Europe in a Darwinist evolutionary process

Economic collapse, demographic decline, war at the gates - whichever door of Europe we don't look through, we are usually confronted with a bleak picture of mounting problems. Politicians and economists are asking themselves how Europe can be revitalised, what measures can be taken to halt the negative trends quickly enough so that they do not lead to crises that will shake the whole concept of the European Union with the return of extreme nationalism. Mario Draghi, among others, presented his report, and another Italian, Enrico Letta, even before that.

Both these outlooks, as well as the vast majority of analyses, take the horizon of the last few years or so and focus on specific directives, legislation or economic recommendations. This is, of course, a legitimate approach, but as the history of the EU shows, it is not sufficient, as these reports are usually not translated into reality or are ineffectively implemented.

What if that ineffectiveness of the European Union is not necessarily due to the certain policies or agendas chosen by Brussels, but to a lack of understanding of the European project as a whole, which is based on wishes rather than reality?

Looking at the European Union through the prism of evolutionary process of societies allows us to take a slightly different perspective. It leads to different, often unpopular, conclusions. But if the initial assumptions are based on misunderstood foundations, the whole edifice begins to crumble.

What mistakes has the European Union made, why has Europe abandoned its main development impetus and what is the Union of Coalitions? 

Trust - the most important currency

From groups of gatherers and hunters. Through tribes, the first villages and cities. Principalities, kingdoms or empires, through to nation-states and supranational organisations. The formation of large social structures created by humans has been continuous for thousands, or even tens of thousands of years. This social evolution is inextricably linked to the progress of civilisation of humanity as a whole.

Initially, under harsh conditions of food scarcity and a perpetual sense of danger, we could only trust our nearest and dearest, and an encounter with a hostile group could end tragically for both. However, as technology progressed, trust between people expanded its reach, allowing increasingly complex social structures to take shape. People saw the positives of forming themselves into ever larger groups. Through specialisation, efficiency increased, and barter or, at a later stage, trade based on gold or silver also helped.

Hostilities, conflicts and wars did not die, but their characteristics, like the societies themselves - were changing. Instead of more numerous but smaller clashes, they occurred less frequently, but gradually increased in scale. During these battles and wars, people guarded or tried to extend the reach of the dominion of ‘their world’ - culture, language or resources. The last 1,000 years, especially in Europe, can be described as one big evolutionary arena of struggle over which social structure should prevail over the rest.

This ‘arms race’ has been very intense, brutal but also fruitful, as it has forced societies to constantly adapt. Otherwise, death and oblivion in the depths of history awaited them. In Europe, in the last millennium, this competition was particularly bloodthirsty. It forced constant innovation, forced risk-taking, led to a clash of ideas. The better ones remained, then taken over by competitors who often improved on them.

Hundreds of years of such struggles in a rather hermetic environment, on a small piece of land, meant that when Europe finally opened up more to the world as a result of the great geographical discoveries, it immediately began to expand. It did so by the only process known to evolution, the elimination of weaker systems. Conquest began, which was easier in places that were much weaker in terms of civilisation progress, such as the Americas. In time, however, even such powerful centres as 19th century China fell victim to it.

Every system, however, always strives for equilibrium. The European monster grew - demographically, militarily, technologically, and ideologically. And when progress in these areas reached a peak, a ceiling at which societies were able to field armies of millions, armed with weapons capable of wiping out hundreds of people in a fraction of a second, the European monster ate itself. The two great wars of the 20th century obliterated Europe.

Before that, however, Europe sent a large colony to another world, like a modern-day SpaceX trying to establish colonies on Mars. The European colonists in North America began to build a society according to the knowledge they had acquired through the bonds of progress, while having no real competition in the area (apart from other European colonists). There were indigenous people, of course, but unknown diseases mostly wiped them out, while those who survived were at a different level of civilisation.

