Cautious Europe facing up to new realitypublished at 10:43 GMT
10:43 GMT
Paul Kirby
Europe digital editor
Image source, ReutersImage caption,
“We are at a crossroads,” Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on Tuesday
For all Europeans, not just Danes and Greenlanders, President Trump’s intense focus on taking control of Greenland has called into question security and the US alliance they have taken for granted for so long.
The head of the EU’s executive Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, sought to capture the mood in Strasbourg this morning when she said Europe needed to “speed up its push for independence”.
The cold reality for Europeans is that they now feel they can no longer take the US for granted to help protect them from outside threats. That may well be true for the wider Nato alliance, as much as it is for the EU.
“We are at a crossroads,” she told the European Parliament. “We need our own strategic approach.”
One of the problems the EU always has to overcome is that it’s made up of 27 democracies that don’t always agree – which makes for a response to events that is often slow and often cautious.
Take last year when EU leaders appeared to dither for weeks as Ukraine’s financial needs became increasingly urgent with the loss of US financial support under Trump.
In the end a €90bn support package was agreed last month, but Ukraine remains the EU’s biggest security issue and there is no sign that Russia is ready to end almost four years of full-scale war.
“We will need a departure from Europe’s traditional approach of caution,” von der Leyen warned. There is widespread agreement on this, but no clear path for it to happen.
In our next couple of posts, we’ll take a closer look at how Ukraine fits into the wider anxieties across Europe as Trump doubles down on his plan to own Greenland.