The world is currently experiencing one of the most profound geopolitical upheavals since the end of the Second World War – an upheaval in which the European Union is scarcely perceived as a formative force anymore. As a result, it risks becoming the big loser in this global realignment.

The EU now finds itself in what is probably the most difficult situation since its inception. In the east, it faces an increasingly hopeless war in Ukraine; in the south, Israel, one of its closest partners, is engaged in several military conflicts that it can no longer win. At the same time, the transatlantic alliance is being put to the test by its hopeless commitment to Ukraine. While Russia is demanding Ukraine’s permanent neutrality and the annexation of areas in eastern Ukraine that are important in terms of security policy and geostrategy, the US wants to expand the American hemisphere by reaching for the strategically important Greenland of its NATO ally Denmark. In Iran, there is the threat of a completely uncontrollable war that would plunge Europe’s neighbouring region of the Middle East into years of unrest. And with China, the emerging global power, the EU cannot find a stable mode of cooperation. The new group of BRICS-plus countries, which now outnumbers the EU demographically and outperforms it economically and technologically, is being negligently ignored by Europe.