Moscow’s massive military mobilization is clearly not aimed solely at Ukraine. Unless Vladimir Putin accepts a ceasefire with meaningful security guarantees, there will be no end to the war in sight. If anything, we could see an expansion of Russian aggression beyond Ukraine. The grim reality is that Europe continues to face an unprecedented threat, and despite signs of progress for Ukraine in the Jeddah talks, we face that threat alone.
Worse, we now have to face it while the US works against us. Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump seem to share the same agenda: a Vichy-like regime in Ukraine and a European continent divided into spheres of influence that Russia, the US (and perhaps China) could colonize and exploit. Most of the European public feels it. A critical mass of European leaders understand it too. And they are starting to act.
Their response lays the foundation for a different Europe than the one we have known for decades – a Europe built in peacetime. This Europe has secured its peace internally (largely through close economic and monetary interdependence). Externally, its security has been largely guaranteed by America through NATO. Through this defensive alliance, European countries have acted as loyal transatlantic allies. They have allowed Washington to reap huge benefits from the arrangement, starting with the American military industry. Europeans have also dutifully followed Washington in its follies, such as the 2003 invasion of Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein.
During that period, the EU could afford to be slow and cumbersome; there was no rush. It was wiser to patiently build a "common European home", gradually intertwine common interests and trust that a common European identity would slowly take shape.
However, the war in Europe and the unreliability of the US as an ally mean that we must accept that Europe after 1945 and Europe after 1989 have disappeared.
A new Europe is being born; and it is easier to say what it is not than what it is. It is not the EU – or at least not the one we have long taken for granted. The 27-nation union is simply incapable of taking decisions with the speed and ambition needed to address the dramatic, existential, vital and rapidly changing geopolitical and security challenges facing its citizens. Moreover, the EU now includes Trojan horses like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and the populist nationalist Robert Fico, the prime minister of Slovakia, who are clearly working in the interests of Putin’s Russia and Trump’s United States.
That’s why we’re seeing European leaders like Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer take the lead, going into crisis mode, calling emergency summits in their capitals, carefully drawing up invite lists. But Eurosceptics, including those in the Trump administration who hope this means the dysfunctional EU has been sidelined and rendered irrelevant, are completely mistaken.
The emerging Europe is not entirely separate from the EU. The institutions in Brussels, and in particular the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, are deeply involved in building the new Europe. The crucial relaxation of the eurozone’s fiscal rules, agreed last week to allow for a massive increase in spending on “arming Europe,” the establishment of new financial instruments to support European defense, the completion of the EU’s single market, and the push for a much larger common EU budget, better aligned with the continent’s strategic priorities, will ensure that the institutions in Brussels retain control. No wonder Trump is carefully avoiding engaging in conversation with Ursula von der Leyen. Precisely because the Commission still matters.
The new Europe is also not NATO. Not because the Europeans have turned against it, but because the United States has. The US currently has more than 100.000 military personnel deployed in Europe, 10.000 in Poland alone, with 40 military bases across the continent. We will likely see a partial (or even complete) withdrawal of US forces from Eastern Europe, and perhaps beyond.
We have a Europe that is and is not the EU; that is and is not NATO - it is a "coalition of the willing", united by a shared sense of threat, urgency and purpose, but which cannot have a single leader.
And given that the Atlantic alliance relied on trust and belief, among allies and adversaries alike, that Article 5 of the NATO treaty (which states that an attack on one is an attack on all) was indeed valid, the question today is whether NATO still exists. For the past decade, at least, there has been some doubt that the United States would actually defend a small European country in the event of an attack. But that doubt has been enough to act as a deterrent. Today, is there any doubt at all that Trump would not come to the rescue even if a small (or large) European country were attacked?
However, the new Europe that is emerging cannot simply be described as "non-NATO". NATO members outside the EU play a key role. First and foremost, the UK, but also Norway, Canada and Turkey, which are expected to help provide security guarantees for Ukraine. In different ways, with different political sensibilities and even interests, they all share the feeling that the Putin-Trump rapprochement over Ukraine (and beyond) poses a threat.
So we have a Europe that is and is not the EU; that is and is not NATO - it is a "coalition of the willing", united by a shared sense of threat, urgency and purpose, but which cannot have a single leader.
The leader of one country would never be accepted by the others in the coalition, while the symbolic figurehead of the institution, be it the EU or NATO, would end up representing some, but not all, of the countries involved.
This is the new Europe, coordinated by leaders like Macron, Starmer, future German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, and Donald Tusk of Poland. They share the same perceptions of threats and the determination to address them. After all, European countries are collectively among the richest and most powerful in the world. The European Commission, led by von der Leyen, can, will, and must play a key supporting role. Saving Ukraine is a necessary condition for securing Europe. Can they succeed? If they can muster even a fraction of the strategic vision of Winston Churchill, the courage of Volodymyr Zelensky, and the hope of Barack Obama, then yes, they can.
The author is a columnist for The Guardian.
Translation: A. Š.
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