This Is What an Unraveling European Union Looks Like
Almost 70 years after the bloc’s founders set out a course for “ever closer union,” key countries still aren’t ready to commit.
So the EU limps forward, unprepared for a new age of global conflict and at risk of living up to Emmanuel Macron’s warning in 2024: Unless it changes course, things could fall apart.
Macron has spent his entire political career wrestling with euroskeptic opponents. When he steps down next year, Marine Le Pen’s National Rally is in a strong position to finally claim the French presidency after a series of near misses.
Ever since Dutch and French voters threw out a constitutional treaty in 2005, successive generations of EU leaders swerved treaty change, afraid of career-ending, Union-damaging rejection.
The least dramatic — but surely most European — end would involve not a sudden collapse but a gradual fading away. While the bloc’s structures would endure, it would slowly lose its ability to shape the policy of its members and global rivals.
When Mario Draghi presented his report on the future of the EU economy in 2024, he warned that the bloc will suffer the “slow agony” of decline if it fails to take the difficult collective decisions required to compete with the US and China.
The EU might persist as an institution, with its traditions and rituals. But its aspirations to become a real geopolitical force would be over.
Ben Sills managing editor for Bloomberg’s economic and government coverage in Europe.
Bloomberg 27 February 2026
Annika Ström Melin om ett växande EU; Draghi kallar det för ”pragmatisk federalism”
https://englundmacro.blogspot.com/2026/02/annika-strom-melin-ett-vaxande-eu.html
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