European integration has been the cornerstone of building and strengthening liberal democracies within the transatlantic world and allied countries. The European Union (EU) and NATO, together with the Anglo-Saxon countries and allies, represent the institutional architecture of liberal international order. However, freedom and democracy are facing policy risks that affect European integration, mostly due to rising populist disinformation as well as Russian aggressive policy.
Protecting the security, freedom, and democracy of the European future and NATO-led global order requires building a strong European central intelligence agency in addition to the existing national security systems.
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DANIEL HINŠT_POLICY RISKS TO THE UNITED FUTURE OF EUROPE-updated
Considerations about a new institutional architecture of Europe open up ideas for building the United States of Europe – fashioned after the United States of America, originally founded on the classical liberal and federalist ideas, as A New Order of the Ages. In line with that, building a renewed and potentially federal future of Europe in more liberty, equality, and fraternity shall be taken into consideration.
The Need for Basic Institutions
Together with the United States, the European Union is the building block of the liberal international order. Within that institutional context, NATO provides security infrastructure for this transatlantic alliance. Despite their certain differences, European and American institutions share common values of liberal democracy, including individual freedom, open society, the rule of law, and market economy.
However, those values have been put into question partly due to rising populist disinformation as well as Russian aggressive policy. Attempts by various actors to decrease trust in the transatlantic institutions and European values – considered as liberal in a broader sense – directly affect the future of European integration and its enlargement, not to mention the federalist idea of the European Union.
In order to move toward a federal structure, the EU would need to build basic institutions – such as intelligence and armed forces. Let us, therefore, examine the initiatives and options for creating a European central intelligence agency, to support the existing Common Foreign and Security policy within the NATO framework. This way, the EU would be strengthened institutionally as a U.S. partner, instead of relying on the false dilemma of independence from the United States.
