Political advisor Markus Kerber, speaking from the sidelines of the Ambrosetti conference, says Europe has been alienated by the fact that the rules-based system has broken down and the block is yet to seize the moment.

Brussels

Markus Kerber has stated that Europe is not fully seizing the opportunity to adapt to a rapidly changing global environment. He argues that the breakdown of the rules-based international system has left Europe uncertain about how to respond, as it previously benefited from stability, low defense spending, and high consumer confidence.

Kerber highlights that Europe is ill-equipped to deal with the current global order, which is increasingly shaped by major powers such as the United States, China, India, and Russia. He points to persistent internal challenges, including regulatory barriers and the absence of a true single market, capital market union, and banking union. Kerber also notes that influential countries like France and Germany are preoccupied with their own issues, hindering collective progress within the European Union.

Europe is 'ill-equipped' to deal with new world, Markus Kerber says

So, Marcus, we are without doubt at a pivotal transitional moment for Europe. We know now what the recipe should be to get us competitive. We've got external threats galore. Is Europe seizing the moment? Not really. Or not really yet, let's put it that way. Europe is still distracted or alienated by the fact that the rules-based system, as we love to call it in Europe, has broken down. And a bit like the rabbit in the headlight, Europe does not know how to respond to that. Because the rules-based world gave Europe all the advantages you wanted. Low defense spending, high consumer confidence, and nothing to worry about. So you could almost fly the political and the economical system on an autopilot. But this is gone, this is gone, and now Europe has been waking up in what some political scholars have called a pentarchy, i.e. a world that is more or less governed and influenced by the United States of America, the People's Republic of China, India, EU, and Russia. Of all players in the world has dramatically come back. And in this pentarchical world, the only rule that counts is that everybody has conflicts and opportunities with each other. And Europe is probably, although we're amongst ourselves, learned to do business amongst our 27, is very ill-equipped to deal with this global picture of multilateral threats and opportunities. Let me pick up that, because those other four blocks you mentioned are single entities. Of course, we have enormous wealth within the 450 million people in Europe as well. Let me go back to my original point. We can seize the moment by actually making ourselves a true block at long last to face those other four threats. Interesting thing here is that a lot of the argumentation that we've heard from British society and British politics about why they were leaving the EU is coming back to haunt the EU now. Because a lot of the criticism about the arcane bureaucracy in Europe, about the untruthfulness about having a single market, which you and I know is more a dream and a vision than reality, this is the number one challenge that Europe has to sort of deal with. We are now all worked up about our tariff war with the United States, or the tariff conflict with the United States of America, and yet we love to portray ourselves as the innocent victim. Do we have a single market without regulations, technical regulations amongst our 27? Do we have a capital market union? Do we have a banking union? No, we don't. Trading between Estonia and Portugal still has a lot of regulatory issues and hindrances, and as long as we don't put away with those things, we cannot regain strength and confidence. We know this. We have the recipe. Not only has Draghi been telling us since he was at the ECB, he's now given us a template. Latte has given us a template. And there are two schools of thought. You either have to absorb the whole cake in one go, or actually you can make incremental gains. And once the latter is more realistic, are we doing it? Not to the extent that you and I would probably want it happening, but as usual, France is having internal troubles. Germany is increasingly, increasingly sucked into the foreign policy and global policy game, not probably paying enough attention to overcoming its own structural problems that it has. We've got two of the most influential and important nations in Europe not pulling ahead with the other 25. That, I think, is a problem.

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