Contenu du sommaire : Europe, sorties de crises

Since 2008, the European Union has been through a series of existential crises. It has demonstrated its resilience and its ability to adapt by improvising and innovating. Today it is more integrated across multiple domains. But now the time has come for a more structural, more voluntarist approach, which will allow the EU to strengthen its strategic autonomy. This is the only way for it to be a true global actor, capable of holding its own against the other great powers.

The double shocks of Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic have demonstrated the resilience of the European Union's tendency toward increased integration, in particular through the Next Generation EU plan. But it was far from straightforward to get this plan adopted, and the pandemic has also given rise to a return to strictly national initiatives on the rule of law, border closures, and vaccination. Will the Conference on the Future of Europe allow the Union to adopt the constitutional changes that seem to be required?

The European Union has successfully managed the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, and Brexit has strengthened its cohesion around the Franco-German axis. Confrontation between China and the United States favors European unity within the Western alliance, while controversies over “illiberalism” could be seen as a Europeanization of domestic policy. However, these things will not necessarily lead to significant changes in the equilibrium between the Union and its member states.

The eurozone crisis marked a real failure of European Union policy, which led to mediocre economic performance and the erosion of its political legitimacy among the populations of member states. The crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, on the other hand, after some initial wavering, showed its capacity to respond, in particular by taking on common debt. This fresh start for the EU nonetheless needs to be confirmed both politically and institutionally.

This seems like a fitting moment to strengthen European cooperation on defense. A clear objective has been identified: to be able to deploy a European military force during times of crisis. In order to achieve this, defense capabilities and an internal defense market must be developed. The existing institutions—the European Union Military Staff, the European Defence Agency, an embryonic military academy—are underused. It is possible to make significant progress in this direction without radical institutional change or modification of existing treaties.

When African nations achieved independence, local elites did not really imagine any possible alternative to the state (imported by the colonizers) as the model of political organization. Without even broaching the issue of the problems caused by the borders inherited from the colonial period, it is clear that this model has reached the end of the road in several countries. Mali is an obvious example. Yet it is possible to imagine and implement other forms of political organization, inspired by historical and traditional examples.

Mali's highly diverse society had the structures of an overbearing state imposed upon it first by the French colonial powers and then by the independent Malian state. Such a model was completely alien to the organizational practices of the pastoral societies that make up a significant proportion of the population of the country and the region. It is clearly time to abandon a Western paradigm that does not properly recognize the country's particularities and to explore more adaptable methods of political organization that take its diversity into account.

The security sector reforms undertaken in a number of African countries have had widely differing outcomes. In Guinea, the emergency measures taken aroused some hope, but they were not pursued longer term, while in Côte d'Ivoire, the positive effects seem to have lasted longer. In Mali, security sector reforms have failed to progress because of a lack of political will. The situation is complicated by the two coups d'état Mali has undergone in 2020 and 2021, but the international community must keep up the pressure on the authorities.

For the last thirty years or so, the Sahel has been the theater of an Islamic resurgence, promoted principally by Salafist and Sufi groups. Some religious actors are seeking to Islamize society from below without engaging directly in politics. Others aspire to taking power, whether via the ballot box or through the use of force. Both the states affected and external actors have reacted to this religious dynamic in a variety of ways.

In 2009, a gold rush kicked off in Sudan, spreading through the Sahara until it reached Mauritania in 2016. It was initially seen as a threat because it might feed conflict and terrorism, but a more positive view emerged later because gold extraction was offering new opportunities to marginalized populations. For some states, gold is not only a source of revenue but also an instrument for social control.

The United States' departure from Afghanistan was negotiated directly with the Taliban, bypassing the government in Kabul. It opened the way to the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan being restored more quickly than expected. Now the Taliban have to govern in the face of multiple challenges. An economic crisis is fueling a humanitarian one; the threat of Daesh looms; and a divided international community, still waiting for promises of openness to be kept, months after the return of the mullah-dominated regime, is withholding recognition.

The system put into place in Poland by the Law and Justice party (Pi
S) and the coalition that supports it relies on two things: on the one hand, an emotional community centered around a charismatic leader; on the other, decisions that favor working-class constituencies abandoned in the transition to liberal democracy. The pursuit of autocracy has been responsible for multiple attacks on the rule of law. In spite of this, a certain “fatigue” may play a role in the coming elections, corroborating recent street demonstrations led predominantly by young people.