Summary
- New ECFR polling suggests that Donald Trump is transforming political and geopolitical identities not only in the US, but also in Europe.
- Trump’s second presidency is recasting the European far-right as the continental vanguard of a transnational revolutionary project, and mainstream parties as the new European sovereigntists.
- It is also transforming geopolitical attitudes and accelerating the shift from a European peace project to a war project.
- Many Europeans support increased military spending, conscription, independent nuclear deterrents, and defending Ukraine even if the US abandons it.
- However, they also doubt that Europe can achieve strategic autonomy fast enough and are therefore inclined to hedge. Conscription is less popular among the young; support for Ukraine may reflect reluctance to confront Russia directly; many hope America will return after Trump.
About the Authors
Ivan Krastev chairs the Centre for Liberal Strategies in Sofia and is a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, IWM Vienna. He is a founding board member of ECFR, a member of Open Society Foundations’ global advisory board, a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times, and the author of the widely acclaimed book “After Europe”. In 2020, he was awarded the Jean Améry Prize for European essay writing. Previously, he served as executive director of the International Commission on the Balkans and as editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian edition of Foreign Policy.
Mark Leonard is co-founder and director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, the first pan-European think–tank. He is also the current Henry A Kissinger chair in foreign policy and international relations at the US Library of Congress, Washington DC. His topics of focus include geopolitics and geoeconomics, China, EU politics and institutions.