Bangladesh, April 28 -- Europe is once again confronting a familiar but increasingly dangerous paradox: its political leaders are attempting to manage an expanding list of geopolitical and social obligations while its economic foundations show signs of stagnation. Across Brussels and the European capitals, there is no shortage of summits, strategies, and declarations. Yet there is a growing shortage of coherent prioritization. The result is a continent that is strategically ambitious but economically constrained-an imbalance that is becoming harder to ignore.

At the heart of Europes current predicament is not a single crisis, but a convergence of structural pressures. Security threats from Russia, uncertainty in transatlantic relations, ...