Europe is back at the center of global politics. Leaders from around the world gathered on the Continent for various meetings last week, including a gathering of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's leaders in Belgium on Thursday and the G-7 summit in Italy on Friday. And this week promises more of the same, as India's prime minister visits France Germany and Spain, while a Chinese delegation meets later with the European Union. The flurry of activity suggests that changes are afoot, but the Continent is doing its level best to maintain the status quo.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump's European tour drew the most attention. Many observers are hailing the visit as the start of a rift between the United States and Europe. By failing to reiterate Washington's commitment to NATO, Trump fueled speculation that the alliance may be on its way out. The trip met with varying responses from European leaders. French President Emmanuel Macron, for instance, stood up to his U.S. counterpart during a prolonged and apparently tense handshake, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel suggested that Europe could no longer rely on its Anglo-Saxon allies. In the media, meanwhile, Trump was quickly cast as a cartoon villain. The president's every move over the course of the trip attracted the scrutiny of a largely unsympathetic international press. And social media is awash with video clips of the president barging in front of the prime minister of Montenegro, NATO's newest member, or lecturing the rest of the bloc's heads of state as Macron and the leader of Luxembourg smirked.

In fact, the United States rebuked its fellow NATO members for not pulling their weight in 2011, under the previous administration. The weekend's developments, moreover, fit into a pattern that the Trump administration has established: The president outlines a controversial policy in stern language, and his advisers later temper the statement. True to form, National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster has already come out to reaffirm NATO's importance to the United States and Washington's enduring commitment to the organization.

 

As for the French and German leaders, their reactions to Trump may not signal a sea change so much as they reflect politics as usual, accepting that France and Germany are still in the throes of election season. Though Macron won the presidency in May, he must also win the upcoming legislative vote in June to avoid a government split between competing parties, a common contingency in France known as "cohabitation." His meeting with Trump — along with a visit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday in which he took a similarly firm stance — offered Macron a chance to present himself as a strong and assertive leader. By doing so, the new French president was trying not only to put to rest questions over his lack of experience in foreign affairs but also to broaden his appeal to the French public by channeling Gen. Charles de Gaulle.

 

Foreign policy is proving an equally important factor in Germany, where elections will take place in October. Since Trump's inauguration in January, publications in the country have been competing to print the most disparaging cover of the president. And Merkel's main opponent, former EU Parliament President Martin Schultz of the center-left Social Democratic Party has made his antipathy towards Trump a focus of his campaign. Now that Macron's win in France has restored hope for the European Union's future, Merkel is exploring her options, toying with a U.S.-skeptic, pro-integration stance and borrowing from Schultz, hoping to ride a wave of popular opinion to victory at the polls.

 

Once the elections are past, Europe's leaders may take a more diplomatic approach. The Continental bloc is by no means as safe as its leaders are implying, however, as recent developments in Italian politics demonstrated. Italy's parliamentarians reached a provisional agreement on a new electoral law Monday, meaning that early elections to replace Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, who resigned in late 2016, could take place as soon as October. The snap vote, in turn, could usher in a government that includes the Euroskeptic Five Star Movement in a prominent role — a prospect that has many of the European Union's proponents on edge. With the largest debt in the bloc and suffering from creeping Euroskepticism, Italy poses a threat to the future of European integration that not even Macron's election can offset. News of the draft election law has already increased pressure on the euro, lowering its value and widening bond spreads.

 

The start of the week also brought yet another prominent foreign leader to European soil. On Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi landed in Berlin on the first leg of a four-nation tour that will later take him to Spain, Russia and France. Modi's visit was motivated at least in part by a search for foreign investment. To achieve its ambitious goals for the future, India needs more capital than it can supply on its own. The Indian prime minister, having just completed his third year in office, will try to market his country as an exciting destination for Western companies and investors and as an engine for economic growth. Of course, the fact that India canceled 57 of its bilateral investment treaties, including its deals with the European Union, last year in hopes of negotiating better terms will probably undermine his pitch. And because EU members will enter any new talks as a bloc, rather than as individual countries, the resulting pacts will likely have to be part of a free trade agreement between India and the European Union. Progress on that front, however, has stalled in recent years.

 

But Modi's trip to Europe isn't based entirely on trade. The visit also has a strategic aim. China is trying to expand its influence across the Eurasian landmass through its Belt and Road Initiative, a project that has led India to consider its position and plan accordingly. After all, the infrastructure and investment endeavors have deepened China's partnership with Pakistan, India's longtime rival. New Delhi snubbed Beijing by sitting out the widely attended Belt and Road Forum May 14-15, and the Indian government is becoming more assertive in its efforts to counter China. In November 2016, for example, India announced that it would partner with Japan on an alternative Belt and Road project, which is now starting to take shape. Modi's Europe visit could be an attempt on New Delhi's part to forge deeper ties with the Continent as Beijing pushes west.

 

China, too, will send a delegation to Europe this week for a bilateral meeting in Brussels on Thursday. The event was moved up from July at Beijing's request to send the U.S. administration a message about its positions on issues such as trade and the environment, which could challenge the liberal order China is now trying to preserve.

 

The budding competition between China and India notwithstanding, France and Germany have so far seen the countries as areas of interest for the economic opportunities they offer, especially China. But if the European Union follows through on a free trade agreement with India, it may inadvertently pick a side in the process. The bloc, after all, isn't even discussing an equivalent agreement with China. Considering the benefits that Europe stands to gain from the Belt and Road Initiative, though, the Continent will probably try to keep its balance between Beijing and New Delhi.