The postwar order that shaped European ambition is giving way to something harder and less forgiving. The world has not become post-geopolitical; it has become multi-layered, volatile, and strategically competitive, with influence now flowing through networks, capital, and technological systems as much as through armies and territory. Europe finds itself caught between two logics of power, traditional and emerging. This is not a moment for incremental adjustment; it is a moment for honest reckoning about whether Europe understands the transformation underway.
- Does Europe have clarity on what power actually means today, and what would it take to develop a coherent strategy that spans both its traditional strengths and the new domains where dominance is being decided?
- What leverage does Europe still genuinely possess — economic, diplomatic, technological, and values-based — and how can it be translated into strategic relevance rather than just regulatory clout?
- How can the EU overcome its internal fragmentation to achieve the scale, speed, and unity that the new global power competition demands?
- What would a genuine model of pooled sovereignty look like in practice?
- How can Europe build partnerships grounded in mutual capability rather than dependency, and what does strategic autonomy require beyond declarations?
Executive Summary This opening panel of the Forum's second day brought voices on European politics and geopolitics together for a candid reckoning with Europe's power deficit. Michael Barnier argued that Europe's failure to address citizens' daily concerns at the right level, national, regional and European — is feeding the nationalist movements that use Brussels as a scapegoat for problems. Ivan Krastev offered the session's most arresting reframe: power is about expectations, not just capabilities, and Europe's material power has not declined as much as others' perception of it has. When it comes to tools, Mij Rahman, identified membership conditionality, single market access, trade architecture and the frozen Russian reserves in EuroClear as genuine instruments of leverage that Europe has either underused or failed to deploy coherently. Barnier's most resonant proposal was institutional: Europe needs a single empowered envoy to negotiate with Russia, modelled on the Brexit negotiation's daily transparency methodology. Livestream Link: https://youtube.com/live/BIwKUT0J11E?feature=share
