There was a stretch there not too long ago when Ursula von der Leyen could have been considered the most powerful politician in Europe.
Towards the end of last year, the European Commission president was heading into her second term at the top of the EU’s executive arm. Von der Leyen had sidelined her critics in the commission’s Berlaymont headquarters in Brussels and centralised increasing authority around herself.
Down the road in Paris, French president Emmanuel Macron looked like yesterday’s man. His decision to call snap parliamentary elections had backfired, leaving France rudderless, without a stable government. A weak minority administration led by Michel Barnier collapsed after just three months.
At the same time the unpopular coalition led by German chancellor Olaf Scholz was limping towards federal elections, having been defined by infighting and its inability to make big decisions.
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Outside of the EU club, Labour leader Keir Starmer had taken over as prime minister of a UK that his Conservative predecessors had spent years isolating from the rest of Europe.
In the absence of much leadership from France and Germany, von der Leyen’s commission looked like it would assume a lot more power to set the EU’s direction of travel. That is no longer the case.
Macron suddenly has a new political wind. Starmer is not afraid to be seen walking in step with EU leaders. Friedrich Merz is about to take over as the next German chancellor, free from the fiscal constraints of the “debt brake” that hobbled Scholz in power.
US president Donald Trump is largely responsible for all this. European leaders fear they can no longer rely on the support of the United States to help deter a future attack from Russia. So they have agreed to ramp up the amount they spend on defence.
More pressing is the concern that Trump will push Ukraine to choose between a deal to end the war on terms favourable to Russia, or to keep fighting without the crucial support of the US.
This has seen the recent emergence of a so-called “coalition of the willing”, made up of mostly European states, ready to do more to back Ukraine in its war with Russia, and help guarantee its future security following a full truce.
Some of the most important conversations about the Ukraine war – and by extension Europe’s security – have not been happening in Brussels, but in Paris and London.
The talks are being organised by Macron and Starmer, but include the leaders of Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, the Netherlands, Denmark and other Nordic states, as well as Canada, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Von der Leyen and the head of the Nato military alliance, Mark Rutte, have also been in the room.
This ad hoc group is gathering again in the Élysée Palace on Thursday. Speaking beforehand, one French official said the meeting would discuss how to help land a solid and lasting peace in Ukraine, as well as the “immediate reinforcement” of military aid to Kyiv in the short term.
[ Plan for EU ‘big bang’ of military aid to Ukraine runs out of steamOpens in new window ]
The goal is to put together a credible plan to guarantee Ukraine’s security from a future Russian invasion, in the event of a peace deal Trump is so keen on. The idea would be to then convince the US to throw some of its weight behind the guarantees.
These talks have sidelined the EU’s normal decision-making channels. Ireland and some other small EU states have been left out of several of the get-togethers, although Taoiseach Micheál Martin is travelling to the meeting in Paris on Thursday.
Part of the problem is that one capital, Budapest, is intent on stopping the rest of the EU from doing more to help Ukraine as a bloc. Decisions on foreign policy need the agreement of all 27 member states.
Hungary’s far-right prime minister, Viktor Orban, has held up billions of euro in funding from being sent to Kyiv since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine three years ago. Time and again Hungary has threatened to refuse to sign off on the rollover of economic sanctions the EU has slapped on Russia, only to relent at the last minute.
Orbán is a vocal supporter of the US president and has become only more obstructive since Trump’s return to the White House. A lot of time is now spent thinking about how the rest of the EU can work around the Hungarian leader. As a result, one recently shelved plan asking EU states to stump up tens of billions of euro of more military aid to Kyiv this year was to be based on capitals voluntarily agreeing to contribute.
Zelenskiy made a clear appeal to the EU’s 27 national leaders at a summit in Brussels last week for €5 billion to buy more artillery shells. The meeting broke up without any agreement on the request.
If the coalition of “willing” leaders gathering in Paris comes out of the room with firm commitments to give more money or military aid to Ukraine, it will say a lot about where the new balance of power lies in Europe.
