AIX-EN-PROVENCE, France (CN) - Under the parasols of a courtyard in the Parc Jourdan in Provence, Andre Loesekrug-Pietri, the chairman and scientific director of the Joint European Disruptive Initiative, placed his green MAKE EUROPE GREAT AGAIN baseball cap down on the table.
"No, this is not the MAGA outlet in Europe," he clarified to Courthouse News about why he made the hat, adding that the green color conveys a different orientation. But it evokes a positive frustration about Europe, a sentiment that the continent has to be bigger, bolder and really play geopolitical ball.
"Trump is making a big bet, Xi Jinping is making a big bet, Putin, in his way, is making a big bet," Loesekrug-Pietri said. "But where are the European big bets? It's a little bit like a lottery - you don't know if you win, but you're sure to lose if you don't buy your ticket - and Europe is not buying its ticket. What's the big bet?"
This was at Les Rencontres Economiques, a high-profile economics forum uniting politicians, business leaders and economists from June 3 to 5. Alongside its official theme, 'Facing Reality: A Call to Action,' the issue of European sovereignty repeatedly emerged in panels and discussions.
In the aftermath of Trump's inauguration, European leaders have been scrambling to convey an image of strength, unity and power. A power-charged rotation of state visits and financial deals has dominated European headlines, sometimes offset by digs from the Trump Administration. At the conference, experts delivered a refreshing critique of the continent's shortcomings that are not often highlighted in the mainstream narrative.
"The question is, how do democracies that still believe in diversity, in the rule of law, in checks and balances - how do we adapt?" Loesekrug-Pietri said. "How do we nudge? How do we maybe differentiate?"
He wonders if Europe will find a way to remain true to its human rights values while adapting to a changing world, where the fate of Ukraine is decided in Istanbul, discussions on the Middle East are happening in Riyadh and people are waiting for Trump to arrive at the Hague to tell them what to do.
"And they call him daddy," Loesekrug-Pietri said. "That tells you the level of where we are."
On a Friday morning panel, Loesekrug-Pietri suggested that Europe needs to step up to the plate.
"Americans have said it like it is to us in terms of investments in defense, and this is the adult world in which we need to enter into," he said to a room full of applause.
Mario Loyola, a senior fellow in Law, Economics and Technology at the Heritage Foundation and former associate director for regulatory reform at the White House Council of Environmental Quality under the Trump Administration, said on the panel that Russia views its invasion of Ukraine as an existential crisis, willing to sacrifice a million people to save Mariupol, while the EU wouldn't sacrifice as many to take it back.
After the panel concluded, Loyola told Courthouse News that for Europe to strengthen its presence within NATO, it should demonstrate a greater commitment to its goals.
"The Europeans can't encourage Ukraine to have maximalist goals, this goal of liberating the whole of the 1991 territory, when it's not willing to put in the military to confront Russia directly, put soldiers in Ukraine, it's only barely willing to give Ukraine a little bit of what it needs to fight Russia," he said.
On Friday evening, the 'China/USA/Russia: A Place for Europe?' debate kicked off under a tent housing the main stage. Creon Butler, the head of the global economy and finance program at Chatham House, advocated for boosting Europe as a global economic pole.
"So much focus is going into what we do about Trump, what we do internally, not enough is going into how we can create that pole," he said.
Later in the panel, Kim Ruhl of the U.S. Council of Economic Advisors gave a brief speech on the U.S. acting as the global economy's shock absorber, prompting Trump to push for rebalancing. He described tariffs as causing short-term global disruptions that will probably iron out.
Then the other panelists cranked up the heat.
"I hope Kim is right, but many things that the president says aren't really consistent," Butler said in response. "The president has threatened the sovereign territory of Canada, but also Greenland... this is not something you do vis vis countries that you intend to have a long-term relationship with."
The room erupted in applause.
"We're not a U.S. colony - we don't have the same rules as you," Aurore Lalucq, the President of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs at the European Parliament, said to Ruhl, again prompting the audience to applaud.
Loeskrug-Pietri believes that Europe should rewrite its own rules.
"I'm advocating for radical changes ... We don't need a DOGE, but we need to really rethink institutions that are purpose driven and not process driven," he said. "The question is, will they do that with the current political class or will a completely new political class emerge?"
Source: Courthouse News Service
