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THE STATE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
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substantial gains on the part of a xenophobic
political party in either France or Germany
would influence European positions going for-
ward in a number of areas from relations with
Russia to economic, migration and energy poli-
cy. Economic performance within the eurozone,
whose growth rate is expected to be only slight-
ly better than half that forecast for the US for
2017 (1.4 % compared to 2.5 %) and inflation
rate is expected to remain under the 2 % target
established by the ECB, could also be a politi-
cally debilitating factor. Given these circum-
stances, the EU could respond to strategic policy
shifts taking place in the US in a number of
ways.
Its first option is to sit tight and do nothing
in the light of the elections taking place through-
out the continent and disagreement on topics
such as Russia, NATO and European defence
among its 27 member states, a few of which
(the UK, Hungary and Poland to be precise) are
currently governed by Eurosceptic, Europhobic
or populist parties. Given that internal discrep-
ancies on matters related to immigration and
economic policy could make the Union particu-
larly vulnerable to a divide-and-conquer strate-
gy on the part of Washington, this would logi-
cally be a short-term posture.
The second option would be to mount a mir-
ror response in the form of a First Europe coali-
tion led by the most prominent EU states – not
a First Europe in the sense of a strong, united
Europe but rather a Union bent on more or less
direct confrontation with Washington that gives
tit for tat in terms of protectionist policies, pulls
back on security and defence cooperation with
the US and seeks to enlist third-country allies in
conflicts in other areas. In addition to being an
improbable path given the presence of populist
governments and forces within the EU, such a
purely reactive response would generate negative
effects that would exacerbate existing divisions
within the Union, spur nationalism and add to
the inertia the EU already suffers when it comes
to foreign and security policy.
The third possible scenario would be a deep-
ening of the EU’s framework for security and
defence, an initiative led by the most prominent
members of the eurozone and framed as a com-
plement to the Atlantic Alliance but inevitably
tinged by a cooling of relations withWashington.
Any response of this type would logically require
pro-European governmental and political forces
in France and Germany to sign onto the idea of
joint capacity building geared towards the crea-
tion of a future European army as well as the
greater integration of intelligence, cyber-de-
fence and crisis prevention operations. Although
difficult, this path would at least seem to hold
greater promise for the long-term. During the
September 2016 Bratislava Summit, French
President François Hollande and German
Chancellor Angela Merkel outlined plans for a
qualitative leap forward in military cooperation
between their two countries and Council
President Donald Tusk and Commission
President Jean Claude Juncker jointly an-
nounced a plan to create a strategic European
defence fund for RDI as part of a greater
European Defence Action Plan. Much emphasis
was placed at the 15-16 December European
Summit on the use of the permanent structured
cooperation contemplated in the Treaties as a
vehicle for differentiated integration, whether in
the form of “multispeed” integration (pursued
by member states desiring to adopt policies and
instruments others do not want to participate
in) or
a la carte
integration (of interest to those
wishing to opt out of certain policies and pro-
grammes). On 1 March Juncker presented a
Commission White Paper suggesting five possi-
ble scenarios for the EU in 2025. Those in favour