying the evolving threat. Much of Europe's comprehensive response will mature between 2027 and 2030.

The gap between those two realities is the vulnerability.

It also makes the distinction between protecting Ukraine and preparing to protect Europe increasingly artificial.

Ukraine is confronting the missile, drone, electronic-warfare and saturation tactics that European planners must assume could one day threaten NATO's eastern members. Its engineers and air-defence crews are discovering in combat what works, what becomes obsolete and what must be produced cheaply in enormous quantities.

Europe's task is to turn those lessons into industrial capability faster than Russia can create the next problem.

Summary

Alongside the front-line war, an increasingly important air war is being fought over Ukraine's cities, infrastructure and population. Russia is combining mass-produced drones, faster jet-powered variants, cruise missiles and improved ballistic missiles to make defense harder and more expensive.

Ukraine has responded with layered air defense and rapid technological adaptation. In the process, it has become an important source of knowledge for Europe's own defense. European Sky Shield, the European Air Shield, Drone Defense, Eastern Flank Watch, NATO integration and European-Ukrainian industrial cooperation are beginning to form a much larger defensive architecture.

But much of that architecture is still being built.

For the next two years, two concerns dominate.

Russia is setting much of the speed. Europe must shorten the distance between battlefield lessons, technological development and mass production.

Civilian resilience is becoming part of military sustainability. Electricity, housing, employment, migration and people's willingness to remain in Ukraine ultimately affect the country's ability to continue fighting.

Europe has begun building the right kind of shield.

The question for 2026–2028 is whether Europe and Ukraine can build it fast enough to last.

 

 

Germany's Economic Problem Is Europe's Problem

Europe's largest industrial economy is growing again. 
But the weaknesses underneath - energy, investment, productivity, demographics and global competition - have not disappeared.

Management Summary

Germany's economy is recovering, but its underlying competitiveness problem remains unresolved. The industrial model that benefited from relatively cheap Russian energy, expanding global trade and strong Chinese demand now faces higher energy costs, weaker investment and productivity, demographic pressure, and a China that is simultaneously customer, supplier and increasingly powerful competitor. Some weaknesses are external; others - infrastructure, bureaucracy, skills, investment and reform capacity - are domestic.

Germany matters because many of these are European problems in concentrated form. Europe needs greater scale through a deeper Single Market, better mobilisation of European savings for investment, more affordable energy, stronger innovation, and a disciplined China policy: compete where Europe can compete, protect where competition is distorted, and reduce dependencies where they create strategic vulnerability.
The EU increasingly understands the diagnosis; implementation speed is becoming the decisive test. Ultimately, Europe's welfare, climate, defence and strategic ambitions depend on the same productive economic foundation.

Germany has an economic problem. The more difficult question is what kind of problem it is.

Nikolas Stihl, chairman of the supervisory and advisory boards of German manufacturer STIHL, recently offered a stark diagnosis. German industrial production, he wrote in Euronews, has fallen by about 15% over eight years; around 15,000 industrial jobs are currently being lost each month; and private net investment has fallen close to zero. Only a competitive economy, he argues, can ultimately sustain Germany's prosperity and welfare state. [1]

Stihl writes as an industrialist, and some of his proposed remedies - longer working hours, lower labour costs and social-security reform - are consequently part of a political debate. But the underlying concern is harder to dismiss.

The IMF, OECD, European Commission and Germany's Council of Economic Experts all identify structural weaknesses alongside the external shocks Germany has suffered. Seven years of weak growth, the German Council argues, cannot be explained as a normal economic downturn. [2][3]

The implications extend beyond Germany. They raise a larger European question:
Can Europe generate the economic strength required to preserve prosperity and its social model while simultaneously financing the energy transition, technological renewal, defence and greater strategic independence?

Part I - Germany: What Happened?

For decades, the German model worked extraordinarily well. A skilled workforce, world-class engineering, specialised Mittelstand companies and industrial champions produced cars, chemicals, machinery and sophisticated capital goods for global markets.

