The European Union’s slide into geopolitical and economic irrelevance has nothing to do with Donald Trump. Here’s Why the EU drifted into irrelevance and how anti-democratic governance accelerated the decline. It is structural, self-inflicted, and rooted in an increasingly anti-democratic system of governance that prioritises regulation over innovation, symbolism over strategy, and bureaucratic power over popular consent.
The slow suffocation of the single market
As analysts at Eurointelligence have noted, the EU never had a credible pathway to becoming a serious geopolitical power comparable to the United States or China. “Strategic autonomy” was reduced to a slogan — unsupported by strategy, funding, or political will. Defence spending is rising, but in a fragmented, debt-fuelled manner that only deepens dependence on US security guarantees and dollar-dominated financial markets. At no stage did Brussels articulate a coherent end-game for Ukraine beyond vague moral posturing.
Ironically, the EU’s true strengths — the single market, the customs union and the common currency — have been systematically weakened by its own leadership. These tools do not win wars, but they confer enormous leverage. Had Europe kept pace with US productivity growth and embraced 21st-century technologies instead of constraining them, access to the world’s largest single market would have been a genuine instrument of soft power.
Instead, Brussels chose regulatory maximalism and fiscal rigidity, stripping itself of the financial flexibility required to respond to crises.
When integration becomes undemocratic centralisation
With treaty reform politically impossible — largely because it would require democratic consent that elites no longer trust — the EU doubled down on technocratic governance without accountability. Rather than recalibrating ambitions, Brussels expanded them: Green Deal mandates, anti-technology legislation, and regulatory regimes detached from economic reality.
This approach has produced a paradox: more centralised power with less democratic legitimacy. Decisions that reshape entire economies are made by unelected commissioners, enforced through courts and regulatory bodies, and insulated from meaningful voter backlash.
The result is paralysis. Any member state can veto substantive reform, so the system defaults to what can be agreed: commissions, studies, fines and regulatory theatre.
Regulation as substitute for strategy
Nothing illustrates this better than the EU’s obsession with digital regulation. While the US and China compete aggressively over artificial intelligence, the EU focuses on punishing platforms for symbolic infractions. The European Commission’s €120 million fine against X under the Digital Services Act — over blue checkmarks and ad-repository technicalities — exemplifies a governing culture that mistakes control for competence.
The problem is not consumer protection per se. It is regulation without understanding, imposed by institutions that lack democratic mandate and technological literacy. The EU seeks to regulate AI before it has produced a single globally competitive AI champion.
This is not caution. It is managed decline.
The illusion of consensus and the reality of veto power
The EU’s decision-making system is structurally anti-democratic. Policy outcomes are not shaped by voters, but by veto coalitions. France blocks agricultural reform. Germany constrains fiscal flexibility. Italy derails trade agreements. The Mercosur deal — negotiated for 25 years — remains hostage to domestic lobbies and political manoeuvring.
Even when agreements are reached, elites rush to ratify them before parliaments or courts can intervene, exposing a growing fear of democratic scrutiny.
This is governance by avoidance, not consent.
Innovation vs Control
The global AI race makes Europe’s position painfully clear. The US hosts OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Perplexity, Nvidia, Google and Microsoft. China is not far behind. Europe is absent — not by accident, but by design.
The EU does not foster innovation; it disciplines it. Its instinct is to pre-empt, restrict and fine rather than enable and scale. No serious technology firm would choose to be born in a jurisdiction that treats success as something to be regulated out of existence.
The core failure
The EU’s tragedy is not that it failed to become a superpower. It is that it abandoned what was necessary in pursuit of what was impossible, while hollowing out democratic legitimacy along the way.
Power cannot be built on regulation alone. Nor can political authority survive indefinitely without popular consent.
The United States strives to innovate.
The European Union strives to regulate.
And in a world that rewards speed, scale and creativity, that choice explains everything.
