By Kirsty Hughes, Director, Scottish Centre on European Relations

AS the EU27 gather in Rome tomorrow for the European Union’s 60th birthday, it will not only be Brexit that casts a shadow over the celebrations. The EU has faced periodic crises but none that rival the cumulative challenges and strains of the last decade. Can it bounce back or will historians mark this moment as symbolic of the EU’s descent into terminal decline?

The EU has certainly gone rapidly from a phase of great strategic confidence as recently as 2004 to its current state of infighting and doubt. In 2004, the EU had just enlarged to include the new central and eastern European member states – the end of Europe’s Cold War divisions. It had launched euro notes and coins in 2001, drafted a new constitutional treaty, even launched membership talks with Turkey, whose democratic progress then was as notable as its authoritarian shift is now.

But even before the Eurozone crisis led to major economic, political and democratic impacts, the EU was in trouble.

France and the Netherlands rejected the EU’s draft constitution in 2005 – the EU leaders’ attempts to bridge the so-called democratic deficit had foundered. The Lisbon treaty was a fudged, back-door way to bring in almost all the same reforms, but without the inconvenience of consulting the people. Even then, the Irish had to vote twice before the treaty went through.

Today, the EU is struggling with substantial internal and external challenges. Poland and Hungary are showing authoritarian tendencies that should have no place in the EU. Brussels has challenged Poland over its reforms to its constitutional court, but getting agreement across EU member states on dealing with this – when Hungary is siding with Poland – is hard.

Brexit is a huge blow too. The UK is the EU’s second largest member state. And despite its semi opted-out status in so many areas, it has been an influential player in EU politics since 1973, if less so over the last decade. Add the election of Donald Trump in the US, the intrusive politicking of Valdimir Putin – including the annexation of Crimea and invasion of Ukraine – and perhaps the EU is doing well just to be carrying on with business as usual.

But the EU27’s biggest political priority and fear is over the challenge of refugee and migration flows into the EU. As right-wing populism has grown in several EU member states, many EU leaders draw a simplistic, direct line from those migration flows to the growing support for Marine le Pen and others. Brexit too is rightly seen as a populist moment. The EU’s leaders fear their political dominance will be challenged and they may lose their footing next.

After the EU-Turkey deal last year to stem refugee flows, strongly criticised by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) for ignoring rights and trampling on its own values, the EU has turned to Africa. It has done deals with source and transit countries for migrants coming across the dangerous Mediterranean route, mainly from Libya to Italy.

But the EU member states are divided on how to tackle these challenges. In September 2015, the EU agreed to relocate 120,000 asylum seekers, already in Greece and Italy, across the EU27 within two years (the UK opting out of this). Yet by this February, less than 12,000 had been relocated, with Slovakia stating it would not take Muslim refugees, and Hungary now planning to detain all asylum-seekers.

The EU is in a sorry state in many ways. Its many challenges all suggest a problem of leadership, and a lack of solidarity and creative strategic vision. Leadership and solidarity cannot be recreated overnight. But the union has always had a deep ability to reinvent itself and carry on.

If Ms le Pen is elected this May, all bets are off on the EU’s future path – and its very survival. But if Emmanuel Macron, or even Francois Fillon, is elected as France’s president in May, and with either Angela Merkel or Martin Schulz likely to be elected Germany’s chancellor in September, the EU could start to look to the future again. In Berlin, some hope that, from this autumn, a revitalised Franco-German relationship – bringing in other smaller and larger member states too – can plot a route ahead for the EU.

Perhaps calmer waters will beckon soon for the EU. But the EU27 need to move away from their fearful attempts to create a “fortress Europe” protected from its unstable neighbourhood. The EU must find real leadership again, rebuild solidarity and plot a strategic route ahead in a difficult world. It is above all else a political challenge: the EU’s future is in its own hands.