The biggest obstacle is Germany, which now urgently needs elections.
Had Kamala Harris won on November 5th, Europe would have heaved a huge sigh of relief, turned over, and promptly gone back to sleep. Donald Trump’s first presidency, followed by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022, had served as a pair of noisy wake-up calls, forcing Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, to invoke a Zeitenwende, a historic turning-point, in defence and security. But as the war in Ukraine has settled into a grinding, slow-motion endurance test, European countries have been distracted by the concerns of voters about eroding pay-packets, surging migration and failing health-care systems. Many have returned to the habitual complacency that comes from sheltering peacefully for 80 years under America’s mighty umbrella.
Mr Trump’s triumph means that those days in Europe are over. Few places will be worse affected by the return to the White House of the 45th president. He will have no patience for Europe’s trade surplus—in the campaign he has been caustic about German cars. In security, his brutally short-termist approach to alliances ought to teach Europe that it can no longer depend on America for its defence. As if to signal that Europe is not up to the task, the coalition governing Germany, Europe’s biggest country, collapsed on the day of Mr Trump’s victory.
Mr Trump approaches European security with a transactional logic, which is hardly a solid foundation for an alliance like NATO. Earlier this year, railing against countries that spend too little on defence, he said: “No, I would not protect you…in fact, I would encourage [the Russians] to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay. You got to pay your bills.” Article 5 of the alliance’s charter, which stipulates that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on them all, is not yet a dead letter. But with Mr Trump back in office, it is in danger.
This shock could hardly come at a more perilous time for Europe. In Ukraine Russia is advancing, slowly for the moment, but much faster if the Ukrainian front collapses. Vladimir Putin has made no secret of his desire to undermine NATO and the European Union. If Mr Trump imposes a Carthaginian peace on Ukraine or casts further doubt on NATO, Europe itself will suddenly seem at risk.
Europe has the wealth and technology to do more for Ukraine and to deter Mr Putin. But Britain, France and Germany are not taking their own security seriously enough. Each hides behind a NATO target of 2% of GDP for defence spending. Much more is needed. Europe’s defence industries are underpowered, and are fragmented because governments support their national champions. If Europe were to be denied the American command structure in NATO, its constituent countries would struggle to pool their resources.
Even if Europe could find the money to put all this right, the continent lacks leadership and cohesion. One obstacle is the growing influence of autocratic tendencies in European politics, which Mr Trump’s election victory will surely encourage. Another is that Mr Trump will urge European leaders to negotiate with him bilaterally—because that will give him the greatest bargaining power. They need to stay together.
In the past Europe has made progress only when propelled by both cylinders of its Franco-German motor. Today, France is led by Emmanuel Macron, an impotent president who has nothing close to a parliamentary majority. Germany has been led by a bickering three-way coalition. Its collapse, after Mr Scholz fired his finance minister in a furious row over the budget, leaves the chancellor hoping to stagger on at the head of a minority government until early elections are held in March.
The death of the unloved “traffic-light” coalition is long overdue. Fractious, unable to grapple with Germany’s deep-seated economic woes, and incompetently managed by the uninspiring Mr Scholz, it would have had precisely no chance of grappling with the new Trumpian realities. Europe needs more joint money for Ukraine and a large EU budget for defence. Yet the coalition had set its face against any new version of the covid-recovery fund that has injected hundreds of billions of euros into European economies in the past three years.
In part, this paralysis is because Germany is bound by an absurd constitutional “debt brake” that bans it from running more than tiny deficits. That urgently needs reform, which in turn requires a new government. Neither Germany nor Europe can afford to wait five months. ■
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