Quo Vadis? Europe as Boundary Function or Planetary Function? How A Bioregional Large Scale Framework Offers A New Perspective!

The Lighthouse Keeper | Edition 35 | March 2026

Preamble: I am a European, born in Germany, but I feel being more European than anything else. The Unity in Diversity Europe offered, the different cultural backgrounds, the geological variety, have always been major attractors to me. On the other side I am also highly aware that Europe was (and is) colonizing the rest of the world to exploit resources, oppress (and in the past killed) local communities and replicated its world view on them. It’s a Europe with two faces, then and now.

The current situation, Europe being the continent that is warming up more than any other continent, being squeezed in between super powers, and seemingly losing its own identity through reductionist and reactive politics, cutting into its ability to re-invent and transform itself, is evident.

The below assessment and recommendations for a ‘Large-Scale Organizing Framework’, ensuring the potential for renewal stems from a longer discussion I had with Indy Johar from Dark Matter Labs (who transcribed my views into even better language than I could) and some of the members of the 10 x 100 Converter Lab of the European Forum Alpbach (EFA) in the preparation of our 2026 meeting, led by Caroline Paulick-Thiel. The below also echoes a certain level of frustration I felt when seeing the programming of the EFA in 2025 and what’s planned for 2026. I would at best describe it as ‘Reactive Cocooning’.

My vision of Europe, its potential, and its proposed reaction to collapse (the state we’ve been in since the late 1970s) is informed by my work towards a regenerative and bioregionally-based (economic) design through the organisation that I lead, r3.0. The below is an invitation to reflect, walk the steps with me, comment or tear me apart, whatever comes up for you, the readers. I am open to all comments!

1. The Strategic Question

Europe is entering a period where the central question is no longer simply which policies to adopt or alliances to maintain. The deeper question is what kind of civilizational posture Europe intends to inhabit going forward.

In a world shaped by large power blocs, strategic rivalry, and expanding systems of dependency, Europe risks becoming defined by the gravitational pull of stronger actors. In such a condition Europe does not act from its own strategic thesis; it becomes a derivative actor, constrained by the agendas, infrastructures, and strategic logics of others.

This is not only geopolitical subordination. It is also conceptual subordination: Europe begins to internalize external theories of power, security, and viability. We see that every day!

2. The Two Default Paths

In a bipolar or bloc-based world, regions tend to move in one of two directions.

Path 1 — Passive Definition

Europe becomes a space shaped by external powers. That has certain characteristics, such as external security architectures, imported technological systems, an overly financial and infrastructural dependence and strategic narratives defined elsewhere. In this path, Europe retains procedural capacity but loses positional agency. It becomes a platform, buffer, or intermediary rather than a generator of direction.

Path 2 — Reactive Superpower Imitation

Europe attempts to become a bloc of control itself. This involves hardened boundaries, strategic control over supply chains and migration, industrial and technological sovereignty as well as geopolitical leverage over dependencies. However this path is structurally fragile as Europe lacks the demographic and geopolitical conditions of historical superpowers, its political structure remains fragmented and its economic and energy systems are deeply interdependent. More importantly, imitation accepts the premise that viability requires domination or control. Europe would become a weaker mirror of larger powers, reproducing their logic without their capacities.

3. The Structural Reality: Europe is Entangled

Here comes my biggest concern: Europe cannot realistically become a fully self-contained civilizational core. It is deeply entangled through energy systems, food systems, industrial supply chains, digital infrastructure, financial networks, ecological dependencies and more and more security arrangements. The real question is therefore not how Europe can eliminate dependency through control. The question is whether Europe can become intelligent within entanglement. And that opens a discussion about a ‘third way’, which has always been my mantra facing dualistic positions with no hope for ‘solutions.’

4. A Third Way: Situational Intelligence

A different posture begins by recognizing interdependence as structural rather than temporary. In this view dependency is not simply weakness. It is a condition that must be made legible, reciprocal, and resilient. It needs to contain the ability to perceive complex interdependencies, coordinate across them, redesign their terms where possible and preserve degrees of freedom within volatility. Security shifts from insulation from the world to capacity to remain viable within it. What ‘function’ does Europe see for itself? Based on the above there are mainly two choices of its identity:

Either Europe sees its main identity in a Boundary Function, defining itself as a region that must protect an internal space from external instability (fortification, filtering flows, competitive bloc politics, defensive closure), which is fundamentally reactive.