The young American state was initially much weaker than the 'European homeland. But with access to the vast physical resources of the new world, the knowledge that kept coming from Europe in the form of immigrants, and relative geopolitical calm, the United States grew rapidly. And when Europe made the aforementioned beheading, the United States was ready to take its place as the world's pre-eminent power, a position it has never relinquished. Not surprisingly, it turned out to be much easier to build something almost from scratch, as if on a blank canvas, than to try to patch up holes that could not be patched up.

Evolutionary determinists might even say that Europe was bound to self-destruct. Such certainty is probably unwarranted, but the fact is that the Old Continent in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was boiling. The era of the nation-states accelerated progress, military technologies developed, and ideologies preyed on the corpses of the losers of civilisational progress. The European cauldron simmered for hundreds of years until it boiled over.

New world

On 8 May 1945, when Europe ended the second major war on its territory in just three decades, the capital that the Old Continent had acquired over the centuries had not completely disappeared, but the world was a different place. The processes of globalisation have changed the balance of power. Europeans suddenly found themselves in the grip of a great power game over which they had little influence. Nevertheless, the cultural and therefore strategic ties of the former coloniser with the colonised, i.e. Europe with the USA, and the foundations of progress laid over centuries meant that Europe - or rather the western part of the continent that remained in the American orbit - quickly recovered from the disaster of the first half of the 20th century.

It recovered to such an extent that the aggregate gross domestic product of the collective of Western European countries over time surpassed that of the greatest superpower of the time - the USA. At the same time, the idea of European integration was gaining ground. Looking back, but above all at the horrors of two recent wars, the Europeans, with the support of the Americans, decided to seek ways of understanding and cooperation instead of conflict, war and collapse. The European Coal and Steel Community was born, followed by the European Economic Community and the European Atomic Energy Community, which evolved into the European Communities and then the European Union.

It could be said, that social evolution somehow forced Europeans to be more integrated and to trust each other, because the lack of that trust led to the greatest global catastrophe of the last two hundred years. The idea filled Europeans with joy and hope. It seemed that they had finally found the Holy Grail - a way to reconcile cultural, linguistic or developmental differences with a common desire to grow richer, be secure and improve their own living conditions.

Looking from the sidelines, things were going well even until fairly recently. Disagreements remained, of course, but the integration process was progressing and the public was enthusiastic about the vision of a united and strong Europe. This optimism led to a total of 13 countries - almost half of the current 27 - joining the EU, fairly recently, in 2004, 2007 and 2013. For the most part, these were emerging economies, dreaming of the living standards of their Western counterparts, while the West found new impetus to develop its own economies.

So why, at the dawn of 2025, is the Union in such a poor state today, drowning in a sea of problems that we discussed in detail in the episode "The EU Could Die"? Let us listen to the introduction to this material:

"Our previous model of development is over. We over-regulate and under-invest. In two or three years, if we follow our classic plan, we will be out of the market [...] Mario Draghi has just published a report and his tone may seem very pessimistic. The Union could die and we are one step away from a very important moment. I think this is true,' Emmanuel Macron announced on 3 October at the Berlin Global Dialogue conference.

The 'evolutionary perspective' we have taken in this episode is not accidental. Sometimes, in order to find the source of a problem or an inefficiency, it is worth stepping back a little from the current grievances and taking a bird's eye view.

Looking at Europe as a whole, it is clear that the continent, as a complex system, is in a constant process of evolution. The trend clearly shows that the barriers between different social structures are disappearing. We have been organising ourselves into ever larger social groups for thousands of years, now most of us speak English, borders - physical and non-physical - are disappearing, the flow of people, ideas and concepts is now at an all-time high. From this perspective, Europe is clearly moving towards ever greater integration. This may not appeal to those with 'nationalst' views, but there is a good chance that, as a result of this integration, the concept of the nation-state in Europe will erode over time.

But if it's any consolation to those people, it's certainly not going to happen in their lifetimes. Well, that's the thing about evolution - it takes a very, very long time. In the case of the evolution of societies, change happens relatively quickly anyway, but we are still talking about processes that take hundreds of years. Meanwhile, Europe, or to be more precise hardcore EU advocates, wanted to bend this time horizon to a few decades. And this is one of the biggest millstones around the EU's neck that few European leaders are willing to acknowledge and talk about. What is it?

