Europe's Glass Half Full

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Good news, when it comes, should not be hidden, you know, and if good news, in Europe, appears at the same time that, in foreign policy, bad news seems to prevail, it is clear that showing the glass half full, putting it on a higher pedestal than the glass half empty, can have a special taste. The news that arrived on Sunday evening from Germany presents many elements that could lead us to focus a lot on the glass half empty, not least the fact that a party that has done everything to appear neo-Nazi has intercepted one voter in five . But at a historical moment in which Europe is objectively besieged. At a historical moment in which the anti-Europeans have incredibly raised their heads. At a historical moment in which the majority shareholders of the American Administration have chosen to transform the European Union into an enemy to be destroyed.

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And at a time when even the most optimistic among us might hesitate as we observe protectionism returning, isolationism resurfacing, neo-Nazis galloping, Chamberlains advancing, the spirit of Munich 1938 resurfacing , the mistakes made with the Third Reich repeated with Putin. Well, at a time when all this is happening, there is some good news . And the result of the German elections, after all, is there to remind us that however weak, divided, attacked it may be, Europe continues to be a blessed oasis of freedom and a bulwark against the extremisms of the past and present. And so here is the good news coming from Germany. First: the pro-Europeans are winning and will form a government .

Second: the alternative to a moderate left (SPD) is not a far right ( AfD ) but a moderate right (CDU plus CSU) which, contrary to many expectations, will have the numbers to form a government (a grand coalition) without having to deal with small parties (the proportional system with a five percent threshold is not bad).

Third: the activism of Trumpism's agents (first Musk and then Vance ) did not produce significant effects in the electoral campaign and the AfD's result (20 percent) is in line with the polls of the months preceding the entry into the field of the Tenth Musk.

Fourth: the right that has established itself in Germany is a special right, the first in the world to be fiercely opposed to the Musk model, fiercely alternative to the Trump method and fiercely convinced of the need to defend Europe from the aggression of the American Administration.

Fifth: despite the advance of Putinism's Trojan horses in Europe, albeit with a thousand difficulties, the front of friends and defenders of Ukraine continues to prevail . It prevailed in Germany, where the parties that defend Ukraine have an absolute majority. It prevailed in the legislative elections in France, where Macron , albeit recklessly, managed to create a wall against Marine Le Pen 's party. It prevailed in the United Kingdom, where Keir Starmer , albeit with a thousand problems today, has offered the European left clear lessons on what it means to be, from the left, in defense of freedom, in Ukraine. It prevailed in the formation of the European Commission, at the center of which is, albeit sometimes timidly , the issue of the defense of Kyiv (and how nice to see some great European leaders, and not only, parading in Kyiv yesterday, and it is a shame that the Meloni government did not find a way yesterday to show its closeness, in a plastic way, to an attacked country). And anti-Putinian Europeanism could also prevail in Austria, where the pro-Ukraine parties (Övp, Spö, Neos) are looking for a way to create a government while keeping out the pro-Russian and anti-European party (Fpö). Merz, yesterday, in his first speech as Chancellor in pectore, stated that, as far as he is concerned, the key message of the new Germany "must be very clear: Europe is united". And even if there is a new impetus to respond to the challenge of Europe's enemies , we must realize that for the European Union "it is five minutes to midnight", and time to grow, to protect itself from external and internal enemies, is therefore running out .

Europe is weak, it is slow, it is cumbersome, it is late, but today's Europe still manages to be, in the vast majority of cases, on the right side of history, as well as on Kyiv's side. And from this point of view, the arrival of an anti-Trump and anti-Muskian right at the helm of Germany is good news for several reasons. Because it will allow the European Union to have at its disposal an engine that has been missing in recent months, the Franco-German one. And because it will force many leaders in Europe, including Giorgia Meloni , to increasingly deal not with the perceived Trump, the Trump that each of us wants to see, but with the real Trump . And ultimately the paradoxical fact of the historical phase that Europe is experiencing is that those who take Trump's words about our continent seriously, about the threats regarding tariffs, about the humiliation of Ukraine, are more those right-wingers who do not recognize themselves in Trumpism than those right-wingers who have chosen not to fight Trumpism. And in this sense, among the most interesting words used in recent months by Friedrich Merz , there are some that are worth highlighting and that concern what the next German Chancellor considers "an absolute priority", namely "strengthening Europe as quickly as possible, so as to obtain independence from the United States". Obtaining independence from the United States means many things.

It means preparing to face Trump by taking him seriously, when he threatens trade wars, when he threatens to leave Europe alone against Putin , when he threatens to abandon Ukraine , when he threatens to remove the American umbrella on defense issues in the event of a slow increase in military spending on our continent. And the idea that there is a new engine in Europe that can push Europe to defend itself from Trump, not to accept Musk's interference, not to have its agenda dictated by foreign countries, not to pander to extremists, not to underestimate the risk of having a different NATO tomorrow than today's and not to give up the heroes of Ukraine by an inch is positive news for Germany, it is positive news for Europe and it is also positive news for Italy which, faced with the return of a stable Germany, the return of a Europe with a newfound leadership, the umpteenth failed attempt by extremists to reach the government of a large European country, will have greater incentive to avoid governing by focusing only on the basic idea of ​​living off the proceeds. Being patriots, in Europe, without being Trumpian is possible. And the fact that exactly three years after Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Germany has reminded us of this by not allowing a party that is loved by both Trumpians and Putinians to come to government is news that leads us to optimistically remind ourselves that in Europe, against extremists, the glass that counts is the half-full one, not the half-empty one .

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