Europe’s Slow Emergency: Can the EU Still Build the Future?
The European Union’s competitiveness crisis is not a story of collapse. That is almost the problem. Collapse would be visible and politically clarifying. Europe faces something easier to accommodate: a long period in which daily life remains safe, prosperous and culturally rich while the continent loses control over more of the systems that determine its choices. Cloud infrastructure, advanced semiconductors, artificial intelligence, batteries, drones, space systems, payment networks and defence technology are not simply profitable industries. They are layers of practical sovereignty. A society that depends on others for them can still regulate, tax, educate and consume. It has less freedom, however, when suppliers, allies or platform owners change their priorities. Europe’s danger is not poverty. It is reduced agency concealed by continued comfort. Europe’s danger is not collapse, but dependency hidden beneath comfort. Editorial image generated by the author. The ...