Kaja Kallas

Kaja Kallas: can the European Union survive in an era of strongmen?

Kaja Kallas, David Rennie

Representative Kaya Kalas reported that Chinese leadership intentionally prolongs the war in Ukraine to divert U.S. attention from China, while European nations struggle to leverage their market power due to fragmented coordination and a failure to deploy their Instrument to Counter Economic Coercion. Kalas argued that the West's slow democratic decision-making processes create a structural disadvantage against the rapid, unilateral actions of authoritarian leaders like Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin. Consequently, the proposed European strategy focuses on building diversified supply chains across the Global South to reduce dependency on Chinese exports and consolidate internal unity to effectively counter geopolitical rivals.