Europe rearms as the transatlantic alliance collapses

EU leaders are racing to Brussels for an emergency summit, and Germany is coming with a shocking €1 trillion rearmament plant. But these long-term measures don't solve the immediate crisis.

After two weeks of dithering, European Council chair Antonio Costa is convening a summit of EU leaders in Brussels tomorrow after the union was seeing itself sidelined by ad-hoc “coalition of the willing” summits in Paris and London. The world is moving so fast that the situation has escalated into a far bigger crisis that it was when he called the summit last week. But the risk remains the same. The reason he was hesitant to call the summit earlier was, apparently, the fear that they would convene only to have action vetoed by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Such a display of disunity would cause more damage than good, it was reasoned. But Orban, who appears to now be acting as the US emissary within the Council, has written to Costa saying he is still intent on on vetoing any action that would further help Ukraine.

From his seat within the EU’s Council, Orban will be conveying the Trump regime’s message. It can be summed up as: ‘shut up Europe and do as you’re told’. Orban’s letter says that the bilateral talks between Trump and Putin to determine Ukraine’s future are a positive development and must be given space, and this approach could not be reconciled with the draft Council conclusions from last week which talk of further support to Ukraine to help it resist Russia. "Therefore, I propose not to attempt adopting written conclusions on Ukraine.” But I’ve heard from senior national representatives today that they will not weaken the conclusions for Orban and they are willing to have them signed as 25 with exclusions for Orban and Slovakia’s Robert Fico if they have to. Although it’s often reported that Council conclusions have to be adopted unanimously, that is not the case strictly speaking. It is just the Council’s tradition to work on the basis on intergovernmental consensus. But the Council has in the past adopted statements noting the dissenting opinion of one or two member states.