This topic seems to have grown a bit, so time for a more in-depth reply.

The question of Europes to do, and not to do in world politics is imho closely attached to USA's.

USA have by now a long and quite often not so proud history of meddling in world affairs. Colonies has been mentioned, and that is of course also tied in.

Europe has, contrary to USA, a long history. And as luck has it, we once in a while learn from it. We have long since learnt the cost of having colonies, and now do what we can to cut our losses. "Fortress Europe" has been mentioned as the new EU policy in world affairs, right or wrong I do not know.

The EU has the golden opportunity to let the USA handle the fire zones and get the ill will, while Europe lean back and take the morale upper ground while still getting the better of the financial outcome.

When the US is to stupid to understand that they are on a down hill tendence, there really is no need for Europe to spend much on defense. Could this come back and beat the EU in the behind? Well, possibly. But the world would have to change a lot, and rapidly, for that to be a problem. Attacking the EU as a whole has never really been done, and it would be extremly hard. One big benefit the EU have is that various regions are very well suited for defense, with an army that both will have high morale, as well as good gear and local knowledge.

Thus, the EU has no need to spend much on defense, and even less on offensive military power as the US is doing the job for them.