Several favourable conditions reinforced those strengths: relatively inexpensive Russian energy, expanding world trade, the European Single Market and enormous demand from industrialising China.

Several of those conditions have now changed at the same time.

Energy became more expensive

Russia's invasion of Ukraine abruptly ended Germany's dependence on cheap Russian pipeline gas. Energy-intensive industries such as chemicals, metals, glass and paper were particularly exposed.

Ending that strategic dependence was necessary, but necessity does not eliminate economic cost. German industry has had to adapt to a different energy environment while simultaneously financing decarbonisation.

Yet energy cannot explain everything. Germany's economic weaknesses predate the Ukraine shock. The OECD points to weak investment, declining business dynamism, slow productivity growth and growing shortages of skilled labour. [4]

China changed from customer to competitor

Perhaps the most important transformation has occurred in Germany's relationship with China.

For years, China's industrialisation created enormous demand for German cars, machinery, chemicals and industrial technology. China remains a major market, but Chinese companies increasingly manufacture the sophisticated products Germany once specialised in exporting - from electric vehicles and batteries to machinery and clean technologies. [5]

The shift is already visible in trade.
In the first five months of 2026, German machinery exports to China fell 17.5% year-on-year and motor-vehicle and parts exports 26.1%. Meanwhile, China supplied more than 86% of Germany's imported photovoltaic modules. [6]

China has become customer, supplier and competitor simultaneously.
That is a much more difficult economic relationship to manage.

Some problems are made in Germany

It would nevertheless be misleading to blame Germany's difficulties principally on Russia, China or American trade policy.

Germany has accumulated domestic problems: inadequate investment, ageing infrastructure, slow digitalisation, cumbersome planning and permitting, administrative burdens, demographic ageing and shortages of skilled workers.
The OECD and IMF consequently emphasise structural reform alongside additional investment. [3][4]

That distinction is important. External pressures can be negotiated with, diversified away from or defended against. A competitiveness problem generated at home ultimately has to be repaired at home.

Recovery is not yet renewal

But the diagnosis should not be exaggerated. Germany is not in economic collapse.

After GDP contracted in 2023 and 2024, the economy returned to slight growth in 2025. Growth strengthened during the first half of 2026, and recent forecasts have become more optimistic, helped by stronger exports and substantial government expenditure on infrastructure, climate measures and defence. [7][8]

Where government spending helps stimulate demand and modernise infrastructure, private investment, productivity and industrial competitiveness do not show to have recovered.

Germany therefore presents a mixed picture: growth is returning and its industrial base retains enormous strengths, but the country has not yet demonstrated that its economic model has successfully adapted to the world that replaced the one in which it prospered.

Part II - Why Germany's Problem Becomes Europe's Problem

Germany sits at the centre of European production networks. Its factories depend on components produced elsewhere in Europe; German machinery equips European industry; German demand supports neighbouring economies; and German fiscal resources increasingly matter for European defence.

But the deeper reason Germany matters for Europe is that many of its problems are European problems in concentrated form.

Europe as a whole faces slow productivity growth, relatively high energy costs, insufficient investment in new technologies, fragmented capital markets, demographic pressure and increasingly intense competition from the United States and China.

Mario Draghi's competitiveness report captured the challenge in three broad tasks:
Close the innovation gap, combine decarbonisation with competitiveness, and reduce dangerous external dependencies. [9]

Germany is therefore not simply a national economy Europe needs to rescue. It is a warning about what Europe itself needs to repair.

Scale, capital and competitiveness

Europe possesses an economic advantage Germany alone cannot create: continental scale.

The Single Market gives European companies access to roughly 450 million people, but national differences in services, regulation, finance and administration still prevent it from functioning as seamlessly as the American or Chinese home markets.

Completing that market matters particularly for innovative companies. Europe is good at creating them but less successful at enabling them to grow rapidly into global businesses.

