Crossroads Europe

Barack Obama was in Brussels, then in Rome, where he met Pope Francis on Thursday, March 27. Xi Jinping was in Lyon and Paris before returning to Berlin, and then Brussels. This week, Europe is the crossroads of the American president and his Chinese counterpart’s travels. They have not crossed paths, but their visits prove that this continent remains a compulsory passageway for the two biggest superpowers. It is firstly a place of remembrance: Barack Obama returned to the American cemetery in Waregem, Belgium, the resting place of World War I soldiers, while Xi Jinping went to a Lyon institute where Deng Xiaoping, the communist leader who opened his country to capitalism, had studied. It is secondly a place of power: Some European countries have an economic weight and political clout which make them players to be listened to and internationally sought. The European Union is the largest economic and commercial power in the world.

However, all this special attention does not reassure those who have observed a relative weakening in the European continent. Even if Barack Obama, in Brussels on Wednesday, wanted to put up a front, the United States is more worried about Asia and continuing its military withdrawal from Europe. Russia’s brutality in Ukraine forced the American president to loudly express his interest in the safety of the old continent, but he is particularly focused on opening the European market to American multinationals even further. He shares Xi Jinping’s concerns on this point, who only pays lip service to Ukraine, and to whom the French and Germans present no united front — except for Airbus — at the time of signing contracts.

By the end of the week, Europeans will again end up in an uncomfortable vicinity to Vladimir Putin, faced by their fellow citizens’ growing questions on the relevance of the path taken by the Union. If you want Paris, Berlin or Brussels to remain on a stage sought after by world leaders in 20 years’ time, then Europe will have to be quickly reinvented. What good timing: European elections will be held in two months, on May 25. A great opportunity to examine plans.