Looking at Europe through the prism of evolution, the second conclusion is this: Europe is still a collection of nations forged over hundreds of years of mutual conflict. The old continent is full of animosities that do not exist in America, for example, because there isn’t an over thousand years history of: wars between multiple hostile nations, no beheadings, no exterminations, no losses of independence. Raptly, a few decades after the finale of this bloody European history - two world wars - it was decided to turn the switch 180 degrees and play the music of 'Kumbaya' and eternal reconciliation. This 'leap forward' in such a shape was doomed to failure and it was almost certain that the first deeper problems would reveal the ineffectiveness of this approach.

The pillars of the EU 'dream' began to crumble even before the Union embarked on a process of rapid territorial expansion. By the early 2000s, it was clear that Europe had missed the digital revolution and failed to invest in the latest technologies, while over time it became increasingly clear that a 'stable security architecture' did not exist in the vocabulary of the European political class. Europeans believed in the end of history and in an 'American policeman' who would take care of everyone. When the weather was good (read economic growth) you could turn a blind eye to many things, but when it started to rain, 'European solidarity' realistically ceased to count, and everyone went back to their own camp. It can and must be said that the national interests of each country in the Union have never disappeared, they have just been covered up by the 'Community narrative'.

Whether we like it or not, the nations of Europe still do not trust each other enough to form a federation along the lines of the United States. The current state of development does not allow this, and a strong push in this direction is counterproductive - extremist groups are feeding off it and taking an increasing share of the electorate. It takes a long time for trust to grow (and mutual trust is what a single political entity boils down to), while Europeans have until recently been at each other's throats. Superstructures of European institutions, fed by an army of bureaucrats, are no substitute for trust acquired naturally.

Does this mean that the creation of the European Union was a mistake? Not at all. The very fact of seeking ways of understanding and reducing barriers is a phenomenon that serves all European nations. What does not serve them is the attempt to distort reality in the form of creating the illusion of a 'single EU interest' that can emerge on any issue. This can sometimes be found, for example, in the form of the slogan "building shared prosperity", but a closer look reveals that it cannot be worked out in a unified way for every conceivable issue - migration, economy, security architecture, profit-sharing and so on.

This change in perception may appear to be a mere optical correction, but in reality it is leading to the dismantling of the EU organism from within. The unity of the EU is being treated very selectively, and more often than not it is being used as a vehicle to pursue the national interests of a particular country - usually the one with the most influence within the Community. The notorious position here is held by Europe's most powerful state: Germany. The Nord Stream pipelines were built in line with the agenda of 'improving Europe's energy security' and as a 'purely business' project, despite the fiery words of opposition from the eastern part of the EU collective. Of course, the real issue was to improve Germany's competitiveness and comparative advantages vis-à-vis the rest of Europe, and all the rest was merely invented as an advertising slogan.

So when it became clear that 'EU unity' could be broken on issues which, as history has shown, can even lead to wars that threaten the very existence of member states, it became nothing more than a hackneyed platitude. The result is the opposite of what was intended - instead of increasing internal trust, Europe has less of it. Less than if it had not told itself that it was pursuing a policy of building unity. This example shows that the aforementioned "escape forward" is now coming at a price. In real terms, the level of internal trust in Europe is lower today than it was 20 years ago. Of course, according to the realpolitik school, there is nothing to blame German policymakers for trying to pursue German national interests. But the question is whether it is in Germany's interest to have a weak and divided Europe vis-à-vis the other world powers.

That’s why, when today EU decision-makers call for a common European army, common security autonomy, a common migration policy, etc. - these are usually ideas doomed to failure from the outset because European countries do not trust each other enough, and this trust is often used in the name of 'European values'.

