Sophie Desmidt warns that the US’s escalating disregard for international norms marks a breaking point for Europe’s multilateral identity. She argues that the EU must take the lead in crafting a new global order to navigate Amitav Acharya’s ‘world-minus-one’.
Many of U.S President Donald Trump’s actions not only breach international law, but they also signal new heights of US neo-imperialism and pose a direct threat to the transatlantic alliance. They are a stress test of Europe’s identity and interests as a union based on the rule of law and multilateralism. Europe must finally stand up for itself and for international rule of law. More importantly, it needs to do it by working actively with partners to conceive a new global order to secure and defend shared interests and principles.
Facing realities in a new, disruptive context
International law has always been fragile and selectively applied, including by all major powers, past and present. The divisions over Gaza have made any joint response from the EU impossible. More recently, the European reaction to the events in Venezuela was vague, incoherent and weak, and relenting to the US dominance. Last week, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, the US president first confirmed his wish to grab Greenland, but seemingly made a U-turn, leaving many participants stunned. Trump also presented his ‘Board of Peace’ filled with handpicked leaders, and seen as a direct challenge to the UN, in particular the Security Council. The response to US’ statements on Greenland was more forceful. Danish prime minister Mette Frederiksen stated that a US attack on Greenland would mean the end of NATO.
The EU’s inability to muster consistently strong rebukes of the US’s actions is, of course, driven by the fear that this will undermine the security guarantees needed in Ukraine (and beyond). But they put the EU in a huge dilemma: if the EU no longer champions international rule of law and is not willing to act when that order is trampled, then what exactly is its purpose?
The clearest acknowledgement that the current world order no longer functions for regions such as the European Union, or middle powers such as Canada, came from Canadian prime minister Mark Carney. In his speech in Davos, Carney reached out to Europe, noting that middle powers should stop ‘living in a lie’ and construct an alternative way of working that essentially protects them from disruptive behaviour. He called this ‘classic risk management’ but proposed to do this collectively, in ‘variable geometry’.
To defend a stable global world order, the EU would need to step up much more decisively.
Crafting a new world order
This approach resonates with the international relations academic, Amitav Acharya’s ‘world-minus-one’ optimism, which is underpinned by ‘multiplexity’ (not just multiple clashing poles). Multiplexity is not about one global order, but many overlapping ones, and a patchwork of issue-specific constellations: for example, on peace and security, with high-level or regionally driven initiative, or on climate and digital, with stronger cross-regional cooperation. Multiplexity is different from minilateralism, as non-state actors (private sector, platforms, insurers, logistics firms, regional organisations) are structural players, not accessories.
The EU is already pursuing partnerships that could buffer a further rupture in the transatlantic partnership, but to defend a stable global world order, the EU would need to step up much more decisively and in collaboration with international partners to ensure effective collaboration across such issue-specific constellations.
This is possible, the argument goes, because the US has never been a consistent multilateralist (nor have some other major powers), and the system has always adapted around it. Neither does the EU have a perfect track record, even if its Treaty orders EU actions to be guided by the principles of the UN Charter and international law. But more than that, multiplexity helps to explain why order persists despite fragmentation: multiple centres, coalitions and norms coexist and can absorb shocks from the US (and others).
The positive scenario of a ‘world-minus-one’ or ‘variable geometries’ as Carney names it, has its limits, some very practical, like financing. The EU and other middle powers may not be able to foot the entire UN bill, even if the UN is downsized. They are not able or willing to fill the financial gap left by USAID’s demise. Questions also arise on the EU’s willingness to take responsibility for the rule of law enforcement. Plus, the EU has limited immediate options to detach operationally and militarily from the US – though experts note several pathways for (military) detachment seem possible in the mid to long-term.
Middle powers come to a reckoning
With the events in Venezuela and Greenland, the US has moved from selective rule-breaking to systematic erosion of norms. Earlier invasions, for example, in Iraq, were explained domestically to the Senate and the public, and debated at the UN. This time, the Trump administration has not even bothered to justify its actions to its international partners against international law standards. This risks accelerating a global permissiveness problem: if the US openly erodes the norms, what will hold others back? Following a special European Council held last week, initially convened to discuss possible retaliatory actions against the US’s moves on Greenland, European Council president Antonio Costa noted that the EU will uphold its “firm commitment to the principles of international law, territorial integrity and national sovereignty”.
But in Davos, prime minister Carney reached a much more sobering and far-reaching conclusion: the West has been in denial about the limits and inequalities embedded in the current global multilateral world order – but this is no longer an option given the events of the past weeks. The US is seen as having exploited the weaknesses within the current order and having brought it to its breaking point. The task for Europe and its partners, still interested in taking on a ‘principled but pragmatic stance’, is to develop another order that is more inclusive and more recognisant of the current balance of power.
Reinforcing the EU’s ‘multiple’ partnerships
For Acharya’s ‘world-Minus-one system’, or a world order based ‘variable geometries’ to function, Europe will need to intentionally craft it together with its partners. The pending trade deal with Mercosur and the recently signed free trade and defence deals with India are the most immediate and clearest examples of the type of engagement that will enable the EU to set up strategically aligned coalitions that can collectively reduce vulnerabilities and dependency on a single hegemon. As the first non-European country, Canada recently joined the SAFE instrument, the €150 billion defence instrument that is expected to boost EU member states’ investments in defence industrial production through common procurement. As analysts note, these deals are ‘about embedding cooperation through institutions’.
The events around Greenland may have finally pushed the EU beyond its red lines into conceiving a world where it is more detached from the US.
Many countries and regions in the Global South, have already been navigating ‘variable geometries’ – much longer than the EU – including based on a sense of exclusion and inequality embedded in the current multilateral order. For example, Prime minister Aziz Akhannouch of Morocco, a member of Trump’s Board of Peace, noted Morocco’s unique position as a “crossroads between Europe, Atlantic and African countries”. As we argued before, the EU needs a fundamental rethinking of its partnerships, including the one with Africa, which should be fully integrated into the rapidly changing geopolitical context. Its partnerships should be deepened (and include a composite of sustainable development, security, industrialisation, trade and investments), tailored to country or region-specific realities, and aligned with its geopolitical intent to be a principled yet much more pragmatic actor. The EU should also invest in its strategic communication on what it offers and what it stands for.
The events around Greenland may have finally pushed the EU beyond its red lines into conceiving a world where it is more detached from the US. The EU (and especially its member states) urgently need to establish and appreciate diverse and effective international partnerships. They need to accelerate reforms to current multilateral institutions, while continuing to promote global cooperation on trade, climate, security and digital issues. This should enable the EU to navigate shifting economic and political interdependencies more effectively – much better than they have so far. The EU may have avoided tough choices on how to do this for now, but it is a matter of time before it is confronted with the next transatlantic crisis.
The views are those of the authors and not necessarily those of ECDPM.
About the Author:
Sophie Desmidt is the associate director of ECDPM’s people, partnerships and peace cluster and head of the peace, security and resilience workstream.