Russian aggression, American self-interest and a return to great-power conflict are the defining features of 2025. With liberal democracy under assault from several directions, the EU is finally grappling with how to make its democracies more robust and resilient, at home and globally.
The consensus around European foreign policy has moved towards a more ‘realistic’ approach to power: more hard than soft, pursuing interests over values, with fewer conditions governing international agreements. Deals with autocrats are on the table if they give us something we need.
And yet internally, we still recognise the need to protect democratic values. The European Commission last year unveiled the EU Democracy Shield, a worthwhile initiative to bring the various efforts to protect our liberties under a common framework.
The problem is that these emerging external and internal approaches are diametrically opposed. If this contradiction runs its course, it will weaken both the domestic resilience and the external power of the European Union — and, therefore, of freedom on a global scale. To avoid that, we must develop a new balance between soft and hard power.
Values are long-term interests
In the brave new world of 2025, the old distinction between essential interests and nice-to-have values doesn’t hold water. The world is more peaceful, stable and prosperous the more democracies and fewer autocracies there are. While a deal with the devil might help us in the immediate term, it will bring harm further down the road.
America’s arming of the Taliban in the 1980s helped weaken the Soviet Union in the short term, but created huge problems two decades later. Closer to home, the EU’s China policy gave the immediate benefit of lucrative export markets and cheap imports, but we are now paying dearly through painful supply chain dependencies on those very markets, which are often distorted by Chinese political interests.
To promote the universal values of freedom and democracy, in other words, is to promote European interests in the long term. The dilemma is not so much whether to promote interests or values, but whether we pursue values in the short or long term.
With this understanding, we can see that a deal with an autocrat might help us to, say, curb illegal migration through a certain country — but empowering civil society in that country would create a more stable and prosperous neighbour, something of much greater long-term value.
Democracies in decline worldwide
The increasing self-confidence of autocrats and the sense of democratic decline is not new. The number of free countries in the world has been falling for almost two decades, according to Freedom House. It has been clear for some time now that the optimism of the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of Soviet communism, was premature and bordered on hubris.
Nonetheless, the first months of Donald Trump’s second presidential term have already indicated an acceleration of democratic backsliding, in the form of more aggressive autocracies and a further undermining of the rule of law both in Europe and in the United States.
Most dramatically, the US has practically ceased its support for democracy and democrats across the globe, reversing a seven-decade-old policy that underpinned America’s role as a global advocate of freedom and human rights. This reversal arguably marks the low point of freedom globally since the end of the Cold War.
China, Russia and other autocracies now feel enabled to fill this gap. They are free to spread their narratives and their influence, creating dependencies through financial, medical and technical assistance without giving any support to civil society and the rule of law.
The EU may not be able entirely to fill the gap left by the US, but we owe it to ourselves to step up and at least aspire to take on the mantle of leader of the free world.
Time to adopt smart power
The EU has neglected hard power for decades and is now reaping the consequences. To make things worse, it also developed a rather self-congratulatory attitude about its own soft power.
But as we reverse course, we risk pouring the baby out with the bathwater. There is still a role for soft power alongside Europe’s military renaissance, supporting democracies around the world as an outer line of defence for our own freedom. Our new approach to power projection should not be entirely hard or soft, but balanced. Call it ‘smart power.’
In supporting democracy, the EU needs to think beyond its neighbourhood. We have spent a lot of energy and money on supporting democracy and the rule of law in the countries adjacent to the EU, or across the Mediterranean. Now, institutions such as the European Endowment for Democracy should broaden their geographical scope.
Civil society is key, not only on the receiving end but also in the EU itself. The EU should offer financial support to organisations in member states that help foster civil society worldwide.
Local specificities and sensitivities need to be taken into account. Autocrats will always accuse of us of destroying family values and traditions, but we shouldn’t make it easy for them. Insisting on gender and LGBTQ policies that the vast majority of people in a target country disagree with is counterproductive.
The EU should treat global solidarity with democrats as a central interest in defending our own democracy. By mobilising civil society in the EU itself, we can reach out globally and fill at least part of the gap left by a US which has — hopefully temporarily — ditched its efforts to support freedom on a global scale.
By combining elements of hard and soft power, we can stop the democratic backsliding and support freedom-loving people across the globe.
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