EU, it’s time for choices and accountability

Cyclone Trump is affecting as never before the future not only of the European Union, but of Europe as a whole.

A new imperial power seems to be emerging, capable with a single “executive order” of subverting established policies and arrangements, changing with a simple tweet (once it would have been said “with a stroke of a pen”) alliances and priorities that until very recently had united the two sides of the Atlantic.

And it is very likely, therefore, that the White House tenant’s ego was further bolstered at the almost nonstop parade of European leaders from the periphery of the empire who came to his court, some bringing tribute, such as Ukrainian rare earths, and others the promise of arms and ammunition to win the prince’s goodwill and perhaps favour.

Not surprisingly, the only one who showed up empty-handed, European High Representative for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas, was brutally sent back to Europe without being able to meet with her counterpart Marco Rubio, with whom she also had an appointment.

Those who went, then, aroused the jealousies of those who stayed home, in a crescendo that will mark the debriefing stages of this crazy week starting with the London meeting on Sunday, March 3, sponsored by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, and ending with the Extraordinary European Council on March 6 in Brussels and preceded by meetings of the main European political families.

The stakes are high, in the broader context of the other games launched by Trump against Europe, such as the war on tariffs or the attempt to promote, neither more nor less, a “regime change“ that could see as many sovereignists as possible in power.

It is on the one hand a matter of getting back in the game for a just and lasting solution to the Ukrainian conflict and on the other hand to finally lay the foundations for that European “strategic autonomy,” which has been invoked for years especially by Emmanuel Macron but never really pursued. Granted that no country would really want to break military and strategic ties with the United States, there is no worse blind men than those who do not want to see that the message coming from overseas is very clear: increase, and by a lot, your military spending, take your security, your defense capability seriously, we are no longer willing to do it for you.

The impression is that Starmer—egged on at home by a Nigel Farage ringed by attunement with the standard-bearers of the Make America Great Again movement—Macron and newcomer Friedrich Merz have understood more than others that the time has come, as Mario Draghi put it, to “do something.” 

Ursula von der Leyen, to tell the truth, has also understood this very well because she knows that for her the doors of the White House are banished for the time being, further reducing her already narrow leeway for action, which will not prevent her from putting on the table next Thursday a series of proposals also concerning the unbundling of military spending from the calculation of the parameters of the Stability Pact that will still keep her in the game. However, in the first place will be discussed the participation or non-participation in the negotiations on the end of the conflict and on the future arrangements, of Ukraine as well as of relations with Russia—apart from the beautiful souls who would rather not get their hands dirty at all or trust in the resurrection of the UN, where, moreover, last week all sorts of things were seen when voting on resolutions precisely on Russian aggression.

It is a time for choices, but also for taking responsibility, even at the cost of then having to assume the consequences. From this point of view, while there is a rumor that the United States would have already confidentially communicated to all European countries its intention to hand over to the United Kingdom the leadership of the Contact Group for military assistance to Ukraine, the news that the government would be studying the hypothesis of raising Italian military spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP would be an excellent “entry point“ for Giorgia Meloni in view of the confrontation she will have with other European leaders in the coming days.