Europe also has capital. European households hold around EUR10 trillion in savings, yet European companies - particularly innovative and rapidly growing ones - have greater difficulty accessing risk capital than their American counterparts. [9]

Hence the EU's effort to create a Savings and Investments Union: mobilising more European savings for productive European investment.

Europe will need it.
Electricity grids, renewable energy, AI, semiconductors, defence production, industrial decarbonisation and infrastructure all require enormous investment.

China: protect without retreating behind walls

Europe must also reconsider how it deals with China.

Economic separation is neither realistic nor desirable. China remains an important market, supplier and trading partner. And where Chinese companies simply produce better or cheaper products, protectionism can preserve inefficiency rather than competitiveness.

But openness does not require economic naivety.

Where competition is materially distorted by state subsidies, protected domestic markets or other non-market advantages, Europe has legitimate reasons to defend a level playing field. The EU has already done so through measures including countervailing duties on Chinese electric vehicles.

Europe also needs to distinguish ordinary economic interdependence from dangerous strategic dependence. The experience with Russian gas demonstrated what can happen when efficiency produces excessive reliance on one external power. China's dominance in several critical supply chains creates a different version of the same strategic question.

Compete where Europe can compete. Protect where competition is distorted. Reduce dependencies where they create strategic vulnerability.

Protection alone, however, cannot restore competitiveness. Tariffs around an industry that remains expensive, fragmented or technologically behind merely protect weakness.

European protection must complement European renewal, not substitute for it.

Europe increasingly knows what it needs to do

There is an important difference between today's situation and that of several years ago: Europe increasingly understands the problem.

The Draghi report has been followed by the EU's Competitiveness Compass, Clean Industrial Deal, Affordable Energy Action Plan, Savings and Investments Union, regulatory simplification and renewed attempts to deepen the Single Market. The One Europe, One Market roadmap now sets the end of 2027 as a deadline for agreement on a range of measures. [9][10][11]

The EU's own 2026 competitiveness assessment nevertheless remains sobering. Investment and venture capital remain inadequate, energy costs high and strategic dependencies substantial. [12]

The question is therefore becoming less: Does Europe understand its competitiveness problem?
And increasingly: Can Europe implement the necessary changes quickly enough?

Some answers must come from Brussels:
Completing the Single Market, integrating capital markets, building cross-border energy infrastructure and providing trade defence all require European action.

Others remain national. Germany itself must address infrastructure, education, taxation, labour supply, pensions, administrative capacity and the conditions for private investment.

The productive foundation of European power

This brings us back to Stihl's warning.

One does not have to accept his particular prescriptions to recognise the relationship between competitiveness, prosperity and the welfare state.

For Europe, that relationship is now broader.
Europe wants to preserve its social model. It wants to complete the energy transition. It needs modern infrastructure and technological capacity. It must spend considerably more on defence. And it increasingly wants the ability to act independently when American, Chinese or Russian interests differ from its own.
All these ambitions ultimately make claims upon the same productive economy.

That is why Germany's economic problem is Europe's problem.

The choice should not be presented as competitiveness versus the European social model. Economic competitiveness is increasingly what makes that social model - together with Europe's climate, security and strategic ambitions - sustainable.

The challenge is therefore more demanding:
Europe must become productive enough to sustain all of them.

Germany is currently discovering how difficult that transition can be. Europe should regard its experience not simply as a German problem, but as a warning - and as another reason to accelerate an economic renewal that has become part of Europe's strategic independence.