So it was no surprise that when Mario Draghi recently proposed a common EU debt of 800 billion a year to stimulate innovation, Christian Lindner (until recently Germany's finance minister) immediately said there was no German agreement. When France calls for European autonomy, including giving up the veto rule in foreign policy and reducing American involvement, the east of the continent disagrees, fearing a return to the Berlin-Paris-Moscow triangle and being at the mercy of the larger EU members. This return to what some would call 'realpolitik' has been underway for some time. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the enthusiasm and confidence in the project of the early 2000s was squandered by overly rapid integration processes that were de facto an attempt to pursue national interests.

Both Draghi and his compatriot Enrico Letta, who also presented a similar report on the state of the Union, therefore approach the European problem from the point of view that does not really exist: The Union as a relatively homogeneous political centre that can develop and reform on a similar basis to the US, or even has the potential to push centralisation even further.

Draghi proposed the aforementioned joint debt, but in the first such joint debt initiative after the Covid-19 pandemic, of the €700 billion aid plan 77% of the funds went to German and French companies, with the former accounting for more than half. Letta, on the other hand, proposes further consolidation of the EU market. He cites telecommunications as an example. The Americans or the Chinese have only a few suppliers, while Europe has dozens. But who, and on what basis, would select the few European ones? You can try to set up sub-optimal algorithms, but these will be undermined by the mistrust of the public, who will fear that this is being done at their expense. So these are good ideas in principle, but under conditions of EU mistrust they are unworkable.

So where can we look for a way forward for the European Union? Assuming that it is a necessary but at the same time ineffective organism?

Historically, Europe has been a vibrant centre of innovation for at least several hundred years. There are many possible answers to why it was the case. but one is indisputable: competitiveness. Because of the concentration of human energy in many forms (read nations, and earlier principalities and kingdoms) in a very small area, many creative processes have taken place. It is hard not to be under the illusion that these processes have somehow collapsed after the creation of the European Union. The Germans (to a greater extent) and the French or Dutch (to a lesser extent) gained easy access to new markets and to labour that was cheaper than in those countries. Initially, this was a win-win situation as poorer countries became richer and a process of convergence took place.

However, the new playing field, so to speak, made Europeans lazy, made them rely fully on convergence, forgetting about competition at the national level. Of course, there was still competition, but now that the bigger could easily eat the smaller, and with hundreds of millions of consumers in new markets, the enthusiasm for innovation began to wane.

What did this mean in practice? On the one hand, popular graphs like this one, the transfers from West to East under the Cohesion Policy, clearly show that the developed countries of the West of the Union 'gave money’ and the East who “took it”, being a net beneficiary. But of course the truth is much more complex. A few years ago, Thomas Piketty, a renowned French economist who studies the phenomenon of income inequality, pointed out that the capital gains of Western companies on Eastern markets exceed the transfers within the EU budget many times over.

“Between 2010 and 2016, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic or Slovakia received the equivalent of 2 percent to 4 percent of their GDP in EU funds. But the flow of capital exiting these countries over the same period was between 4 percent and close to 8 percent of GDP.

Western European companies have also been making big money from EU-funded public procurements in Eastern Europe. The first high-speed train line crossing the Baltics is being designed by Spanish, German and French firms. The project’s first large construction contract was awarded to a Belgian company.
” - as early as 2019, wrote Clotilde Armand in Politico.

While Piotr Arak in the Financial Times noted that "based on the productivity of each inhabitant in relation to the size of the immigrant population, the brain drain added €170bn of value to the economy of Germany in 2018 alone. This is the value created by 4.2m immigrants from other EU countries in the biggest EU economy. The UK gained €141bn, France €54bn, The Netherlands €24bn, Sweden €15bn and Denmark €11bn. Those numbers outweigh the contributions that those countries pay to the EU budget.”

Despite these statistics, it would also be populist to portray this relationship as one of the West exploiting the East. To a certain extent, both sides benefited from this relationship. People from the East observed how people lived and worked in the West, they sent money home to their families (a very popular model of family support in the East), and individual companies in the East made a breakthrough. But the fact is that as a result of the process of EU’s opening up to the East of Europe, the West of the Union got 15 years of additional development impetus from opening up to less developed markets. And this brings us back to the previous point. What was the point of doing new and difficult things to open up new markets when they were already open to us? The East, on the other hand, caught up in time, but paid for it by losing the subjectivity of its own private sector, which was penetrated by richer capital from the West. Today, in these Central European countries, it is impossible to find companies on the same scale as those in the West.

