Muhamad Yehia
Europe faces existential questions about its security future in the wake of the Oval office blow-up between presidents Zelenskyy and Trump. A summit in London tomorrow will be critical.
Europe’s leaders are rallying to support Zelenskyy, after his White House blow-up with US President Trump, but they face critical challenges since the spat has cast them as Ukraine’s chief supporters.
One of the key causes of the bust up in the Oval office was Zelenskyy’s push on security guarantees associated with any peace deal. President Trump has insisted that US commercial involvement would constitute a guarantee of itself, but European leaders and Zelenskyy have pushed for more.
Putin has violated agreements before, Zelenskyy told Trump, so guarantees are needed. In one remark that particularly riled Trump he said “you have a nice ocean and don’t feel [it] now, but you will feel it in the future”, of the potential appeasement of Putin.
“Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. You’re in no position to dictate that,” Trump snapped back l
“You don’t have the cards right now,” he told him. “You’re gambling with millions of lives.”
This exchange will have pricked up ears in the corridors of power in Europe, where no “nice ocean” separates from potential Russian aggression and where the desire for US security guarantees is at least as strong as Ukraine’s.
European leaders have continually trailed Ukrainian association with NATO in the hope that it would place the country under the broader western security shield – whose bank of last resort is the US with its nuclear arsenal and military might
The conflict and messy peace attempt is now jeopardising NATO’s coherence and existence however leaving the alliance in poor health – witness a UN security Council resolution on Ukraine last week in which the US voted with traditional NATO foes Russia and North Korea.
Europe’s top politicians have taken to X to express continued unconditional support for Zelenskyy and Ukraine, including those of France, UK, Poland, Spain, Ireland, Iceland, Germany, Lithuania, Moldova and Sweden.
“Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader. It is up to us, Europeans, to take this challenge,” the EU’s foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas stated.
But posting on X comes cheaper than stepping up to replace the US as Ukraine’s key sponsor in its battle against Russian aggression.
EU leaders are slated to meet on Thursday to agree to various means of freeing up funds for their strapped defence budgets. But the defence deficit on the continent is entrenched and Europe remains severely over-reliant on the US. Like a 40-year old child which has never moved from the parental home, it has now awoken to discover that Dad is no longer thrilled with the arrangement.
The crisis over the future security guarantees for Ukraine is also a crisis over the future security of Europe. European leaders meeting in London tomorrow will need to carve a way out of this crisis by pulling the US back towards a working deal.
Europe will need leadership to do so, but it will certainly also need it if it doesn’t succeed.
Kallas has remarked that the free world needs a new leader, but stepping in as the dominant sponsor of Ukraine’s defence – at a time when the US is withdrawing its support more broadly, would be very costly. Some of the balance sheet refinery on the agenda of next week’s EU Council would not go far enough.
As socialist MEP Raphaël Glucksman told France Info radio, “We will need actions from now on, strong gestures, and not just strong words”.
Glucksman urged the EU to seize the more than €200 billions of frozen Russian assets to fund the defence of Ukraine. This issue might come back onto the agenda with a sense of urgency in the current climate.
An EU source has told Euronews that the “front against the seizure of Russian assets is dissolving”. “We hope to see some movement on this; Belgium and Germany are the biggest opposition but under Merz, this could change. We hope Belgium will see the importance of the moment,” the source said.
One European People’s Party source told Euronews of the asset unfreeze – which has been touted by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk: ”I think it’s very difficult. And even if it works it will take a very long time.”
Europe’s capitals have concerns that eating into those confiscated assets could impact on Europe’s reliability as a safe place for investment. But the stakes are now higher. As the EU source said: “If we have world war three, then Europe will be an even more unsafe place for savings.”