Between Ambition and Isolation

Facing the European Parliament for the first time in 2019, Ursula von der Leyen expressed her intention of urgently shaping a ‘geopolitical’ Commission, that could assert itself as a major player on the international stage. Six years later, the EU’s foreign policy reveals decay and frustrated ambition rather than growth.

Fabrizio Tassinari at the Danish Institute of European Affairs points out the ‘adversarial and binary underpinnings’ of the present geopolitical context—hardly a match for an operator predicated on ‘civilian and regulatory means’ and constant internal concertation.

A few months earlier, well before the numerous international escalations that have characterised the past year, Rosa Balfour at Carnegie Europe was already reading out an obituary for EU foreign policy, citing a mismatch between ambition and disunity beyond repair.

Three symptoms, among others, corroborate the suspicion that the EU’s foreign policy is something of a political zombie: internal erosion, an uneasy relationship with the United States, and an ideologically narrow geopolitical vision.

Eaten for Breakfast

The ability of EU institutions to posture as being powerful internationally keeps being questioned from the inside—that is, by member states and their competing interests. Hungary is normally counted as the most serious culprit, in this respect. At the end of EU-US tariff negotiations a few weeks ago, Hungarian PM Viktor Orbán notoriously diminished von der Leyen’s negotiating performance, labelling her as a ‘featherweight’ which US President Trump would have ‘eaten for breakfast’ during trade talks.

Considering that von der Leyen was supposedly negotiating on behalf of Hungary as well, this was neither flattering nor was it the first time Budapest-Brussels tensions had tainted the EU’s top officer’s credibility in a multilateral context.

Yet Hungary is hardly alone in feeding this kind of internal delegitimisation of von der Leyen’s ambitions. In fact, French PM François Bayrou similarly decried the EU’s attitude during bilateral negotiations as ‘resigning itself into submission’.

Though potentially less noticed, this attitude is hardly surprising. France has tried for decades to project its ambitions of continental leadership, an alternative to US dominance, onto the European continent, and is now manoeuvring via the EU’s industrial and rearming plans to do just that. French President Macron even declared that the EU hadn’t been ‘feared’ enough during negotiations on tariffs and pledged to be the proponent of a more assertive stance.

That might, fear, and firmness should be the conceptual categories framing intra-EU spats about transatlantic relations says a lot about the EU Commission’s failure at expressing geopolitical strength.

A Fading Alliance

Relations with the US aren’t thriving either. European citizens, for one, have taken notice that diplomatic dealings have turned markedly more adversarial after Trump’s return to the Oval Office.

A comprehensive survey, released in February by the European Council on Foreign Relations, shows that Europeans are reframing their understanding of Europe-US relations in terms of sheer necessity rather than alliance. The survey’s co-authors, Jana Puglierin and Arturo Varvelli, have highlighted the emergence of transactionality as a criterion for international dealings and the possibility this creates for the EU to pursue greater autonomy.

That autonomy, though, remains a wish—ironically, on both sides of the Atlantic. The US were majorly involved in European integration in the last century, from Yalta to the Marshall Plan, from the founding of NATO to the ‘Stay Behind’ operations across Communist-threatened countries. Now, they are retreating from the Continent.

As Vice President Vance’s speech at the Munich Security Conference proved rather unmistakably, the US aims to reorient its geopolitical focus away from mainland Europe, which is perceived as a non-priority, and a source of unnecessary economic and military complications. The limited, almost last-minute attention EU leaders were given last week, during preliminary talks on a Ukraine ceasefire, proved this rather clearly.

On the contrary, the remarkably positive relations Trump’s administration has with the political leaders of individual EU member states, most notably Italy and Hungary, highlights a more selective diplomatic approach from the US’ side. The continuation of this trend, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff has contended, might materialise in a reconfiguration of alliances that can further weaken the EU as a unified diplomatic actor, and nudge individual nations into becoming ‘adaptors’ to American economic and military agendas.

Besides having the potential to break down the Union for good, all that doesn’t bode well for von der Leyen’s international stature: while her internal partners doubt her, the EU’s most powerful and traditional ally is rapidly losing interest in the institutions she represents.

A Narrow Focus

A widespread perception of weakness isn’t the only obstacle for EU foreign policy. Another is its highest representatives’ narrow geopolitical focus. Von der Leyen’s second-in-line, EU High Representative on Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas, seems to have a limited repertoire: Palestine and Ukraine. That bothers EU actors and fosters the eroding of an already feeble internal cohesion.

Since her appointment last year, several member states have expressed reservations on Kallas’ attitude as being ideological and monothematic. On her part, she made her first official trip to Kyiv and stated that she was focussed on Ukraine winning the war. At the same time, Slovak PM Fico had pushed back against threats of ‘serious consequences’ for European leaders planning to travel to Moscow and join Russia’s celebrations for Victory Day in early May.

Six years haven’t been enough to disabuse EU top diplomats of the notion that virtue-signalling might endow them with sufficient credibility beyond Brussels. Meanwhile, the true global heavyweights will carry on.

Statement

Ursula von der Leyen’s 2019 dream of a ‘geopolitical Commission’ lies in tatters. The EU’s foreign policy today resembles a hollowed-out shell—fractured internally, ignored externally. Member states undercut Brussels at will, Washington treats the EU as expendable, and High Representative Kallas fixates narrowly on Ukraine while ignoring other pressing concerns. As France and Hungary pull in different directions and US engagement turns transactional, the EU reveals itself not as a unified power, but a stage for competing national scripts. What remains is weak virtue-signalling—an actor scrambling for global relevance while history advances without waiting.

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