After a decade of crises in Europe, historic decisions were taken at the EU and NATO summits to strengthen the continent. To overcome today’s challenges, Brussels must confront the causes of its paralysis in the 2010s.
“Europe will be forged in crisis” must be the most frequently used and abused Jean Monnet quotation about European integration. Brussels-based EU observers have heard it time and again as the continent somersaulted from crisis to crisis.
In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia and the eurozone crisis started. In 2015–16 the EU seemed on the brink of collapsing under the weight of refugees seeking protection from conflict, the British vote to leave the EU, and the election of a viscerally anti-European U.S. president. Throughout, governments trembled at every election, fearful of being swept away by a populist wave.

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