The EU thread

[Syt]

Was this mentioned before? Apparently being signed today.

https://www.politico.eu/article/uk-germany-mutual-defense-treaty-nation-olaf-scholz-joint/

UK and Germany prepare to sign wide-ranging mutual defense treaty
Under the pact, any strategic threat to one country would represent a threat to the other.

LONDON — The U.K. and Germany are preparing to sign a wide-ranging treaty that includes a mutual assistance clause in the case of a threat to either nation, according to five people with knowledge of the process.

PM Keir Starmer and former German Chancellor Olaf Scholz laid the groundwork for the pact in a joint declaration last summer, promising closer cooperation on peace and security and economic growth.

The text of the treaty is close to completion, two London-based officials said. It is expected to be signed on July 17 before the two parliaments rise for summer recess.

Key chapters include one devoted to defense, building on the Trinity House Agreement signed last year, which sets out that any strategic threat to one country would represent a threat to the other.

This would give Germany a mutual assistance clause with both of Europe's nuclear powers, in line with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's desire to strengthen the continent's deterrent separately from the U.S.

While the treaty will likely reaffirm the commitment of both nations to NATO as the cornerstone of their collective defense, the clause's inclusion underlines the push for European allies to work more closely on security as the U.S. pulls back from the transatlantic defense alliance.

The document is expected to contain further measures on tackling illegal migration, transportation, and research and innovation. It is also set to feature a commitment to promote cross-border exchanges — an extremely thorny area for Starmer's government as he faces pressure to reduce both legal and illegal migration.

Any concrete agreement on youth mobility will be negotiated at the EU level, after the U.K. was unable to reach an agreement on this area as part of the "reset" agreed in May. Berlin has been one of the capitals pushing hardest for liberalization of the rules on young people coming to Britain.

The treaty between Starmer and Merz is the fruit of 18 rounds of negotiations, three of which were held face to face in Berlin and two in London.

A spokesperson for the German Foreign Office said: "The treaty will deal with the entire range of our relations."

The U.K.'s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office did not respond to a request for comment by the time of publication.

[Duque de Bragança]

France looking to scrap 2 public holidays to help balance the budget for public workers.

One of which is VE Day.
I guess they chose it purely because it's so soon after May Day.
But that they chose this over rather useless C tier Christian days.... The optics are bad.

VE Day had been removed previously under Giscard.

The other one is actually a useless C tier Christian holiday. Easter Monday.

[Josquius]

France looking to scrap 2 public holidays to help balance the budget for public workers.

One of which is VE Day.
I guess they chose it purely because it's so soon after May Day.
But that they chose this over rather useless C tier Christian days.... The optics are bad.

VE Day had been removed previously under Giscard.

The other one is actually a usekess C tier Christian holiday. Easter Monday.

Easter is B tier

[HVC]

As a good catholic boy (until like 13 lol) I always wondered why Monday was the holiday and not Good Friday.

*edit* since the real star of the show is already on a weekend.

[Jacob]

Europe embarking on its "century of humiliation"?

Europe's 'century of humiliation' could be just beginning - Donald Trump is using America's military and technological superiority to force one-sided deals on Europe.
August 26, 2025 7:55 pm CET - By Antonia Zimmermann

BRUSSELS — After its defeat by the British in the First Opium War, the Qing dynasty signed a treaty in 1842 that condemned China to more than 100 years of foreign oppression and colonial control of trade policy. 

It was the first of what came to be known as "unequal treaties," where the bullying military and technological heavyweight of the day imposed one-sided terms to try to slash back its massive trade deficit.

Sound familiar? Fast forward nearly two centuries, and the EU is starting to understand exactly how that feels.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's dash to Donald Trump's Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last month to seal a highly unbalanced trade deal has raised fears among politicians and analysts that Europe has lost the leverage that it once thought it had as a leading global trade power.

Von der Leyen's critics were quick to assert that accepting Trump's 15 percent tariff on most European goods amounted to an act of "submission," a "clear-cut political defeat for the EU," and an "ideological and moral capitulation."

If she had hoped that would keep the U.S. president at bay, a rude awakening was in store. With the ink barely dry on the trade deal, Trump doubled down on Monday by threatening to impose new tariffs on the EU over digital regulations that would hit America's tech giants. If the EU didn't fall into line, the U.S. would stop exporting vital microchip technologies, he warned.

His diatribe came less than a week after Brussels believed it had won a written guarantee from Washington that its digital rulebook — and sovereignty — were safe.

