Who is in charge of Europe?

Football is a EUEU EUgame where “twenty-two men chase a ball for 90 minutes and at the end, the Germans always win,” quipped Gary Lineker, an English player. For decades the European project had similarly predictable dynamics: whether composed of six countries or 12 or 27, member states chased compromises until whatever had been stitched up by France and Germany was accepted by all. But the old model of dominance by its two biggest members has long been creaking. As Europe faces up to repeated crises a new, more fluid geography of power is taking shape.Three years of pandemic, then war in Ukraine, have helped recast the . This includes shifting the balance of who matters. Defence and , once dormant policy areas, are now priorities—giving a new voice to Ukraine’s neighbours in central Europe. The rise of China, and the prospect of resurgent Trumpism in America, has caused the to rethink its economic arrangements—often along statist French lines. Climate imperatives have reinforced the value of taking action at a collective level—an approach favoured by the ’s quasi-federal institutions in Brussels. And from Finland to France, populists on the hard right are gaining influence ahead of European Parliament elections in June.