Over time, Western Europe also began to export these 'mature technologies' to emerging markets in order to further reduce its production costs. The natural laziness in the absence of competition was automatically exploited by the determined Chinese.

Meanwhile, the high level of competitiveness at the macro level came from the rivalry of the kingdoms and later the European states. There was convergence too, but convergence was the result of technological and economic growth, which was the result of competitiveness. Not the other way round. Countries tried out different development models internally, the best ones gained an advantage and were over time adopted by rivals. Today's Union, by contrast, imposes a one-size-fits-all approach, suppressing the natural clash of systems that has historically driven Europe forward. The problem is that these clashes have often led to wars and conflicts, and this is where Brussels would play an important role.

So: competition, national interests, the search for consensus - these are the terms around which the Union should focus its action. What would this look like in practice?

We could imagine such a Union as an institution that would focus on being flexible and nimble in bringing together the interests of individual states and forming coalitions of the willing. At the same time, it would be an entity without a large bureaucratic and ideological superstructure that does not add much value. As a (theoretically) independent body, its recommendations would be an important accelerator of change and, in the event of disputes, it would deal with their resolution. It would thus be a return to states competing according to clearly defined interests, but with a dispute resolution fuse in the form of an EU institution. But it would have to be accompanied by an aura of total transpacificity, stemming from a clear principle of each country's national interest.

The second function of the Union would be no less important and crucial for the rapid development of the continent. Let us call it the Union of coalitions. What does this mean? As we already said: EU countries have different interests and it is very difficult to find a common, single, initial interest for the whole continent. But it is much easier to find one between individual countries. How could this work in practice? The EU body, as an independent structure, forms a coalition under its aegis e.g. 'To combat the Russian threat', with the aim of multi-domain repression of Russian imperialism. The formation of a coalition is based on clear rules for its participants, e.g. the spending of 3% of GDP on armaments, the creation of joint armament programmes (which would serve all countries) or a clear diplomatic policy on the issue. Portugal or Spain, for example, would have no interest in joining such a group, and perhaps not even Germany (which spends barely more than 2% of its GDP on armaments). But a group of Nordic and Central European states would be willing to form a compact bloc of common interest in a common cause. That would be much more effective than a larger group of 27 states, which can never reach a satisfactory consensus.

Such a pooling of national interests could also take place at the bilateral level. Take France, for example, which has a large nuclear sector. Several countries now want to build nuclear reactors at home. The money earmarked for this could stay entirely in Europe, but it does not and often goes to American companies like Westinghouse or Asian ones like KHNP. The EU for example could broker a solution that would benefit the bidder, in this case France, and the recipient, e.g. Poland, Romania or the Czech Republic, which want to build nuclear power plants at home. The transaction could then involve a cross-sectoral exchange, proposed by the Union as a win-win solution to stimulate the European nuclear industry and economy as a whole.

Another example is the joint purchase of energy resources, which still does not work in Europe because of different energy systems and different interests. In other words, countries with better prices do not want to give up their privileged position to a larger group. Similar initiatives could apply to migration policy, economic policy or environmental policy, where different aspects link different countries. Then Europe would not be torn apart from within by the inability to find a common interest, but would unite naturally by finding a coalition of the willing. Europe would be united in its differences. In varietate concordia.

A union of coalitions of interests may seem like a step backwards for the development of Europe, but in practice it would be the optimisation that the old continent needs. At the same time, it would not mean abandoning ideas that have realistically worked, such as the free market and the Schengen area. As a result of this process, the countries of the Union would return to a path of increasing trust, without feeling compelled to participate in initiatives that do not interest individual nations.

Someone will say - but wait, that in no way explains how such a model would help fend off the challenge posed by China and the US. What we need is consolidation, global companies and a single domestic policy. Let us pause for a moment. Globally, we tend to think of Europe as a player with the same characteristics as the US or China, but this is a mistake. Today and for the foreseeable future, the Union is not in a position to pursue the same policies as the Americans and the Chinese, as experience and the description at the beginning of this episode show. But the question remains: does it have to?

