During 70 years of peace and prosperity, the political debate in Europe revolved around issues of growth and redistribution, education and healthcare, freedom and identity. Far less was said about state and authority, strategy and war, security and the border, citizenship and opposition. The preconditions for the miracle play that is a free society disappeared from view. A succession of wars, civil wars, dictatorships and military conflicts in other places should have reminded us that Europe’s democratic paradise cannot be taken for granted, but we managed to reason away all those warnings. The rest of the world had yet to achieve our level of civilization: we had arrived at world history’s end. Then suddenly the crises came: banks collapsed, the euro wobbled, Russia attacked Ukraine and annexed Crimea, vast numbers of desperate people attempted to cross into Europe, and in Washington a new president, Donald Trump, pulled the US security rug from underneath the European continent. And so the realization dawned that our order is fragile, our future no smooth highway. Politics matters. “History is back”. We live in a world of conflict and rivalry, of force and counterforce. A reorientation has become a bitter necessity.

It is difficult for today’s politicians to find or recall suitable language and gestures for this situation, certainly for those in the European arena. Historically the European Union’s model of cooperation has relied on imagining politics away. The Brussels institutions, working methods and ways of thinking are designed to smother political passions with a web of rules: depoliticization. This is a strength when building a market, when regulating cucumbers and bananas (and the web is powerful, enmeshing as well as connecting, as few things demonstrate better than Britain’s divisive attempt to extricate itself). But depoliticization quickly turns into weakness when there is a need to act and to respond to events, as has been clear almost daily since the financial crisis of 2008.

When danger arises and sudden threats emerge, when stark decisions must be taken and the public persuaded to endorse those choices, other political qualities are needed: speed and determination, a keen judgement of the situation, visible gestures and authoritative words; leadership, in sum.