Or Europe sees its main identity in a Planetary Function, defining itself as a site of institutional invention for an interdependent world. That would include systemic coordination, institutional experimentation, reciprocal interdependence and expansion of shared optionality. Here, the question shifts from: “How does Europe defend itself from the world?” to “How can Europe help build the conditions under which an interdependent world remains livable?”

In my view the choice of ‘function’ is necessary now since the collapse we’re in will intensify pressures toward control, including climate instability, energy transition options, very fragile logistics, further demographic asymmetries, ongoing digital concentration, adding AI-mediated competition and more (financialized) vulnerability. These pressures will push many actors toward control of chokepoints, hardened infrastructures, securitized dependencies and even more defensive geopolitical blocs. If Europe simply joins this pattern, it will contribute to systemic closure and escalating instability. It will increase collapse.

5. What a Third Position Requires

A viable third posture must avoid both naïve idealism and imperial imitation. Europe must be able to take security seriously without adopting a security-only worldview, build strategic capacity without reducing all relationships to leverage and develop resilience without domination. The practical priorities – oriented on the point just mentioned above would then include strengthening energy continuity, food security, computational sovereignty, infrastructure resilience, ecological repair, industrial transition and civic legitimacy. But the aim is not to control dependencies. The aim is to redesign them toward reciprocal stability and collective freedom.

6. Europe’s Structural Advantage

And that brings us to why Europe may be uniquely suited to this role precisely because it cannot easily become a ‘classic superpower’ (as explained above). Aspects like fragmented sovereignty, layered institutional history, dense urban networks, its regulatory capacity, social traditions of negotiation, post-imperial self-awareness and experience with plural governance make Europe poorly suited for planetary domination. And here’s the point, these aspects may make Europe uniquely capable of prototyping governance for complex interdependence. Its constraints can become design material.

The strategic objective becomes the cultivation of situational freedom, meaning the ability of societies and institutions to remain adaptive, maintain coherence under volatility and preserve room for action across changing conditions, depending on systemic comprehension, redundancy and optionality, legitimacy and trust, its learning capacity and coordination across scales. In our collapsing economic system, the most advanced form of power may not be domination of the system but the ability to keep the system navigable.

Indy Johar in his transcript neatly summarized this in the following sentences:

‘Europe may be especially suited to this posture precisely because it is not well suited to the others. Its fragmented sovereignty, layered institutional history, dense urban fabric, social traditions, regulatory capabilities, post-imperial self-consciousness, and lived experience of negotiated pluralism all make it an unlikely candidate for coherent planetary domination. But these same conditions may make it unusually capable of prototyping another civilizational form: one built less on singular command and more on negotiated complexity. If Europe can learn to treat this not as weakness but as design material, its constraints may become strategic assets.’

7. Here’s the Choice Before Europe

Europe must choose posture before it chooses policy. Policy without posture leads to tactical drift.

As mentioned earlier it has the choice of three orientations: Being a Derivative Satellite in alignment with stronger poles, or a Defensive Boundary Civilization with fortified bloc politics and strategic mimicry. Or Europe can choose for the Planetary Function with institutional invention for a world of deep interdependence.

The question facing Europe is not whether it should become stronger. It should. The question is what strength is for. If strength is used for reactive control, Europe becomes a diminished imitation of other powers.

If strength is used to cultivate situational freedom, systemic comprehension and planetary competence, Europe may become a deep attractor for a new civilizational posture. Not neutral. Not moralistic. But a substantive third way offer, based on the recognition that in an entangled world, the highest form of power may be the capacity to keep the system livable, plural, and open.

The choice before Europe is therefore not simply between East and West, sovereignty and dependence. It is whether Europe will remain a boundary civilization reacting to the pressures of the age, or become a site of institutional invention capable of helping an entangled world remain livable, plural, and open.

8. Large-Scale Organizing Framework for Europe as a Planetary Function

The strategic shift from Europe as a boundary function to Europe as a planetary function requires more than just policy adjustments. It requires a redesign of the underlying patterns through which societies coordinate knowledge, relationships, governance and finance.

A useful ‘Large Scale Organizing Framework’ structure for this transformation can be articulated through four mutually reinforcing domains of intervention:

Bioregional Kinship and Weaving

At the foundation lies the social fabric that allows complex societies to coordinate without collapsing into coercion or fragmentation. Europe’s historical experience of negotiated pluralism offers a unique resource here. The task is to cultivate forms of relational infrastructure capable of sustaining trust, reciprocity, and shared responsibility across diverse communities and regions.

