Europe has been living in La La land because they had their defense covered by the U.S. and cheap energy from Russia — both of which supported a cushy lifestyle and little ambition and little worries. On top of all that, you’ve had people who believe GDP growth is bad successfully lobbying policy in some places and the European Commission strangling the continent with insane regulatory framework…then add all the separate interests from the different countries (Nordics don’t trust France when it comes to militarizing because they think it is a ploy to benefit French companies, etc.)…
All of these things are structurally very bad for the Continent and it needs to wake up. There needs to be bold reform: decide if the European Commission is truly the way to go (and so the states give up their own sovereignty) or whether you go back to individual sovereign states working toward common interests but also doing things their own way…
The European Commission’s regs like AI Act and GDPR need to be either drastically gutted or eliminated entirely. The European Commission’s regulators who suffer with “Man with Hammer syndrome” need to be fired. There needs to be drastic reform