For the EU, ‘Europe’ is just a post-national administrative state

What is “European sovereignty”? The Brussels establishment has embraced this phrase for years now, the invention being one of the finest woven by Emmanuel Macron’s spin doctors. Having spent decades claiming that sovereignty itself is an idea of the past — with politics being of no importance in the new era of corporate power and “civil society” — the formula of “European” sovereignty has given the Eurocrats a seat at the new narrative table.  State power, nationhood, true sovereignty and geopolitics have again come to govern the debates among the countries of Europe. The idea of “European” sovereignty gives a scared bureaucracy some cover: “We offer sovereignty but it is European sovereignty”. It isn’t just a fraud that they are attempting. It is, as former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell has recently made clear, a subterfuge and a lesson in cynicism.

In a tweet published on X on December 9th, Borrell doubled down on the EU Establishment’s favourite tactic: Playing on both coarse anti-Americanism and the useful image of the ruthless Russian ogre to mobilise internal consent. Reacting to the recently unveiled United States National Security Strategy, he accused Washington of declaring “political war” on the European Union by desiring a “white Europe divided into nations.” He concluded that “European leaders must stop pretending that Trump is not our adversary and hiding behind a fearful and complacent silence” and, instead, that Europe must rise to the challenge posed by this “war” waged on it by the Trump administration, apparently with the sinister purpose of achieving a Europe of European nations with majority European populations – that is, of restoring Europe as it has been for millennia, inhabited by its native peoples and characterised by the cultural, linguistic, political, and institutional diversity that has always been hers.

Borrell’s statement is remarkably revealing. Not because of anything meaningful it might have said about American strategy, but rather because of how openly and loudly it exposes the conceptual universe that informs EU elites. In their worldview, Europe is not a civilisation forged by distinct peoples with histories, borders, languages, and political traditions. Europe is a post-national administrative space, vertically regulated from Brussels, legitimised by abstract values, and insulated—wherever possible—from democratic interference. When Borrell denounces a “Europe divided into nations,” he is not describing a threat to Europe – that, after all, is precisely what Europe is. Instead, he is discussing a threat to the continued power of his caste.

Manipulation has proved a faithful ally. Sovereignty, or the capacity of a people to independent self-government, is now redefined as the ability of supranational institutions to act without constraint—whether from voters, member states, or inconvenient electoral outcomes. When Borrell urges leaders to “assert the sovereignty of the EU,” he is not calling for Europeans to regain control over their destiny. He is demanding further transfers of power away from national democracies toward an already bloated, unaccountable centre — not with the purpose of defending Europeans, but the position of prominence enjoyed by the bureaucracy to which he belongs.

It is, however, the hypocrisy of it all that surprises and scandalises the most. Brussels lectures Washington about non-interference while it routinely interferes in the internal politics of its own member states. Governments that deviate from the Commission’s ideological orthodoxy face financial blackmail, rule-of-law procedures, media pressure, and judicial activism. Elections and referendums are tolerated only so long as they produce the results desired by Brussels. When they do not, the verdict of the electorate is framed as a problem to be corrected, not as a choice to be respected. Yet, even as the Euro-caste implements all-out campaigns to rid itself of inconvenient governments in Hungary and Slovakia, engages in de facto coups in Romania — as happened with Călin Georgescu, the right-wing presidential candidate in Romania who was forbidden from running in the second turn of the election after finishing a tad too well in the first — and cooperates with the Tusk government in its purges of the Polish opposition, it still has the audacity of calling for European sovereignty from, indeed against, the United States.

Brussels is angry because it knows that the political revolution started by Trump and now spreading throughout the continent, where the nationalist Right is at the gates of power in Britain, France, Austria, Romania, and Portugal, heralds the end of their era as the masters of Europe. They see, fear, and loathe the US as a catalyst — and are right to do so. When American leaders openly criticise Europe’s strategic weakness, its dependence, or its cultural drift, they give voice to doubts already widely felt within European societies. That is what truly unsettles Brussels. The fear is not actually that Washington will impose an agenda, but that its critique will resonate with Europeans who increasingly sense that the EU no longer acts in their interest or in their name. 

This is why they are resorting to such brazen language as a “political war” and describing Trump as an “adversary.” It is also why they have now come to see supposed “foreign influence” as a deadly threat—so long as it comes from outside the Brussels consensus. The same institutions that for years dismissed concerns about the subversive nature of left-wing NGOs, engaged in corporate lobbying, and instrumentalised courts, media, and police against free electoral expression now unveil “Democracy Shields” to protect the very democracy that they have systematically hollowed out. 

In the cynical, shameless spin of the Brussels mandarins, “European sovereignty” is not designed as a weapon for the benefit of Europe, but as a weapon against Europe. It is their sovereignty — the elite’s right to do as it pleases without constraint. For them, sovereignty means the destruction of Europe’s nations by syphoning away whatever political power they still hold and crushing them with limitless Third World immigration. Borrell’s mistake was to say this too openly.