Trump can wield this coercive advantage because — just like the 19th century British imperialists — he holds the military and technological cards, and is well aware his counterpart lags miles behind in both sectors. He knows Europe doesn't want to face Russian President Vladimir Putin without U.S. military backup and can't cope without American chip technology, so he feels he can dictate the trade agenda.

European Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič strongly implied last month that the deal with the U.S. was a reflection of Europe's strategic weakness, and its need for U.S. support. "It's not only about ... trade: It's about security, it is about Ukraine, it is about current geopolitical volatility," he explained.

The trade deal is a "direct function of Europe's weakness on the security front, that it cannot provide for its own military security and that it failed to invest, for 20 years, in its own security," said Thorsten Benner, director at the Global Public Policy Institute in Berlin, who also pointed to failures to invest in "technological strength" and to deepen the single market.

Just like the Qing leadership, Europe also scorned the warning signs over many years.

"We are paying the price for the fact we ignored the wake-up call we got during the first Trump administration — and we went back to sleep. And I hope that this is not what we are doing now," Sabine Weyand, director general for trade at the European Commission, told a panel at the European Forum Alpbach on Monday. She was speaking before Trump's latest broadside on tech rules. 


After its defeat by the British in the First Opium War, the Qing dynasty signed a treaty in 1842 that condemned China to more than 100 years of foreign oppression and colonial control of trade policy.

It is clear that Trump's volatile tariff game is far from over, and the 27-nation bloc is bound to face further political affronts and unequal negotiating outcomes this fall. To prevent the humiliation from becoming entrenched, the EU faces a huge task to reduce its dependence on the U.S. — in defense, technology and finance.

Stormy waters
The Treaty of Nanking, signed under duress in 1842 aboard the HMS Cornwallis, a British warship anchored in the Yangtze River, obliged the Chinese to cede the territory of Hong Kong to British colonizers, pay them an indemnity, and agree to a "fair and reasonable" tariff. British merchants were authorized to trade at five "treaty ports" — with whomever they wanted.

The Opium War began what China came to lament as its "century of humiliation." The British forced the Chinese to open up to the devastating opium trade to help London claw back the yawning silver deficit with China. It's an era that still haunts the country and drives its strategic policymaking both at home and internationally.

A key factor forcing the Qing dynasty to submit was its failure to invest in military and technological progress. Famously, China's Qianlong Emperor told the British in 1793 that China did not require the "barbarian manufactures" of other nations. While gunpowder and firearms were Chinese inventions, a lack of experimentation and innovation slowed their development — meaning Qing weapons were about 200 years behind British arms in design, manufacture and technology. 

Similarly, the EU is now being punished for falling decades behind the U.S. Slashing defense spending after the Cold War kept European countries dependent on the U.S. military for security; complacency about technological developments means the EU is now behind its global rivals in almost all critical technologies.

U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, for his part, has declared the beginning of a new world order — one he dubbed the "Turnberry system" — comparing the U.S.-EU trade accord to the post-war financial system devised at the New England resort of Bretton Woods in 1944. 

Turbulence ahead
With his attack on Monday, Trump demonstrated scant regard for the EU's desire to bracket out sensitive issues from last week's non-binding joint statement. The vagueness of the four-page text, meanwhile, leaves room for him to press new demands or threaten retaliation if he deems the EU is failing to keep its side of the bargain.

More humiliation could follow as the two sides try to work out various details — from a tariff quota system on steel and aluminum to exemptions for certain sectors — that still need to be settled. 

"This deal is so vague that there are so many points where conflicts could easily be escalated to then be used as justification for why other things will not follow through," said Niclas Poitiers, a research fellow at the Bruegel think tank.
 
Asked what would happen if the EU were to fail to invest a pledged $600 billion in the U.S., Trump said earlier this month: "Well, then they pay tariffs of 35 percent."

It's a danger the EU is acutely aware of. The European Commission argues the $600 billion figure simply reflects broad intentions from the corporate sector that can't be enforced by bureaucrats in Brussels.

But Trump could well use the investment pledge as a trigger point to gun for higher duties.
 
"We do expect further turbulence," said a senior EU official, granted anonymity to speak candidly. But "we feel we have a very clear insurance policy."
 
What's more, by accepting the agreement, sold by the EU executive as the "less bad" option following Trump's tariff threats, Brussels has also shown that blackmail works. Beijing will be watching developments with interest — just as EU-China ties have hit a new low and Beijing's dominance on the minerals the West needs for its green, digital and defense ambitions hand it immense geopolitical leverage.

