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Shahidha Bari asks, what is Europe’s future role in the world? With tensions between the US and China, increased economic protectionism and the war in Ukraine and between Israel and Hamas, the Head of the Europe Programme at Chatham House, Armida van Rij, believes European security and economic prospects appear fragile. And this comes at a time of political polarisation throughout the continent.

A decade ago it was Germany at the centre, leading and steadying the EU and Angela Merkel was feted as the true ‘leader of the free world’. But the writer Wolfgang Münchau argues in his new book Kaput: The End of the German Miracle that his country of birth has relied too heavily on neo-mercantilist policies, with the industrial and the political elite too closely aligned. Its dependence on cheap Russian gas has also left Germany isolated and vulnerable.

After Britain finally left the EU in 2020 following the Brexit vote it was feared that it would be Britain that was isolated and vulnerable. Not so, claims the journalist Ross Clark, in his forthcoming polemic, Far From Eutopia: Why Europe is failing - and how Britain could do better (published 23rd January 2025). Clark pinpoints the absence of economic growth and huge disillusionment about high migration throughout Europe, and how Britain is surpassing many of its former continental partners. But questions still remain about how Britain will fare – on its own – and on the global stage.

Producer: Katy Hickman