Image by Markus Spiske.

European Union leaders often speak of unity, sustainability and long-term vision, yet the EU’s recent actions, from its abandonment of its already insufficient sustainability regulations to its rearmament plan, both of which bypassed democratic processes, instead prioritising corporate lobby groups, suggest it is trapped in myopic thinking, reacting to events set in motion by big capital and powers like the United States, Russia, and China rather than focusing on its own competitive advantages. By examining these strategic failures through the lens of game theory, we can see how Europe’s approach resembles a losing strategy in the prisoner’s dilemma, a situation where self-interested choices by each player leads to worse outcomes for all. Instead of proactive collaboration and long-term thinking, the EU has too often opted for reactive, short-sighted moves that weaken its own position, undermine its own long-term strategy and with it, global stability and faith in any sort of just-transition. To change course, Europe must adopt a long-term, cooperative strategy, one grounded in non-zero-sum thinking and the wisdom of managing our global commons together. This means, as EU Greens Co-President Bas Eickhout claims, using sovereignty as our true defence, rather than weapons. This means reimagining sovereignty not as domination or mere defence of borders, but the ability to sustain oneself through shocks and build resource independence, particularly in energy. To be independent and resilient in the face of shocks, and also to break free from the “imperial mode of living”, the high-consumption, extractive lifestyle only made possible by complex, extractive supply chains and the exploitation of others, and instead embracing a model of regenerative economics that addresses that the latest State of the Climate Report claims is the root cause of climate change, ecological overshoot.

Short-Term Moves in a Long Game: Europe’s Prisoner’s Dilemma

In game theory, the prisoner’s dilemma illustrates how two players acting in their immediate self-interest can both end up worse off. Each “prisoner” has an incentive to choose the selfish option and defect, because they don’t trust the other to cooperate – but if both choose this option, the outcome is suboptimal for everyone. The EU’s current foreign policy often mirrors this scenario. Rather than communicating and coordinating effectively with other major powers, the EU frequently defaults to reactive decisions aimed at short-term gain or damage control. For instance, when the U.S. introduced the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, the EU hastily proposed its own Green Deal Industrial Plan to counter potential economic losses, rather than engaging in coordinated, long-term planning, or when the US blew up Nord Stream 2 (as reported by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist

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