Escaping irrelevance
But what, if anything, can the bloc do to avoid prolonging its period of geopolitical weakness?

In the lead-up to the deal, von der Leyen repeatedly emphasized that the EU's strategy in dealing with the U.S. should be built on three elements: readying retaliatory measures, diversifying trade partners, and strengthening the bloc's single market. 
 
For some, the EU needs to see the deal as a wake-up call to usher in deep change and boost the bloc's competitiveness through institutional reform, as outlined last year in landmark reports penned by former European Central Bank head Mario Draghi and former Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta. 

In response to the deal, Draghi issued a strongly worded warning that Trump's evident ability to force the bloc into doing his bidding is conclusive proof that it faces irrelevance, or worse, if it can't get its act together. He also played up the failings on security: "Europe is ill-equipped in a world where geo-economics, security, and stability of supply sources, rather than efficiency, inspire international trade relations," he said. 

Eamon Drumm, a research analyst at the German Marshall Fund, also took up that theme. "Europe needs to think of its business environment as a geopolitical asset to be reinforced," he said.

To do so, investments in European infrastructure, demand and companies are needed, Drumm argued: "This means bringing down energy prices, better putting European savings to use for investment in European companies, and completing capital markets integration." 

In comments to POLITICO, French Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad also called for "investing massively in AI, quantum computing and green technologies, and protecting our sovereign industries, as the Americans do not hesitate to do." 

Free trade
For others, the answer lies in deepening and diversifying the bloc's trade ties — Brussels insists the publication of its trade deal with the Mercosur bloc of South American countries is just around the corner, and it is eyeing deals with Indonesia, India and others this year. It has also signaled openness to intensifying trade with the Asia-focused CPTPP bloc, which counts Canada, Japan, Mexico, Australia and others as members.
 
"In addition to modernizing the [World Trade Organization], the EU must indeed focus on continuing to build its network of trade agreements with reliable partners," said Bernd Lange, a German Social Democrat who heads the European Parliament's trade committee. 

"To stabilize the rules-based trading system, we should find a common position with democratically constituted countries," Lange added. 

Europe, Drumm said, faces a choice.

"Is it going to reinforce its position as a hub of free trade in a world where globalization is unwinding?" he asked. "Or is it just going to be a battlefield on which increasing competition between China and the United States plays out?"

https://www.politico.eu/article/europes-century-of-humiliation-could-be-just-beginning/

[Sheilbh]

Yeah saw the phrase "Europe's century of humiliation" just starting from an anonymous European diplomat - I think it's quite compelling (maybe not true or accurate but compelling).

I totally agree with the Draghi Report on what the EU should do - and his framing of issues. I think it goes a little beyond what he says there too.

I get the instinct to be a "hub of free trade" but I think literally no-one in the world outside of the EU thinks Europe is a hub of free trade. In the negotiations mentioned with Mercosur (negotiations which have lasted for 20+ years) and Indonesia, leaders including Lula and Widodo have accused Europe of neo-colonialism in its trade policy. I think it's a Eurocentric view that slightly assumes the rest of the world wants Europe to be a hub.

And I think the global south has very legitimate problems with European trade policy - so if you want to be a hub you need to build better relations with the rest of the world particularly the South. I think that possibly means being less ambitious in your own approach (one of the striking things about the Trump situation is that when it comes to trade negotiations the EU's reputation with the ROTW is absolutely ruthless at advancing their interests very much at odds with the Trump "deal"). Also working through what most of the rest of the world sees as massive hypocrisy in how Europeans think the rest of the world views Ukraine v how Europeans view Gaza. But also acknowledge that our rules based liberal world order has been basically a sham and pretty exploitative for a lot of the world and, despite it, we don't even have a theory of development - so go and listen and support. So to the point of Eurocentrism: what has Europe to offer the world to compete with China's record of development and more people being lifted out of poverty than any other period and place in history, or America's still innovative, dynamic economy with a transactional (and corrupt) administration?

[Iormlund]

So to the point of Eurocentrism: what has Europe to offer the world to compete with China's record of development and more people being lifted out of poverty than any other period and place in history, or America's still innovative, dynamic economy with a transactional (and corrupt) administration?

Rule of law.


That been said, what the EU really needs is to a) figure out how to keep democracy alive in the continent and b) decide how and how much to integrate in various fields (military, fiscal, etc). If we don't then our external brand matters little anyway.