“So long as democracy exists, […] totalitarianism is in deadly danger,” wrote George Orwell in his renowned essay The Lion and the Unicorn. It was 1941, and Europe was shaking under the overwhelming advance of autocratic Italy and Germany, supported by the Soviet Union. The world seemed to be sliding inexorably towards a system of strong totalitarian states flanked by ailing democracies.

Orwell rejected such a scenario. For him, the idea that a system of democratic freedoms and a system that deliberately restricts these values could tolerate each other was contradictory. As the later author of the anti-fascist parables Animal Farm and 1984 explained, “The two creeds cannot even, for any length of time, live side by side.” Or, as Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov once put it: "A country that does not respect the rights of its own citizens will not respect the rights of its neighbours."

Europe must therefore prepare itself for ongoing conflict over the dominant world order. Wherever the EU is active, it will see its own principles clash with opposing values. As democracy and autocracy are mutually obstructive by nature, this will inevitably lead to competition.

More democracy, fewer wars

Strengthening democracy worldwide is one of the fundamental principles of the European Union. Article 21 of the Treaty on European Union states: “The Union's action on the international scene shall be guided by the principles which have inspired its own creation, development and enlargement, and which it seeks to advance in the wider world: democracy, the rule of law, the universality and indivisibility of human rights and fundamental freedoms […].” The EU therefore has an obligation to promote democracy beyond its borders.

This is more than a matter of principle. The stronger the group of constitutional democracies, the better Europe’s interests are served. Robust democratic institutions and strong civil society organisations contribute to more ambitious climate targets and smaller refugee flows, while democratic regression undermines global digital regulation and the investment environment for businesses. The attack on Europe's digital laws and the introduction of trade tariffs since Trump's return to the White House are a case in point.

The more the group of democracies shrinks, the greater the risk of violent conflict. Many wars are preceded by a steady decline in democratic governance on the part of the aggressor. If Russia had been a well-functioning democracy, it would never have invaded Ukraine. Investing in democracy beyond EU borders is therefore vital for the Union.

European instruments

The EU is on the eve of several major decisions that will determine its approach to democracy for the long term. It is setting up a European Democracy Shield within its own borders and will set out its priorities for promoting democracy worldwide in the upcoming update to its Action Plan for Human Rights and Democracy. But the most sizeable changes will be financial in nature. These involve the Global Gateway initiative – the EU's new global investment vehicle – and the upcoming Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). With both instruments, Europe is attempting to hold its own in a rapidly shifting world. But what is at stake here?

Simply put, the position of the Global South in the geopolitical arena. In between world power China, aggressor Russia, the US under Trump, and a questing EU, a large group of emerging countries are trying to find their place in the new world order. Through Global Gateway, the EU, with a budget of three hundred billion euros at its disposal, wants to trigger large-scale investments in the Global South, particularly in areas such as transport, energy supply, and digitalisation. This is Europe's response to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China's strategy to increase its economic access and build political goodwill in the Global South through financial injections in developing countries.

The Global Gateway strategy is a comprehensible step in Europe's search for economic opportunity and critical raw materials. But it would be unwise for the EU to simply copy the Chinese model. Due to unfavourable results in poor countries, where the investment environment is uncertain, China has significantly scaled back its programmes under the BRI in recent years. The EU must learn from this by ensuring parallel investment in transparency, oversight, and the rule of law within partner countries.

More importantly, Global Gateway offers the opportunity to engage partner countries in shaping the future world order. By linking investments to good governance, the EU can serve not only its short-term economic interests but also its geopolitical goals for the coming decades. This involves strengthening alliances along the new geopolitical fault line: between a rules-based order rooted in democracy, human rights, and the rule of law, and a system of authoritarian dominance that operates through the philosophy of ‘might is right’.

The MFF is the other financial tool with which the EU can exert influence. It is commendable that the seven-year budget of €2 trillion proposed by Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in July aims to maintain Europe's role on the world stage. Under this proposal, expenditure on external policy will double to €200 billion, although this increase is largely due to a substantial reserve for support to Ukraine. But, as with any budget, the devil is in the detail.

The MFF proposal frequently refers to values such as democracy. Yet while there remains scope for strengthening democracy in geographic programmes, all thematic programmes in this area would be significantly reduced. It is precisely these thematic programmes that have enabled bold initiatives to be developed in recent years, such as support for NGOs in the Global South that doesn’t require the approval of national authorities. Furthermore, no longer will a fixed percentage of the foreign aid budget be earmarked for democratic governance. The European Commission advocates greater flexibility in a world that is lurching from crisis to crisis and therefore refuses to commit to specific amounts. The idea is that in a constantly changing world, greater flexibility better addresses new geopolitical urgencies.

However, strengthening democracy is rarely an urgent matter. Instead, democratic decline is often a process of gradual erosion. Democracy requires ongoing maintenance, not just emergency aid. The MFF must therefore include sufficient long-term investment in democracy promotion. This is all the more urgent now that Trump has eliminated US support for democracy, previously provided via USAID and the State Department.

Alliance of democracies

The world is at a tipping point between a legal order based on democratic values and what is sometimes euphemistically referred to as a “fragmented world” or a “world of parallel orders”. Fragmentation and duplication of order are, in fact, synonymous with disorder. Such chaos would neither serve Europe's security and economic prosperity nor help solve the climate crisis.

Europe is faced with a choice. It can take the lead, together with countries in the Global South that also see democratic decision-making as the basis for the international rules-based order. Bringing together major economies such as India, Brazil, South Africa, Indonesia, and Mexico with “middle powers” targeted by Global Gateway and the MFF – from Bangladesh to Paraguay – would forge a formidable alliance of democracies. Their combined weight could be decisive in shaping the world order.

It must be acknowledged each of these countries, like Europe itself, has internal problems with its democracy. But in most cases, democratic institutions still form the cornerstone of their political systems, however ailing they may be. It is crucial to keep these countries on board and help strengthen their democratic governance. Europe must not be deterred by the fear of interventionism, an allegation that Russia is keen to spread. Democracy is a universal value, not a Western model; human rights activists from Zimbabwe to Belarus can testify to this. Supporting their struggle is in both their and our interest. 

The alternative, whereby the EU would neglect its democracy agenda and focus solely on economic interests, would be a fatal mistake. Given the long-term incompatibility of democracy and autocracy, this would mean ultimately surrendering the world order to authoritarian forces. Europe would have itself to blame. In Orwell’s words, “If the thing we are fighting for is altogether destroyed, it will have been destroyed partly by our own act.”

This article is written in a personal capacity.