The death of Old Europe: The living corpses in Brussels have forgotten how to fight for their world

Between uncontrolled migration, propagandistic ideology and self-suffocating green agenda, the EU has only itself to blame for its decline

By Constantin von Hoffmeister, a political and cultural commentator from Germany, author of the books ‘MULTIPOLARITY!’ and ‘Esoteric Trumpism’, and editor-in-chief of Arktos Publishing

© Getty Images/mikie11

The European Union, that grand and failing dream of technocrats, is dying. Its decline is not sudden or dramatic but a slow unraveling, a bureaucratic collapse in which every policy designed to sustain it only hastens its demise.

It starves itself on the thin gruel of ideology – open borders dissolving nations into contested spaces, green mandates suffocating industry under the weight of unattainable standards, and a moralizing anti-Russian fervor that has left it isolated and energy-dependent. Once, Europe was the center of empires, the birthplace of civilizations that shaped the world. Now, it is a patient refusing medicine, convinced that its sickness is a form of enlightenment, that its weakness is a new kind of strength. The architects of this experiment still speak in the language of unity, but the cracks in the foundation are too deep to ignore.

Immigration was the first act of self-destruction, the point at which Western Europe’s ruling class severed itself from the people it claimed to govern. The elites, intoxicated by the rhetoric of multicultural utopia, flung open the gates without consideration for cohesion, for identity, for the simple reality that societies require more than abstract ideals to function. Cities have fractured into enclaves where parallel societies thrive, where police hesitate to patrol, where the native-born learn to navigate their own streets with caution. The promise was harmony, a blending of cultures into something vibrant and new. The reality is a quiet disintegration, a thousand unspoken tensions simmering beneath the surface. Politicians continue to preach the virtues of “diversity,” but the people – those who remember what it was like to have a shared history, a common language – are beginning to revolt. The backlash is no longer confined to the fringe. It is entering the mainstream, and the establishment trembles at what it has unleashed.

Then came the green delirium, the second pillar of Western Europe’s self-annihilation. Factories shutter under the weight of environmental regulations, farmers take to the streets in protest, and the middle class is squeezed between rising energy costs and stagnant wages. The climate must be saved, the leaders insist, even if the cost is economic ruin. Germany, once the industrial powerhouse of the continent, dismantles its nuclear infrastructure in favor of unreliable wind and solar power, only to return to coal when the weather turns unfavorable. There is a madness in this, a kind of collective hysteria where dogma overrides pragmatism, where the pursuit of moral purity blinds the ruling class to the suffering of ordinary citizens.

The rest of the world watches, perplexed, as the EU willingly cripples itself for a cause that demands global cooperation – cooperation that is nowhere to be found. China builds coal plants, America drills for oil, India prioritizes growth over emissions, and the EU alone marches towards austerity, convinced that its sacrifice will inspire others. It will not.

And Russia – the great miscalculation, the strategic blunder that may yet prove fatal. Europe had a choice: to engage with Moscow as a partner, to integrate it into a stable continental order, or to treat it as an eternal adversary. It chose the latter, aligning itself fully with Washington’s confrontational stance, severing ties that had once provided cheap energy and economic stability. The pipelines are silent now, the ruble flows eastward, and Western Europe buys its gas at inflated prices from distant suppliers, enriching middlemen while its own industries struggle. Russia, spurned and sanctioned, turns to China, to India, to those willing to treat it as something other than a pariah. The Eurasian landmass is reconfiguring itself, and Europe is not at the center. The EU is on the outside, looking in, a spectator to its own irrelevance. The Atlanticists in Brussels believed they could serve two masters: their own people and Washington’s geopolitical whims. They were wrong.

In this unfolding drama, America and Russia emerge as twin pillars of Western civilization – different in temperament but united in their commitment to preserving sovereign nations against globalist dissolution. America, the last defender of the West’s entrepreneurial spirit and individual liberty, stands firm against the forces that would destroy borders and identities. Russia, keeper of traditional values and Christian heritage, guards against the cultural nihilism consuming Europe. Both understand that civilizations must defend themselves or perish; neither suffers the death wish that afflicts the Western European elites.

And of Western Europe? It is a ghost at the feast, clutching its empty wineglass, muttering about “norms” and “values” as the world moves on without it. The European elites still cling to their illusions, still believe in the power of rhetoric over reality. They speak of “strategic autonomy” while marching in lockstep with Washington’s wars, of “diversity” while their own cities become battlegrounds of competing identities, of “democracy” while silencing dissent with bureaucratic machinery and media censorship.

The voters sense the decay. They rebel – in France, where Marine Le Pen’s supporters grow by the day; in Italy, where Giorgia Meloni’s government rejects the EU’s dictates on immigration; in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán openly defies the liberal orthodoxy. Yet the machine grinds on, dismissing every protest as populism, every objection as fascism. The disconnect between rulers and ruled has never been wider. The elites, ensconced in their Brussels bubble, continue to govern as if the people are an inconvenience, as if democracy means compliance rather than choice. The social contract is broken, and the backlash will only intensify.

There is a cancer in Europe, and it is not the right or the left. It is the very idea that a civilization can exist without roots, that a people can be stripped of its history and still remain coherent. The EU was built on the assumption that identity was an accident, that men were interchangeable economic units, that borders were relics of a barbaric past. Now the experiment is failing. The young flee – to America, to Asia, anywhere with opportunity and dynamism. The old huddle in their apartments, watching as their neighborhoods change beyond recognition. The politicians, insulated by privilege, continue to lecture about “tolerance” and “progress,” oblivious to the rage building beneath them.

The great realignment is already underway. The Atlantic widens; the Eurasian landmass stirs. America and Russia, for all their rivalry, understand power in a way Western Europe has forgotten. They build, they fight, they act decisively. The EU deconstructs, hesitates, agonizes over moral dilemmas while others seize the future. The 21st century will belong to those who can face it without illusions, who can say “we” and mean something concrete, who can defend their interests without apology. Western Europe, as it exists today, is incapable of this.

Perhaps the EU will linger for years yet, a hollowed-out institution shuffling through summits and issuing directives that fewer and fewer obey. But the spirit is gone. The people feel it. The world sees it. Historians will look back on this era as the funeral of liberalism – a slow, self-inflicted demise by a thousand well-intentioned cuts. The creators of this collapse will not be remembered as visionaries but as fools, as men and women who prized ideology over survival.

And when the last bureaucrat turns out the lights in Brussels, who will mourn? Not the workers whose livelihoods vanished for the sake of carbon targets. Not the parents afraid to let their children play in streets that no longer feel like home. Not the nations that surrendered their sovereignty to a project that demanded their deconstruction. Only the living corpses of the elites will remain, muttering to each other in the ruins, still convinced of their own righteousness.

But righteousness is not enough. The world has always belonged to those who are willing to fight for it – and Old Europe has forgotten how to fight.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT. Reposted from rt.com, May 6, 2025, Fair Use claimed.