Under the figurative shadow of Greenland, this year’s Davos Summit was spent in a strange atmosphere. Officially uniting the participants under the theme ‘A spirit of dialogue’ – but exposing the tensions along systemic fault lines.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney didn’t mince his words when he warned the participants of the World Economic Forum that a new world order has born. He emphasized the need for middle powers like Canada to adapt to said new structure.
The speech, labelled ‘principled and pragmatic’ was not meant as fear mongering – but a powerful eye-opener that the post WWII order is over and, even if it hurts, it is time to say goodbye. In Carney’s words, “we actively take on the world as it is, not wait around the world we wish to be.”
The speech could as well have been the eulogy of the ‘rules-based international order’.
Presented not as a utopia, but as an illusion sustained because it was useful, even if all knew that ‘the story of the international rules-based order was partially false. That the strongest would exempt themselves when convenient’.
Now, the façade is finally gone.
Alas, the leaders of Europe seem to have failed to receive the memo.
Whereas President Trump spoke at length about ‘a strong Europe’ he wished to see, emphasizing the importance of issues like energy, trade, immigration and economic growth; four-times-almost-impeached Commission President Ursula von der Leyen took the opportunity to talk about the help the EU’s providing to Ukraine. Including a loan of EUR90 billion.
Von der Leyen also talked about strength, let it be economic or military and the investments needed for achieving it. She echoed PM Carney in saying, “Nostalgia is part of our human story, but nostalgia will not bring back the old order and playing for time and hoping for things to revert soon will not fix the structural dependencies we have”.
It looks as though she failed to register the contradiction between the two goals.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz joined the line of politicians burying the rules-based global order, admitting that the world entered a new era of great-power politics. He stressed that Europe (and Germany) had a choice to shape its future realistically – but then again, he made clear that Germany’s support for Ukraine was unwavering.
In line with the demands for a more realistic approach, Merz offered an honest, but not-too-strong criticism of the EU’s excessive bureaucracy and overregulation, identifying those as the core problems hindering Europe’s competitiveness and growth.
Though the main critic of the EU was Ukrainian President Zelensky, French President Emmanuel Macron rose to the challenge.
He said the U.S. was aiming ‘to weaken and subordinate Europe’ with trade pressures and tariffs that were ‘fundamentally unacceptable’. The French president argued for more European sovereignty and autonomy and effective multilateralism, signalling a strategic pivot for Europe to assert itself decisively in a complex, fragmented international system through realism and proactive engagement.
He offered a sober critique of past European strategic assumptions and policies as though he hadn’t been among the most influential European policymakers since 2017. As though he hadn’t been among those responsible for Europe’s current predicament.
A key takeaway from Davos is, apparently, that the European leadership took note of the changing world order, even promises to adapt to the new one – yet, the old dynamics (think ‘unwavering support for Ukraine’) and assumptions still define the decisions.
Europe’s ‘strategic autonomy’ might remain nothing but a fancy buzzword in summit-speeches unless the continent truly embraces PM Carney’s ideas about a new type of cooperation.
