A Europe capable of acting

Erik Jones explores how effective the new E6 configuration made up of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland and the Netherlands could be. 

European Union (EU) leaders travelled to Kyiv to commemorate the four years of brutal fighting that started with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. They hoped to bring a loan of €90 billion agreed in the European Council last December.  Instead, they brought yet another veto by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who is blocking both the loan and the EU’s 20^th package of Russian sanctions. European solidarity with the people of Ukraine runs deep, but the EU’s ability to act on that commitment remains limited.

That might be about to change. The European Union (EU) has a new configuration – the E6 – bringing together Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the Netherlands.  Its creation reflects frustration with the inability of the bloc to move at the pace of global events. The EU specialises in the kind of slow consensus building that works well in a rules-based international system centred on multilateral institutions. It does not act decisively  as demanded by a more transactional and competitive global climate. The E6 is meant to fill the gap.

What the E6 promises is the opportunity to move ahead on key issues, pulling other member states along in its wake.  Together, the six countries account for just under 70 percent of the EU’s population and just over 71 percent of its gross domestic product. This mass gives the block a kind of ‘go-it-alone’ power, to borrow from LSE political scientist Lloyd Gruber, that individual countries like Hungary cannot match. If Viktor Orbán wants to jam up the system, they will just move on without him either by experimenting with forms of ‘enhanced cooperation’ that require only three other member states to join the group, or by cobbling together a broader coalition to form a qualified majority that combines more than half the EU’s population with more than half the 27 member states (meaning the group of six will need another eight).

Such moves do not overcome potential obstructionism entirely. Many decisions require unanimity, including the decision to allow for enhanced cooperation.  Orbán’s veto of the loan to Ukraine is a good illustration. Originally, Orbán agreed to allow the rest of the EU to provide that financing without Hungary; Slovakia and the Czech Republic also stayed out of the mix.  Now Orbán is pushing back again. The E6 nevertheless creates a credible threat for countries fed up with this kind of gamesmanship to work outside the EU’s institutions if Hungary or other small countries continue to stand in their way.

The E6 has four stated priorities: deepening European capital markets, expanding the international role of the euro, tightening coordination in defence procurement, and ensuring the resilience of European supply chains. Each policy area promises to lessen European dependence on other parts of the world while strengthening European ‘strategic autonomy’ — the EU’s ability to act decisively and with purpose. The E6 is not a simple workaround, but part of a larger strategy.  The goal is not just to overcome domestic irritants like Orbán but also to blunt the leverage exercised by Russia, China, and the United States.

The plan is to start with finance, creating a savings and investment union that will encourage European investors who currently hold their money abroad to invest in innovation, infrastructure, industry, and security back in Europe.  This is an area where Orbán will have a hard time justifying opposition – and so will other small countries like Ireland or Luxembourg that are currently gumming up the legislative machinery. It is also an area where the E6 countries can make a credible threat to build much of what they need outside EU institutions if necessary.  The European Monetary System that led to the creation of the euro started that way.  So did the European Stability Mechanism that promised to bail out member states during the sovereign debt crisis.

The challenge for the E6 is that they will need to move quickly and under difficult political circumstances.  France, Poland, and Italy have national elections in 2027.  While Giorgia Meloni is likely to retain control in Italy, political power is divided between president and parliament in Poland and France. Meanwhile, Germany is governed by a fragile coalition, and Spain and the Netherlands have minority coalition governments. Apart from Italy, perhaps, none of these countries looks capable of acting quickly and with purpose on their own, let alone as a group of six.

European history provides some reassurance. If you look at the late 1950s and early 1960s, none of the original six participants in the EEC was in great shape. France went through a revolution in 1958 that led to the founding of a 5th Republic under the leadership of General Charles De Gaulle, and De Gaulle was deeply sceptical of European integration.  Germany faced a constant threat of Soviet aggression, it suffered the building of the Berlin Wall, and it experienced deep divisions within the governing Christian-Democratic coalition between those who preferred to focus on Europe and those who wanted to look across the Atlantic. Italy had its own political turmoil including within the hegemonic Christian Democrats.  Belgium faced the threat of conflict between French- and Flemish speaking citizens as it wrestled with decolonisation. Even the Netherlands faced a crisis of governability. Yet somehow these countries held together in the face of major domestic challenges. The process was not always easy, and tensions rose sharply among the different governments. But they managed.

If the E6 succeeds in this first effort, that should make it easier for the EU to move decisively through the other three priorities. The E6 could make it possible for the British government to achieve its own objectives by partnering more effectively with the EU in a more competitive and less rules-based global environment. And this is the broader ambition. The E6 reflects a growing recognition that Europeans, including the British, will need ‘strategic autonomy’ — the ability to act decisively and with purpose — if they are to prosper in a more competitive, transactional, and violent global climate. It also reflects an awareness that the EU is not ‘Europe’, both because it is too slow moving and because it is not inclusive enough.

By Professor Erik Jones, Director, Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.