References

[1] Nikolas Stihl, “Time for reforms - this is how we retain prosperity and the welfare state,” Euronews, 5 September 2026.
https://www.euronews.com/business/2026/09/05/boss-of-stihl-time-for-reforms-this-is-how-we-will-safe-prosperity-and-welfare-state

[2] German Council of Economic Experts, Spring Report 2026.
https://www.sachverstaendigenrat-wirtschaft.de/en/spring-report-2026.html

[3] International Monetary Fund, Germany Article IV Consultation, 2026.
https://www.imf.org/en/news/articles/2026/02/11/pr26042-germany-imf-executive-board-concludes-2025-article-iv-consultation

[4] OECD, Germany Economic Snapshot.
https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/sub-issues/economic-surveys/germany-economic-snapshot.html

[5] Associated Press, September 2026, reporting on the intensifying Chinese competitive challenge to German manufacturers.

[6] German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), Germany-China trade data, 2026.
https://www.destatis.de/DE/Presse/Pressemitteilungen/2026/07/PD26_255_51.html

[7] German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis), German GDP data.
https://www.destatis.de/EN/Press/2026/01/PE26_017_811.html

[8] Ifo Institute economic forecast, September 2026.

[9] European Commission, Draghi Report on EU Competitiveness and EU Competitiveness Compass.
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/draghi-report_en

[10] European Commission, Single Market.
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/single-market_en

[11] European Commission, One Europe, One Market roadmap.
https://commission.europa.eu/topics/competitiveness/one-europe-one-market-roadmap_en

[12] European Commission, Annual Single Market and Competitiveness Report 2026.
https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52026DC0046

 

 Europe’s Missing Role in the Middle East Is Beginning to Appear

R.M. Westerink; September 1, 2026 

When the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation recently condemned the US-Israeli war against Iran, their statement appeared to confirm a familiar geopolitical development. American influence is being challenged while China, Russia and Iran promote a more multipolar international order.[1]

There is substance to that interpretation. Iran has found within the SCO an institutional environment receptive to its criticism of Western military intervention, sanctions and political dominance.

Looking at the Middle East itself, however, reveals another development. Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt and the Gulf states are expanding their own diplomatic and security relationships. Pakistan has become an important diplomatic participant. Qatar and Oman continue to provide mediation channels across difficult regional divides.

These countries have different interests and alliances. What increasingly connects them is a desire for greater room to determine regional affairs themselves.

Between the established American pole and the increasingly visible SCO pole, a strategic middle is beginning to appear.

And Europe appears to be moving closer to it.

American Predominance Is Changing

The United States remains the Middle East’s most important external military power.
Its relationships with Israel and the Gulf states remain substantial, its military infrastructure is extensive, and American diplomacy continues to play a central role.

What is changing is the assumption that American leadership will remain the principal organising force of the regional order.

The recent conflict with Iran demonstrated the risks of dependence particularly clearly. Regional governments found themselves exposed to decisions taken in Washington, Tehran and Jerusalem while having limited influence over them.

Their response has increasingly been diversification.

Saudi Arabia has expanded its relationship with China while maintaining close relations with Washington. The UAE similarly works across geopolitical divisions. Türkiye remains a NATO member while pursuing an increasingly autonomous regional policy. Qatar and Oman maintain channels with Iran alongside strong Western relationships.

The United States therefore remains important, but regional states are creating more room to manoeuvre around it.

The SCO Offers Another Pole

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation represents another direction in which the international system is developing.

China provides enormous economic weight.
Russia adds military and geopolitical power.
Iran has become increasingly integrated into this political environment.
Together with India, Pakistan and the Central Asian members, the SCO covers a substantial part of Eurasia.

Its political vocabulary increasingly emphasizes multipolarity, sovereignty, opposition to unilateral sanctions and reform of international institutions.

For Iran, this environment is attractive. The SCO condemnation of the US-Israeli attack allows Tehran to place its confrontation with Washington and Israel within a broader argument about international legitimacy and the future global order.[1]

The SCO nevertheless contains very different strategic interests. India maintains important relationships with the United States, Europe, Israel and the Gulf and pursues its own strategic autonomy.

Middle Eastern governments face a similar calculation. Greater distance from Washington does not automatically imply closer alignment with Beijing, Moscow and Tehran. For countries seeking room for independent action, exchanging one dominant relationship for another offers limited attraction.

