Europe’s Delay in Autonomy Affected by Biden Election

Donald Trump’s election as the U.S. President in 2016 was a turning point for many countries in the world to experience a new strategy with the U.S. introversion in strategy of recouping their lag from China. Both Russia benefitted from Trump’s performance to earn more authority, and Europe began to ponder establishing an independent army because of its weak military structure and lacking independence and mandatory subordination of the NATO.

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Recently and in this regard, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell in an article has tried to explain the reason for “European Strategic Autonomy” and expressed his concerns in this regard. Although the former Spain Foreign Minister agrees with the appropriate opportunity for mending relations of the EU with the transatlantic following the election of Joe Biden as the U.S. president and believes that Biden’s election will be a ground for a wiser economy for Europe and will provide the ground for expansion of peaceful relations in the world, and he, at the same, time believes irrespective of changes in the network of arrangement and new approach of the White House, EU should try to expand its thoughts and values through interactions with other countries.

In his article by referring to some part of work of 18th Century famous French writer and philosopher Montesquieu with the title of “How Can Anybody Be Persian (Iranian),” he writes, “We Europeans should also raise this question how Europe can be a Europe and, in other words, how it can have a strategic autonomy.”

By writing this, he means an awareness to European countries how much they have been forced to resort to pragmatism regarding protecting the value of national currency under influence of Trump’s serious challenge with Europe in damaging Euro against dollar, and this may ebb by Biden’s election but there is always potential for another election en route to make fragile the Western unity. In the article of this Spanish veteran politician, we realize that the issue of strategic autonomy has been delayed by the European leaders and politicians due to the U.S. passivity. He writes, “The outbreak of coronavirus showed us that Europe needs to have strategic independence in economic and technology grounds.”

Mr. Borrel emphasizes that actually this approach has emerged because of four years of Trump in power and his performance. That in the Western camp why and how one can give a definition to the unity, of course, does not and will not have a certain definition, and that one can define Europe alone in the framework of a sustainable unity is a fragile theory because of UK’s pullout of the EU, known as the Brexit. But this solidarity with the U.S. has once had meaning and just during the World War II and against Russia and it has lost totally its meaning and value in the framework of either culture or politics and even in the past decade in the economy.

Except what causes rift and division in the civilization structures, today the third factor has emerged which has made this unity meaningless under influence of economic authoritarianism in the world. Chinese goods, under the heavy dominance of China’s Communist Party over its people in competition with all of the world, have better prices and the world needs to these goods are on the rise day in day and without any doubt will surmount the Westernization of rules, and this factor has made each one of the western countries to focus more on the condition of their own people like employment and expenditures.

The unity of Europe and the U.S. may be considered as an action out of desperation in the framework of military and security with even heavy costs but economic unity will have no wise meaning. That Germany and France have so far paid the cost of EU in facing the value of euro and providing jobs in Europe, will definitely not continue in encountering China due to the impacts of decline of exports and if it is to define the meaning of autonomy in its true sense, this strategy will be nothing but rift in Europe’s unity with the U.S. in the first step and dispersion of other European countries in the next step.

  By: Hamid Reza Naghashian