Donald Trump’s tariff offensive has opened the door to real trade negotiations. But the EU remains stubborn, clinging to hidden trade barriers and generous subsidies. Brussels presides over a bureaucratic Babylon that is suffocating the free market. Under pressure, the central planners are reacting with increasing aggression.
Britain now provides a blueprint for the political trajectory of the European Union. Self-inflicted crises—such as the ongoing migration drama—are followed by so-called solutions that aim squarely at tighter control over the citizenry. The planned introduction of a digital ID in the UK, supposedly to tackle migrant crime, is a prime example of this cynical pattern. It reveals a deep contempt for the sovereign citizen. A similar strategy is evident in the European Central Bank’s plan to push the Eurozone into a digital surveillance currency (CBDC) this autumn.
This move now seems unavoidable. EU governments have spent years financing their debt binge through monetary expansion—at the expense of purchasing power. Their answer has been to yoke the ECB to the wagon of political expediency. Between 2015 and 2022, the ECB purchased €5 trillion in EU government bonds, relieving national politicians of the burden of fiscal discipline.
Now, with a debt crisis looming, the proposed “solution” is further centralization and the surveillance of every transaction via the digital euro. This is not monetary policy in the service of price stability—it’s a European-style Chinese firewall built to contain capital flight in the event of another bond market panic. “Monetary policy made in Europe” is now about consolidating power, not stabilizing the currency.
Diagnosis: Subsidionitis
Interventionism has become Europe’s native currency. Need examples? The UK’s kneejerk response to Trump’s tariffs is a £10 billion credit scheme designed to shield firms from tariff-related damages. Small businesses—the eternal victims of grand industrial policy in both London and Brussels—are left to beg for crumbs from a meager £2 billion “support fund.” A farce. No policy shift, no appetite for negotiation. A commitment to free trade, once a British hallmark? Nowhere to be found.
Brussels, London, and national capitals across the EU all lack the political courage to pivot toward a market-based reset. Such a shift would mean relinquishing power and dismantling the vast subsidy machinery headquartered in Brussels. Instead, we see bureaucratic overreach on an epic scale. More than 60,000 EU bureaucrats generate over 2,000 new legal acts each year—regulations, directives, decisions—a deluge of red tape that suffocates businesses. The Ifo Institute estimates that bureaucracy from Brussels and Berlin costs the German economy alone €146 billion annually. Under such weight, nothing can grow—except the state.
Bureaucracy Is Killing Productivity
The EU’s addiction to regulation is not just costly; it’s corrosive. The continent’s economy is now visibly slipping into a zombie-like state of subsidy dependence. The decline is no longer theoretical—it is measurable and real.
The EU’s economic powerhouse, Germany, has been in a dangerous productivity spiral since November 2017. This, despite the fact that Germany is deeply integrated into global trade and should have benefited from technological advancements. Instead, it is decoupling from global productivity trends and steadily losing economic substance.
Germany is becoming the lead weight of the European Union. As it declines, pressure mounts on Brussels to fill economic holes and budget shortfalls with new subsidies. To mitigate the damage, the subvention engine is running hot, particularly to prop up the failed green economy. About €1 trillion has already been sunk into “greening” the German economy—an ideological fantasy—and another €2.5 trillion is projected by 2045.
This is a war on the free market and on common sense. Political leaders, bound by bureaucratic inertia, seem incapable of changing course. In fact, Germany is peculiarly inventive when it comes to suppressing market corrections and disguising recessions. Tools like short-time work subsidies, early retirements, and nationalizations—such as Lufthansa and Commerzbank—are always ready in the interventionist’s toolbox.
Whenever major lobbies are challenged by ideology or policy, the state steps in with taxpayer money. Any dissent from CEOs or industry leaders is quickly smothered. Europe has become eerily quiet. Small businesses—the backbone of the economy—have no voice. They are tossed about on waves of political arbitrariness.
A Sweet Poison: Subsidies and Tariffs
Brussels remains true to itself. Even the Americans will struggle to penetrate the EU’s wall of regulations and harmonization policies. Meanwhile, the EU continues pumping sweet poison into its markets. The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) eats up €55 billion per year—a third of the EU budget—to protect farmers from global competition and inflate prices.
Another protective mechanism is the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM). Starting in 2026, it will slap tariffs on imports from countries that refuse to adopt Brussels' climate directives. The idea of the state as a neutral referee upholding open markets and property rights now sounds like a fairy tale from a pre-woke era. Tax cuts instead of subsidies? A story from Arabian Nights. How does one advocate for free markets and inviolable property rights in a media environment flooded with climate panic and Trump derangement syndrome?
Defending the Subsidy State
The often erratic reactions from European politicians and loyalist media to Trump’s tough trade stance reveal much. Whatever noise Brussels, Berlin, or Paris make about zero tariffs, no one will dare touch the EU’s sacred subsidy machine. The engine of centralization hums undisturbed. It has created a vast incentive structure that sustains not only hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats across the EU’s tangled institutional web but also permeates every level of national and local administration. Subsidy logic now dominates every government office, from Brussels to the smallest town hall.
The spirit of free enterprise has been buried under a mountain of forms, catalogs, and funding guides. Brussels claims to be saving the market—from itself. With trillion-euro programs, climate controls, and digital currencies, the EU is building the ultimate control state. It is sliding deeper into centralism. And if the Brussels subsidy empire fears one thing above all else, it’s the free market—with its uncontrollable forces and unpredictable dynamism. But that is exactly what we need: no directives, no handouts. Just freedom.
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Thomas Kolbe, born in 1978 in Neuss, Germany, is an economist and freelance journalist with over 25 years of experience as an author and media producer. Specializing in economic processes and geopolitical events from a capital markets perspective, his work reflects a libertarian philosophy centered on individual self-determination. He studied in Düsseldorf and Cologne and has served as a speaker for the German Small and Medium-Sized Business Association (BVMW).
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