Kinship and weaving refer not only to interpersonal relationships but to the deliberate cultivation of connective tissue across civil society, institutions, territories, and cultures. This includes networks of practitioners, local alliances, cross-regional collaborations, and spaces for shared sense-making. In a complex world, coordination increasingly depends on dense relational networks rather than hierarchical command.

Bioregional Knowledge Commons

To navigate planetary interdependence, societies require shared systems for perceiving and understanding the conditions within which they operate. Bioregional Knowledge Commons provides open, accessible, and collectively maintained data and learning infrastructures grounded in ecological, territorial and cultural realities.

These commons integrate ecological, social, economic, cultural and infrastructural knowledge at the scale of lived landscapes—watersheds, food systems, energy flows, and urban-rural linkages. By making such knowledge widely accessible, they allow communities, institutions, and decision-makers to orient action within the real dynamics of interdependence rather than abstract administrative boundaries. Bioregional Knowledge Commons thus become the sensing and learning layer of a planetary-function Europe.

Bioregional Governance

Knowledge and relationships must ultimately translate into decision-making capacity. Bioregional governance introduces institutional arrangements capable of operating at scales that correspond to ecological systems and socio-economic realities.

This may not replace existing state structures, but could if state boundaries become somewhat random in a situation of collapse. In any case they could complement them with governance mechanisms grounded in place-based coordination. It allows decisions concerning land, water, food systems, energy systems, and ecological restoration to emerge from the territories most directly involved, while remaining connected to national and continental frameworks.

Such governance models allow Europe to experiment with forms of coordination suited to a world of deep interdependence—where stability depends less on centralized control and more on distributed intelligence.

Bioregional Funding Ecosystems

Bioregional Funding Ecosystems (BFEs) are place-based financial systems designed to support the regeneration and resilience of a specific bioregion—a geographic area defined by natural boundaries (watersheds, ecosystems, climate, culture) rather than political borders. The idea is to align capital with the ecological and social needs of that bioregion so economic activity restores rather than depletes natural systems.

Instead of fragmented funding (grants here, loans there), the ecosystem integrates capital flows around a shared regional strategy. A shared roadmap for the region’s ecological and economic regeneration investment needs is often built around: water systems in watersheds, soil health, food systems, biodiversity and community wellbeing, often combined into one overarching funding approach in and between bioregions.

9. From De-patterning to Re-patterning

My Lighthouse Keeper Newsletter #34 (the last edition) introduced de-patterning and re-patterning as necessary steps in developing reform capacity, to understand escalation / de-escalation downward spirals as patterns of collapse (with a need to de-pattern) and the ask for alternatives (and their inherent need to re-pattern). The above should be seen as an example for both, applied to the future of Europe and offering bioregionalism as an opportunity for a third way toward forms capable of navigating complexity.

Together, these four re-patterning domains form a cluster:

• Kinship and Weaving build relational capacity;
• Knowledge Commons build shared situational awareness, available to all;
• Bioregional Governance builds legitimate decision capacity;
• Bioregional Funding Ecosystems align capital with the ecological and social needs of that bioregion,

In closing, rather than attempting to dominate planetary systems, Europe can become a laboratory for organizing societies that remain adaptive, coherent, and freedom-producing within them with the aim to regenerate Europe through a bioregional approach.

In this sense, the above cluster provides not only a programmatic agenda but a structural pathway through which Europe could begin to enact its potential role as a planetary function. In my view, this is the ‘Large Scale Organizing Framework’ we are looking for.

Note: the visuals are AI created.

Sunday Thoughts

As always here are the latest editions of the weekly Sunday Thoughts since the last edition of the Lighthouse Keeper Newsletter:

A Sunday Thought (#178): ‘Believing In Good’ – In A Time Of Utter Awfulness (March 8, 2026)

A Sunday Thought (#177): ‚Wrecking Ball Politics’ – And The Only Alternative Is To Create More Capacity To Destroy? (March 1, 2026)

A Sunday Thought (#176): ‘Account-ability’ – the ability to account and to be held accountable for (February 22, 2026)

A Sunday Thought (#175): ‚Bioregional Congressing‘ – The Return of Connection and Unity in Diversity for all Life on Earth (February 15, 2026)

A Sunday Thought (#174): ‚When The Economic Theory House of Cards Falls Down‘ – What Will Come Instead? (February 8, 2026)