The G7 found a new role that gives them back their power: protect you from dangers

If you look at the G7's public agenda in Évian these days, a strange pattern emerges. Everything comes down to just one word: security

Ukraine and Russia mean military security. The Middle East and Iran, geopolitical security. China and key minerals, economic security. AI means tech security. And supply chains mean strategic security

Even when world leaders talk about the economy, they don't use the language of the 90s anymore. They don't talk about growth, openness or integration. The new official words are things like resilience, strategic autonomy and reducing risk

Today’s conversation is all about protecting, containing, resisting, securing, shielding or regulating. And that forces us to ask a question

The question is not whether the threats are real, because denying the risks from Russia, China or AI would be silly. The real question is why the future has disappeared from the conversation

The political horizon has changed completely. Thirty years ago, the question was what kind of world we wanted to build. Today, the question seems to be what disaster we want to avoid. Almost without noticing, we have moved from the politics of hope to the politics of fear

Think back to Europe in the 80/90s. The language was completely different: single market, convergence, prosperity, mobility. Everything was based on a very simple idea: the future will be better than the present. It wasn't always true, but it was the story that gave the system its legitimacy

Today, it’s almost impossible to find a similar narrative. What is Europe’s vision for the year 2050 that actually excites ordinary people? What version of the future makes a 25-year-old think, "I want to be a part of that"? It is very hard to answer

Politicians and institutions haven't stopped talking about the future because they've suddenly become incompetent. They've stopped talking about it because they no longer believe they can control it

The world has fragmented and become too complex. The global systems built over recent decades are failing, but nobody dares to propose new ones. Perhaps because they haven't even been invented yet

Since modern politics can't deliver real economic or social results anymore, leaders had to change their strategy. They can no longer promise to help you reach dreams. So, they promise to protect you from nightmares

In the past, politicians gained power by offering positive visions. Over time, those big ideas wore out and people lost faith in them. For a while, leaders were seen just as public managers

But now they have found a new role that gives them back their power. Instead of offering a better world, they say they are the only ones who can save us from terrible dangers…dangers we often can't see or fully understand. Threats have replaced the future as the main source of political authority

Since they can no longer promise that Europe will make you richer, they promise that Europe will protect you from dangers instead

That is the power nightmares give