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6 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 31 AUGUST 2025 OPINION JP Fabri The EU is losing its relevance. Draghi is right Economist MARIO Draghi has never been one for theatrics. When he speaks, he chooses his words with the same precision that once steadied the eurozone through its darkest hours. That's why his recent speech at the Meeting di Rimini deserves far more at- tention than it has received. His warning was blunt: 2025 will be re- membered as the year Europe's illusion of geopolitical relevance vanished. It wasn't a line meant to provoke headlines. It was the sober conclusion of someone who has seen the inner workings of European institutions and knows their limits. Draghi's message was clear: Europe is no longer a serious global actor. We are not taken seriously in Wash- ington, increasingly ignored in Beijing, and consistently outmanoeuvred in re- gions we once sought to influence. De- spite having one of the largest econo- mies on the planet, the European Union has become marginal in the world's ma- jor decisions. We fund wars but aren't invited to peace tables. We react to cri- ses rather than shaping outcomes. We preach values we can no longer enforce. This is more than diplomatic failure. It is existential. Draghi's speech deserves to be read not just as commentary, but as an obit- uary of a Europe that believed its size, ideals, and integration were enough to guarantee global weight. That belief is now dead. To understand how we arrived here, it's worth turning to Max Weber, the German sociologist and political econ- omist whose work remains essential to understanding institutional power. Weber argued that the legitimacy of a political order comes not just from ide- als or values, but from its ability to act, to command, to deliver, to shape reali- ty. Power, in Weberian terms, is not the presence of structures, but the capacity to impose will through them. Europe has misunderstood this for decades. The EU has focused on rules, treaties, and summits. It has built one of the most intricate bureaucracies the world has ever known. But it has failed to equip itself with the institutional force and unity necessary to respond to an era of great power politics. In Weber's eyes, we have all the in- struments of a modern state but none of its spirit. The result is an actor paralysed by pro- cedure. A bloc trapped in a permanent committee meeting. And in a world that is accelerating, fragmenting, and milita- rising, that is fatal. For years, Europe convinced itself that its market size and regulatory influence were enough. That being the world's largest trading bloc gave us a seat at every table. That funding development was as important as defining security. That diplomacy could substitute for strategy. That illusion is gone. In 2025, Europe was side-lined in Ukraine peace negotiations, absent in responses to new Middle East escala- tions, and caught flat-footed as China consolidated its grip on critical min- eral chains. Even Africa, once seen as Europe's natural sphere of influence, is now tilting toward China and Gulf cap- ital. The brutal truth is this. Economic mass does not automatically translate into geopolitical power. If anything, our fragmented policies and lack of political will have made us more vulnerable, not less. Draghi's central point wasn't that Eu- rope's values are flawed. On the con- trary, they remain the world's most aspirational: peace, democracy, social protection, sustainability. But the ques- tion now is: Can we defend them? If the EU cannot protect its borders, invest in its own defence, lead in inno- vation, or secure its energy future, then its values become hollow. As Draghi put it: "Scepticism is not about our princi- ples; it's about our ability to uphold them." And that, again, echoes Weber. Au- thority must be embodied. It must show up in action. Otherwise, it is dismissed. And that is exactly what's happening to Europe in the eyes of the world. Draghi called for what few Europe- an leaders have dared to say; a radical overhaul of the EU's institutional ma- chinery. A shared fiscal capacity to invest in defence, digital transformation, and en- ergy security. A genuine capital markets union to unlock private investment. A shift from intergovernmental paral- ysis to federal-level decision-making in core areas. Political leadership that speaks the language of power, not just partnership. It is not a call to abandon the EU. It is a call to finally complete it. Because without transformation, the EU won't collapse. That's not how sys- tems like ours die. Instead, it will fade; into irrelevance. Into a relic of a more hopeful age. Into what Draghi described so starkly—a spectator, not a protago- nist, of history. The tragedy of Europe today is not that it lacks ideals, it's that it lacks agen- cy. And as Max Weber reminds us, in politics, ideals without action are indis- tinguishable from impotence. Draghi has done his part. He has spo- ken truth to power, as only someone with nothing left to prove can do. The question now is: Will anyone in Brussels listen? If not, history will not be kind. It rarely is to empires that drift into decline be- lieving they were still relevant. Mario Draghi at Rimini meeting Draghi's speech deserves to be read not just as commentary, but as an obituary of a Europe that believed its size, ideals, and integration were enough to guarantee global weight. That belief is now dead.