12/01/2026
Speaking on The Europeans podcast at the very start of 2026, Professor Alberto Alemanno, founder of The Good Lobby, did not mince words: Europe is facing its most existential moment in modern history. Not Brexit. Not the euro crisis. Not even the migration debates. But a direct challenge to the very idea of Europe as a political and legal community.
The US-led removal by force of Venezuela’s president, combined with renewed threats over Greenland, marks a dangerous shift. For Alemanno, the most alarming part is not only the actions themselves, but Europe’s reaction – or lack of it. When red lines of international and European law are crossed, silence is not neutrality; it is acquiescence.
European leaders, he argues, are trapped in short-term calculations. Afraid of jeopardising fragile negotiations over Ukraine, they compromise on core principles in the hope that the US will continue to guarantee Europe’s security. This illusion is set to backfire. If Europe cannot speak with one voice when its own territorial integrity is questioned, it may already be too late.
The implications go far beyond Europe. A NATO country openly challenging another NATO member sends a global signal: territorial grabs are back on the table. To Russia. To China. To anyone willing to test how far power now outweighs law. This is the end of multilateralism as we knew it, replaced by a zero-sum logic where one region’s gain is another’s loss.
And yet, this moment is also an opportunity.
Alemanno points out the paradox: Europe is increasingly treated by the rest of the world as a single political actor – even if Europeans themselves still hesitate to act like one. Rivals see Europe as a model worth undermining precisely because it represents an alternative: cooperation over domination, standards over force, rights over raw power.
This is where leadership matters. The European Commission, and Ursula von der Leyen in particular, still have tools at their disposal: suspending trade deals, defending common standards, asserting Europe’s economic and regulatory power, and acting decisively in the European public interest. Rolling back environmental and public-interest protections in the name of “competitiveness” is not strength; it is Europe giving away the one power it truly has – acting together.
Europe is very good at diagnosing its weaknesses. Infrastructure gaps. Fragmented defence. Political inertia. What it struggles with is acting on that diagnosis. The uncomfortable question for 2026 is therefore not what needs to be done, but what will it take for Europeans to finally do it.
There is, however, a reason for cautious optimism. For the first time in decades, a growing number of European citizens feel that something fundamental is at stake – and that Europe is worth defending. Proud not out of nostalgia, but because Europe still stands for something in a rapidly fragmenting world.
The more Europe is challenged, Alemanno suggests, the more Europeans will feel European. The task now is to turn that bottom-up demand into collective action – before events force unity upon us in far worse circumstances.
Europe has become “a thing”. The question is whether Europeans are ready to own it.
Podcast available here.