"Europe's biggest problem (I do not mean just the EU, I mean everyone from the UK to Russia) is that it is in denial about its decline, weakness and irrelevance to the rest of the world."

I disagree on this broad statement.

The EU in just the past year has signed deals with Latin America and India in addition to the already existing ones with South Korea, Canada, Japan etc.

It has positioned itself at the center of the world's largest free trade zone.

It's managed to replace US contributions to Ukraine and looks like its in the process of bloodying Russia's nose.

Reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated.

We Europeans are very well aware that we need to strengthen our position in the world, both economically and militarily. I would say we are making progress on both. China is not happy with recent EU decision for example.

Let's see how far China and US will go when access to the European consumer market will be resticted.

Let's see how well China and US can adapt to modern drone warfare when Ukrainians have the expertise and can share it with the rest of Europe.

We have to step up our game for sure, and everyone in Europe knows it. But the race is definitely not lost yet.

Well, Russia is trying to do something about it and I think we can all agree that there are wrong ways to go about it. Simply being incompetent, like the EU, is not the worst possible scenario.

Btw, say what you will about Russia, but it's light years ahead of the EU in digital sovereignty. One of the reasons it did not crumble under sanctions.