Europe fears it can't catch up in great power competition

In the accelerating contest between great powers, Europe is struggling to keep up.

- Laurence Norman

The continent's leaders have long worried they will be left behind as the U.S., China and Russia vie for economic, technological and military dominance.

Officials now fear they have reached that point.

Their mood darkened over the summer as Europe was left on the sidelines as the U.S. and China sought to reset the rules of global trade.

It became bleak when the White House presented a plan for ending the war between Russia and Ukraine this month without consulting European leaders.

In response, the European Union crafted a counterproposal more acceptable to Ukraine, and its member states are rushing to rearm as the bloc looks for ways to break its institutional gridlock.

Change will be hard and take time, something many European officials worry the continent doesn't have.

"Battle lines for a new world order, based on power, are being drawn right now," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in her annual address to EU lawmakers in September. "A new Europe must emerge." How to make that metamorphosis happen is concentrating minds in Europe, where the escalating fear among current and former officials is that the EU's structure and procedures will leave it among the biggest losers in the new geopolitical pecking order.

European officials are warming up to harnessing smaller groups of countries to make the whole bloc militarily and economically fitter.

Mario Draghi, a former European Central Bank president who was asked last year to design a plan to make Europe more competitive, is pushing for groups of countries to conduct joint defense research and procurement, and to design common rules allowing European tech companies to scale up quickly. Draghi, a former Italian prime minister, wants European industrial giants to pool investments in strategic sectors such as semiconductors to help the continent regain an edge.

It is an approach that is gradually winning support.