This leaves space for a third development.

The Emerging Middle

Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt, the UAE, Qatar and Oman do not constitute a political bloc. Their policies towards Iran and Israel differ, as do their security interests.

Yet their recent behaviour increasingly reflects a common search for greater regional agency.

Türkiye, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have strengthened their political and security cooperation. Their Makkah Agreement framework now includes a Strategic Political and Defence Committee and a permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia; the three governments explicitly describe their cooperation in terms of “regional ownership”.[2]
Türkiye, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Pakistan have also developed the R4 consultation mechanism, reaffirming continued coordination on peace, security and stability in the Middle East.[3]

Pakistan has played a mediation role between the United States and Iran, a role explicitly commended by the EU.[4] Qatar and Oman continue to perform specialised mediation roles because they retain communication channels across competing camps.

These arrangements do not yet form a new regional alliance. They resemble a network in which different states bring different capabilities.

Saudi Arabia contributes financial resources and growing Arab and Gulf political weight. Türkiye combines military capacity with relationships extending into NATO, Europe, Iran and the Gulf. Egypt remains one of the Arab world’s central political powers. Pakistan adds strategic capacity and connections into South Asia. Qatar and Oman provide unusual diplomatic access.

Different combinations can address different problems.

The emerging common denominator is strategic autonomy: greater capacity for regional countries to manage regional affairs while maintaining relationships with several outside powers.

Europe Appears to Have Noticed

Several months ago, in Europe Needs Its Own Middle East Strategy, it was argued that Europe could no longer simply outsource its Middle Eastern strategy to Washington.[A]

Developments since then suggest that Europe itself has been moving in that direction.

The European Commission has created a dedicated Directorate-General for the Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf (DG-MENA, headed by Dubravka Šuica ). Its stated purpose is to build partnerships based on mutual interest and bring together the EU’s technical and financial instruments.[5] Kaja Kallas’s formal responsibilities also include development of an EU Middle East Strategy.[6]

Relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council increasingly include regional security alongside their established economic dimension. In July, EU foreign ministers emphasized close coordination with Gulf partners and held an EU-GCC High-Level Forum on regional security and cooperation.[7]

European engagement with individual regional powers is also becoming more strategic.

EU relations with Pakistan have included explicit recognition of its mediation efforts between the United States and Iran.[4] One European meeting was particularly illustrative: Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan and Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar joined EU foreign ministers for discussions about the Middle East. Kallas described both countries as important because of their extensive diplomatic engagement across the region and asked what more could be done together.[8]

Saudi Arabia is becoming an increasingly important centre of regional political activity. India has substantial relationships with Europe, the Gulf, Israel, the United States and Iran while maintaining its own strategic independence. Bringing both into a European Middle East discussion reflects a diplomatic environment built around overlapping relationships rather than fixed blocs.

Individually, these developments can be seen as normal diplomatic activity. Together, they suggest that Europe is positioning itself within the changing regional landscape.

Building Strategic Friendships

This emerging environment may fit European capabilities and purposes unusually well.

Many of the countries seeking greater regional autonomy are themselves building multiple relationships. Saudi Arabia can cooperate with Europe, America and China. Türkiye combines NATO membership with an independent Middle Eastern role. India works closely with Europe and the Gulf without becoming part of a European alliance. Qatar and Oman combine strong Western relationships with diplomatic access to Iran.

Europe is developing relationships within this same network.

Its contribution is broader than traditional security guarantees. Europe brings economic scale, investment, trade, technology, reconstruction capacity, regulatory expertise and extensive diplomatic networks. It also maintains working relationships with almost every significant actor in the region.

This creates the possibility of strategic partnership without requiring exclusive alignment.

India reinforces that character. European and Indian participation alongside regionally owned initiatives would provide substantial external support while leaving Middle Eastern countries at the centre of their own developing architecture.

