EU
leaders find themselves incapable of action despite wars so close to home
With
conflicts raging in the Middle East and Ukraine, a summit in Brussels merely
exposed Europe’s powerlessness.
March 20,
2026 5:19 am CET
By
Sebastian Starcevic
BRUSSELS
― Two wars on Europe’s doorstep loomed over a 12-hour summit of EU leaders ―
and for very different reasons they found themselves paralyzed rather than able
to do much about either.
Rarely
has the bloc’s inability to take a lead on international affairs been so
obvious. Between Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s
Giorgia Meloni ― heads of three of the world’s top 10 economies ― and the other
24 in attendance, they could only look the other way, squabble with each other,
or offer little but words as the bombing, missile-firing and killing continued.
“In these
very troubled moments in which we are living, more than ever it’s decisive to
uphold the international rules-based order,” European Council President António Costa, who chaired the gathering in
Brussels, told reporters. “The alternative is chaos. The alternative is the war
in Ukraine. The alternative is the war in the Middle East.”
And that
speech was about as far as it went.
As Tehran
pounded its neighbors, disrupting Europe’s energy supplies, Kyiv attacked
Russian factories repairing military planes, and Donald Trump in Washington
joked about the Pearl Harbor attack alongside the Japanese prime minister,
European leaders used their talks to tinker with the bloc’s carbon permit
scheme, the Emissions Trading System. It’s not a wholly unrelated matter to the
global energy shock, but hardly an issue where the continent could demonstrate
its geopolitical might.
On Iran,
leaders found they had little leverage or will to make any significant
intervention. On Ukraine, more than four years after Russia’s full-scale
invasion ― a conflict where they do have leverage and they do have will ― they
were unable to overcome internal divisions to approve sending €90 billion
Kyiv’s way.
There was
“no willingness to get involved across the table” on the Iran conflict, said a
senior European government official, granted anonymity like others quoted in
this article to discuss the talks behind closed doors.
German
Chancellor Merz even complained that focusing on Iran risked shifting attention
away from measures to boost Europe’s flagging economy — the summit’s original
raison d’être before would affairs got in the way — according to three
officials.
“The
world looked very different at Alden Biesen,” an EU official said, referring to
last month’s competitiveness-focused meeting in a Belgian castle that was meant
to set the stage for this summit. That was before Iran’s war and Ukraine’s
funding dilemma, brought about by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán going
back on his promise to approve the loan, radically reshaped the agenda.
Not our
war
That’s
not to say Iran was ignored completely.
There was
some renewed discussion about sending French warships to protect the Strait of
Hormuz, the vital oil transit point that Tehran has effectively shut down by
threatening to strike ships, potentially with backing from the U.N. Security
Council. “We have begun an exploratory process, and we will see in the coming
days if it has a chance of succeeding,” Macron said.
But the
summit’s final statement stopped short of pledging any new mission, referring
only to strengthening existing EU naval operations in the region.
By the
end of the talks, the EU’s leaders reached a sobering conclusion: Europe has
little power or inclination to shape events.
“Middle
East impacts us a lot — but are we a player in the game?” an EU official who
was party to the leaders’ discussions asked. “They’re trying to find a place in
this debate and we have a lot of statements and positions [but] is there a role
for Europeans for solving this process?”
Evidently
not, according to Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who warned
leaders that “starting war is like a love affair — it’s easy to get in and
difficult to get out,” according to two diplomats briefed on her remarks.
Translation:
This is not Europe’s war — and it’s not going to be.
The EU
was left with doing “what we always do,” an EU official said, writing “nice
statements.”
Burning
gas fields
Europe
already angered U.S. President Trump earlier this week when its top envoys
rejected his call to secure the Strait of Hormuz. The summit’s final
conclusions leaned heavily on familiar calls for “de-escalation” and
“restraint,” without proposing concrete action, sticking to that earlier
position.
That’s
despite Qatar warning Thursday it would not be able to fulfill its liquefied
natural gas contracts with Belgium and Italy after Iran directed its wrath —
and its ballistic missiles — over U.S.-Israeli strikes at the Gulf country,
knocking out almost a fifth of its LNG export capacity.
Yet
rather than grapple head-on with the rapidly expanding energy shock, Europe’s
leaders spent hours debating the bloc’s climate policy, including its ETS,
which a group of countries are eager to reform.
“To say
ETS is the biggest issue when big gas fields are burning is a bit weird,” an EU
official said.
European
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the consequences of the war
extended far beyond the Middle East, adding its most “immediate impact” was on
energy supply and prices. She announced a slate of emergency measures to lower
costs, from lowering taxes to boosting investment in ETS.
‘Just
crazy’
If
anything, the summit exposed where the wars in Iran and Ukraine overlap.
In what
could be his final EU gathering after 16 years if he loses next month’s
election, Hungary’s Orbán slammed Europe’s approach to the unfolding energy
crisis.
“The
behavior and the strategy that the Europeans have here is just crazy,” he said
— adding the EU needed to buy Russian oil to “survive.”
Orbán has
blocked a €90 billion EU loan to Kyiv because of a dispute about a damaged
pipeline carrying Russian oil through Ukraine to Hungary and other central
European countries.
For that
reason, the bloc was similarly unable to offer much more than assurances on the
Ukraine war either.
Orbán
maintained his opposition on Thursday and even won the sympathy of Meloni, who
told leaders she understood his position.
As
frustration inside the room boiled over, many leaders sharply criticized the
Hungarian premier, according to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.
“I have
never heard such hard-hitting criticism of anyone, ever,” he told reporters
during a break in the talks.
Merz
concurred that leaders were “deeply upset” at Orbán. “I am firmly convinced
that this will leave a lasting mark,” he said.
But the
pressure from his peers failed to sway Orbán and questions of the EU loan will
roll on to another summit next month ― by which time Hungary could have a new
leader, or at least an old one not desperate for votes.
On Iran
and on Ukraine, the EU didn’t get anywhere. Earlier predictions by diplomats
that leaders might continue discussions through the night or even reconvene for
a second day as the urgency of a world in turmoil forced them to face up to the
challenges before them failed to materialize. Things were done and dusted
before midnight.
After 12
hours of few decisions, leaders were left with little new to tell people back
home.
“There
are many things worrying about this war” in the Middle East, while Orban’s veto
of the loan to Kyiv “is still there and we are extremely unhappy about this,
and so of course is Ukraine,” Sweden’s Kristersson told reporters upon leaving
the summit.
And that
was that.
Zoya
Sheftalovich, Nette Nöstlinger, Nicholas Vinocur, Gerardo Fortuna, Gabriel
Gavin, Hans von der Burchard, Sonja Rijnen, Zia Weise, Seb Starcevic, Giorgio
Leali, Hanne Cokelaere, Ferdinand Knapp, Milena Wälde, Aude van den Hove,
Gregorio Sorgi, Koen Verhelst, Victor Jack, Ben Munster, Jacopo Barigazzi and
Bartosz Brzezińksi contributed reporting.
Sem comentários:
Enviar um comentário