Europe’s external environment has become far less permissive. Russia’s long-running war against Ukraine, uncertainty in transatlantic relations, rising protectionism, China’s rise and intensifying technological rivalry have made the international environment more coercive. At the same time, Europe faces constraints of its own, including an innovation and venture-capital gap, fragmented defence procurement, dependence on foreign AI infrastructure, migration pressures, energy insecurity and mounting climate risks. Together, these challenges converge around a common strategic question: whether Europe can preserve the capacity to make and defend its own political choices.
Interdependence remains a source of prosperity, but it has also become a channel of coercion. Access to finance, energy, supply chains and critical technologies now shapes not only economic performance, but also the capacity of states to constrain the choices of others.
For decades, European integration rested on a comfortable assumption. Open markets, international law and the American security guarantee would allow the European Union (EU) to pursue prosperity while limiting its exposure to geopolitical risk. That assumption has become increasingly difficult to sustain. Hard power has returned to the center of international affairs, strategic dependencies influence political choices, and the critical nodes of globalization can be weaponized against competitors.
Europe has responded with a new vocabulary and a growing body of policy. Economic security, strategic autonomy, industrial resilience and defense readiness have been embedded in the European debate. The EU is investing in defense, energy and critical technologies, while seeking to reduce external dependencies, mobilize private capital and increase the resilience of critical supply chains. These initiatives reflect a genuine recognition that economic capacity and geopolitical influence can no longer be treated as separate questions.
The EU already has elements of political direction. Its strategic orientations connect a free and democratic Europe with a strong, secure, prosperous and competitive one. For instance, the joint ‘One Europe, One Market’ roadmap, signed by the European Parliament, the Council and the Commission in April 2026, gives the competitiveness agenda a more concrete political and operational form. It links simplification and deeper market integration with trade, energy, decarbonization and digital transformation, while setting deadlines and providing for quarterly reviews of progress.
This amounts to a substantial program of action. What remains less developed is the wider political narrative connecting its different components. Europe is developing the instruments of power faster than it is explaining how they fit together, what purposes they should serve and what should distinguish European power from the power politics practiced elsewhere. Institutional roadmaps can organize priorities and improve delivery, but they cannot by themselves explain the direction and character of European action.
The Single Market rightly holds a central position in that narrative. It is the EU’s principal source of economic scale and its strongest asset of global influence. A Union constrained by fragmented capital markets, divergent administrative practices, uneven enforcement and competing national industrial strategies will struggle to act with geopolitical weight. European power is dependent on the EU’s ability to operate as a coherent economic space.
That strategic purpose should also define the boundaries of the EU’s competitiveness agenda. Simplification can remove duplicative obligations, unclear procedures and disproportionate compliance costs. It loses political legitimacy when it becomes a means of weakening the social, environmental and consumer standards that underpin the EU’s economic model.
The pursuit of greater European power will also entail difficult choices. Industrial restructuring will affect sectors and regions, while higher defense expenditure will compete with other public priorities. The green and digital transitions will reshape employment, investment and consumption. A credible European strategy must explain how the benefits will be shared, how the burdens of structural change will be distributed fairly and how a stronger economic base will improve the security and prospects of European citizens.
The rule of law, democratic accountability and institutional checks belong to the same strategic equation. They sustain trust among Member States, protect human rights, support investment and give credibility to European action abroad. Tolerating anti-democratic practices for reasons of immediate political convenience would weaken the foundations of the influence that Europe seeks to build. European power cannot be separated from the legal and democratic order through which it is exercised.
A more capable EU will also need stronger partnerships with middle powers and other reliable partners around the world. Pragmatic engagement with less like-minded countries may sometimes be unavoidable, but it must not become a source of strategic dependence. Europe needs to avoid replacing old dependencies with new ones, particularly where partners have a record of political unreliability or repeatedly challenge the principles the EU seeks to defend. Diversification therefore requires more than economic efficiency: reliability, reciprocity and sufficient alignment on core principles matter as well.
The recent Icelandic referendum also offers a useful reminder that the EU cannot simply assume its own political attractiveness. Even in a country deeply integrated into the Single Market through the European Economic Area, Icelandic voters rejected reopening accession negotiations. The result does not amount to a rejection of European cooperation, but it does suggest that the added value of full EU membership must be politically demonstrated rather than taken for granted.
The forthcoming State of the Union address by the President of the European Commission on 16 September 2026 provides an opportunity to articulate that wider case. A year after declaring ‘Europe’s independence moment’, the Commission should do more than add new ambitions to an already extensive agenda. Credibility requires an honest account of where the EU has delivered, where it has fallen short and why. Strategic purpose cannot be built on aspiration alone.
Europe is confronting an increasingly unstable international order in which coercion and power politics have become more explicit. At the same time, it faces a political struggle over the narrative that will shape its own future. Many populist forces offer a simpler account, centered on national retreat, identifiable enemies and the promise of restored control. Democratic and pro-European forces need a compelling alternative, one that connects security with freedom, competitiveness with social cohesion, and strategic ambition with democratic accountability, while responding credibly to the insecurity, frustration and sense of lost control that draw parts of the electorate towards populist movements. Europe will need to strengthen its ability to act in a more coercive world. The main challenge is to give that ability a shared purpose, and to ensure that the way Europe pursues its interests remains distinctly European.
Dr. Apostolos Samaras holds a Ph.D. in European Law from the Law School of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. He is a Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).
