Europe: The Continent That Invented Empires and Now Pays Rent on History
The continent that once carved the planet into colonies with the enthusiasm of a chef slicing truffles now finds itself an elegant, slightly anxious dinner guest at the global feast it once catered. Europe, that antique mosaic of kingdoms, republics, and tax shelters, is busy rehearsing humility while the rest of the world scrolls past its cathedrals on TikTok.
From Beijing’s glass towers, Europe looks like a boutique theme park where you can still smoke in some train stations. In Washington, it is treated as a well-dressed but forgetful uncle who keeps misplacing his NATO keys. Down in Lagos or São Paulo, Europe is the world’s largest open-air museum of design, still exporting luxury handbags and guilt in equal measure. Every continent now keeps a mental souvenir of Europe—some flattering, some forged, none entirely free of irony.
The most delicious irony is energy. Europe spent centuries shipping coal and later gas like benevolent drug dealers, only to discover that its pusher retired to a dacha outside Moscow and is now charging premium prices for withdrawal therapy. Cue the sprint to solar panels manufactured—where else?—in China, and wind turbines erected by Polish climbers who learned their trade servicing North Sea oil rigs. Nothing says “strategic autonomy” quite like outsourcing your virtue.
Then there is the euro, that monetary Esperanto launched with the solemnity of a papal bull. Two decades on, it still exists, which is more than can be said for most tech unicorns. The currency survives on the solemn promise that Germans will keep paying the tab because history has left them with a permanent allergy to hyperinflation and a convenient surplus. Meanwhile, Greeks, Italians, and Spaniards have become black-belt experts at creative accounting, proving that national stereotypes can indeed be monetized.
On the world stage, Europe’s favorite new trick is to outsource its wars. Libya, Mali, even the edges of Ukraine—send drones, send trainers, send press releases. Actual soldiers are reserved for parades and photo ops. The result is a continent that can denounce imperialism at brunch while sipping coffee extracted from former colonies by supply chains it no longer formally owns. It is decolonization by paperwork, a masterpiece of bureaucratic absolution.
Climate policy follows the same logic. Europe legislates net-zero targets with the fervor of a medieval flagellant, then books a carbon offset for the private jet to Davos. Brussels proposes banning the internal-combustion engine by 2035, confident that German automakers will simply export the pollution to countries still allowed to breathe. Meanwhile, European consumers compensate by flying to Thailand for winter sun, because nothing combats global warming like a beach selfie captioned “finding myself.”
Of course, Europe still matters. It hosts the world’s largest single market, a court in The Hague that occasionally jails war criminals when the great powers allow it, and enough Michelin stars to keep dictators on their best behavior. Its universities still attract the planet’s brightest minds, who then invent the next semiconductor in Silicon Valley because European venture capital moves at the speed of a Baroque fugue. Soft power, they call it—soft like cashmere, soft like the underbelly of a hedgehog.
Yet the most European export of all may be existential dread. Ask a Berlin bartender, a Parisian professor, or a Bucharest rideshare driver: the future feels borrowed against, the past mortgaged for present comfort. Birth rates plummet, pension systems wobble, and every election is marketed as the last chance to save the Enlightenment—available in hardcover or Kindle. Meanwhile, millions still risk drowning to reach Lampedusa, betting that European angst beats sub-Saharan despair. The continent has become a lifeboat arguing over seating charts while the ocean rises.
Still, Europe endures, half museum, half laboratory, forever rehearsing its obituary and then missing the curtain call. The rest of us watch with the wary affection reserved for an aging rock star: grateful for the back catalog, unsure about the new material, but secretly hoping the encore never ends—because whatever comes next might be louder, harsher, and distinctly off-key.