Europe’s Missing Role [B]

This gives a broader meaning to the idea that Europe needs its own Middle East strategy.

Greater European strategic autonomy allows Europe to develop relationships based on its own interests while supporting a Middle East in which regional countries themselves assume greater responsibility.

That role does not require Europe to reproduce American predominance or compete with China for regional leadership. It is closer to becoming a substantial external partner for countries seeking greater room to manage their own regional order.

The relationship can work precisely because those countries also value autonomy.
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt, Qatar, Oman and the UAE increasingly maintain several strategic relationships simultaneously. Pakistan and India extend that network beyond the region.

Europe’s role within such an environment depends less on organising it than on becoming a useful and trusted participant.

An Order Taking Shape

The Middle East is not moving neatly from one geopolitical order to another.

American predominance is weakening while American power remains substantial. China, Russia and Iran are developing an increasingly visible alternative environment around the SCO. Between them, Middle Eastern powers are expanding their own diplomatic and security relationships.

This emerging middle remains diverse and loosely connected. Its countries will continue to disagree and will cooperate with Washington, Beijing and others whenever their interests require it. That flexibility may itself become an important characteristic of regional strategic autonomy.

Europe’s response is also still developing. DG MENA, the forthcoming EU Middle East Strategy, stronger EU-GCC security cooperation and increasingly strategic relationships with Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt, Pakistan, India and others do not yet amount to a single European doctrine.

But they reveal a direction.

When Europe Needs Its Own Middle East Strategy was written, Europe’s missing role was principally an argument about what Europe needed to develop.

Today, the picture is becoming more concrete. Middle Eastern powers are creating greater room to determine their own affairs, while Europe is building relationships with many of the countries driving that change.

Europe’s missing role in the Middle East may no longer be missing. It may simply still be taking shape.

References

[1] Mehr News Agency, “SCO leaders slam US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran,” 1 September 2026. https://en.mehrnews.com/news/247377/SCO-leaders-slam-US-Israeli-war-of-aggression-against-Iran

[2] Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Strategic Political and Defence Committee of the Makkah Agreement for Joint Defence, Joint Statement,” 31 August 2026. https://www.mfa.gov.tr/strategic-political-and-defence-committee-of-the-makkah-agreement-for-joint-defence--joint-statement--31-august-2026.en.mfa

[3] Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Foreign Affairs, “Joint Statement of the R4 Following the Fourth Consultative Meeting of the Foreign Ministers,” 21 June 2026. https://www.mfa.gov.tr/joint-statement-of-the-r4-following-the-fourth-consultative-meeting-of-the-foreign-ministers-21-june-2026.en.mfa

[4] European External Action Service, “Joint Press Communiqué: Eighth Round of the European Union-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue,” 1 June 2026. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/joint-press-communiqu%C3%A9-eighth-round-european-union-pakistan-strategic-dialogue-1-june-2026_en

[5] European Commission, “Middle East, North Africa and the Gulf — Directorate-General (DG MENA).” https://commission.europa.eu/about/departments-and-executive-agencies/middle-east-north-africa-and-gulf_en

[6] European Commission, “Kaja Kallas — High Representative/Vice-President: Responsibilities.” https://commission.europa.eu/about/organisation/college-commissioners/kaja-kallas_en

[7] Council of the European Union, “Foreign Affairs Council,” 13 July 2026. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/fac/2026/07/13/

[8] European External Action Service, “Informal meeting of Foreign Affairs Ministers (Gymnich): Press conference by High Representative Kaja Kallas,” 28 May 2026. https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/informal-meeting-foreign-affairs-ministers-gymnich-press-conference-high-representative-kaja-kallas_en

 

[A] Europe Needs Its Own Middle East Strategy. https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/06/europe-needs-its-own-middle-east.html

[B] Europe's Missing Role in the Middle East. https://europe-is-us.blogspot.com/2026/06/europes-missing-role-in-middle-east.html