The real goal of Europe is or should be to raise living standards, security and freedom. These things are achievable and do not necessarily require participation in the race to be the 'greatest unified global power'. If individual European countries are strong, Europe will be strong. Are the Swiss upset that they are not mentioned among the great powers? Not necessarily, as their small country is prospering like a 'Swiss watch'. Of course, the countries of the Union should unite when a common policy is needed on the world stage - for example, when it comes to imposing tariffs on Chinese products or implementing a common space programme - but it is much more important to seek development and productivity internally, through policies tailored to the specific needs of each country.

In the course of my reflections on the idea of a Union of Coalitions, I independently came across a study by Jan Zielonka, a Polish-British researcher at the University of Oxford. In 2014, Zielonka published the book 'IS THE EU DOOMED?', in which he deals with the growing inefficiency of the European Union. The analyst's motivation was the 2008 crisis, and 10 years after the book's publication in 2014, the Union is in an even more difficult position than when it was written. The negative trend outlined by the author is therefore continuing and, according to the researcher, could lead to the break-up of the Union if it is not well contained. According to Zielonka, this could happen as a result of three scenarios. First, European leaders lose control over political and economic events (this process is currently underway). Two - they try to solve the current problems but make them worse. Three - they adopt a benign policy of neglect. Today we have a certain mixture of all these events. The Union is slipping away economically, EU politicians are clueless and there is no real recovery plan on the horizon.

So what does Zielonka propose? He advocates a flexible, decentralised Europe with a hybrid model of governance that he calls 'neo-medieval'. This decentralised model involves an overlapping multiplicity of identities, governance structures, authorities and sovereignty, with a focus on transnational networks and non-state actors. In this scenario, integration is mainly along functional rather than territorial lines. He refers to this project as 'polyphony' - a composition that overlays several simultaneous melodies that together form a coherent piece. The Oxford scholar provides many details for which we have no room in this material. Crucially, however, it also reverses the perspective of thinking about the Union, proposing a model that is more decentralised and united along the lines of communities of interest, underpinned by the Union's institutions, which have a supportive rather than a supervisory role.

A high degree of trust between 450 million people whose ancestors fought each other for hundreds of years cannot be built in a few decades. It is a process that must be spread out over time, and the 'escape forward' that has characterised Brussels' approach in recent years ends in disillusionment, chaos and the risk of squandering what has been realistically achieved. The Union should remain coherent in those things that unite it, but at the same time it should be internally flexible and competitive to stimulate the processes that have historically made it the most effective piece of land in the world. This may, at the same time, exclude competition in the power game of Europe as a whole, on principles similar to those of the Americans and the Chinese. And there is a simple reason for this: Europe is not a state, or even a federation, and will not be for the foreseeable future. However, it is not necessary to take part in this rivalry in order to achieve the fundamental objectives of the countries of Europe: security, prosperity and freedom. The Union can, however, selectively use its "power characteristics", for example to protect the single market.

Already today, invisible evolutionary forces are pushing Europe to reform. Will it move towards greater centralisation? Or will it return to the principles of fierce competition, but this time with elements of fierce cooperation under the aegis of Brussels? Or will it be Europe that this time is crushed by a Darwinian evolutionary process? One thing is certain: sooner or later, change will come.

Sources:

1. https://www.politico.eu/article/mario-draghi-report-europe-finances-invest-energy-work/
   
2. https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/european-industry-lack-of-competitiveness-calls-for-eu-level-strategy-by-jakob-hafele-2024-07
   
3. https://www.ft.com/content/f6200dc5-e42b-4356-9951-70ca3a94cd0a
   
4. https://www.ft.com/content/b5fea80a-ca6e-4e07-a64b-d72f9989ad67
   
5. https://www.amazon.com/EU-Doomed-Global-Futures-ebook/dp/B00KUOC2UM?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=