International law died yesterday. And Europe helped kill it.
Macron, Starmer and Meloni gave their stamp of approval to Trump's illegal invasion of Venezuela to run the country and take its oil. Who can take them seriously now on Russia's invasion of Ukraine?
On 22 February 2022, Russia illegally invaded a sovereign country and attempted to capture its leader in an effort to run the country and take its resources. European leaders immediately and unequivocally condemned the invasion. Four years later, on 3 January 2026, America illegally invaded a sovereign country and successfully captured its leader in an effort to run the country and take its resources. Not only did European leaders decline to condemn the invasion, they actually gave it their stamp of approval.
We’ve had many moments of gaslighting from our leaders here in Europe over the past year, but yesterday took the cake. The invasion and abduction itself, even before Trump spelled out his plans later in the day to run Venezuela and take its oil, was a clear violation of multiple international laws. These include the UN Charter’s Article 2 and 51, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights articles 9 and 14, UN General Assembly Resolutions 2625 and 3314, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Article 8 and the Charter of the Organisation of American States (hat tip Julien Hoez). And yet the EU’s president Ursula von der Leyen had the audacity to put out a statement three hours after the news broke that did not acknowledge the illegal invasion, adding “any solution must respect international law and the UN Charter.” She completely ignored the fact that international law and the UN Charter had already, undeniably, been violated. As usual following acts of American aggression, she’s now MIA maintaining complete silence since her initial statement, even after Trump’s press conference acknowledging that this is not just a kidnapping but also an occupation.
Perhaps the most egregious EU gaslighting however came from European Parliament speaker Roberta Metsola, also a member of von der Leyen’s centre-right European Peoples Party. “Venezuela será libre!” she cheered. “As the European Parliament has consistently affirmed, we do not consider Nicolás Maduro to be the legitimate, elected leader of Venezuela. The coming hours and days will be critical. The European Parliament has always called for full respect for international law, support for democracy and recognition of the legitimate will of the people of Venezuela.” It is mind-blowing how these people can call for respect of international law while simultaneously celebrating an act that dismantles it. They are pretending that this operation is about liberating Venezuela when, as Luke Johnson from Public Sphere wrote today, it is by the US government’s own admission just about extracting Venezuela’s resources in a move that returns us to a 19th century world of imperialism. EU leaders are inventing motivations for the US that are not there.
Europe’s leaders do not want to acknowledge the seriousness of what just happened, and by refusing to acknowledge it they are participating themselves in the collapse of international law. Following Trump’s press conference, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz released a statement making the dubious claim that “the legal assessment of the US intervention is complex and requires careful consideration” (it’s not complex, it was a clear violation of international law). “This is not the time to comment on the legality of the recent actions,” dutifully chimed in Greece’s prime minister. The leaders of France, Britain and Italy all came out with statements after Trump’s press conference that appeared to endorse the invasion. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, from the far-right Brothers of Italy party, said she considers the US operation to be “legitimate” to fight drug trafficking. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said “the UK has long supported a transition of power in Venezuela.” French President Emmanuel Macron said “the Venezuelan people are today rid of Nicolás Maduro’s dictatorship and can only rejoice.” Even Ukraine, incredibly, joined in on the praise for the invasion of a sovereign country. “Ukraine has consistently defended the right of nations to live freely, free of dictatorship, oppression, and human rights violations. The Maduro regime has violated all such principles in every respect,” said Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha in a statement that did not even acknowledge the invasion.
The only European leader who dared to criticise the US was Spain’s Pedro Sanchez, who is already ostracised on the European stage because of his past criticism of Trump. “Spain did not recognise the Maduro regime. But neither will it recognise an intervention that violates international law and pushes the region toward a horizon of uncertainty and belligerence. We call on all actors to think of the civilian population, to respect the United Nations Charter, and to articulate a fair and dialogued transition.”
Other than Sanchez, the only politicians in power in Europe who dared to condemn Trump’s illegal invasion were from opposition parties out of government (or in government but from a different party than the leader, as in Austria and France). The most notable one was the French far right leader Marine Le Pen, who looked like a profile in courage compared to the cowardly response of President Macron. “There is one fundamental reason to oppose the regime change that the United States has just brought about in Venezuela,” she said. “The sovereignty of states is never negotiable, regardless of their size, their power, or their continent. It is inviolable and sacred. To renounce this principle today for Venezuela, for any state, would be to accept our own enslavement tomorrow.”
The hypocrisy of Europe’s leadership stinks to high heaven, and everyone can see it. When it’s Europe’s enemy Russia doing the invading, then international law should apply. When it’s Europe’s master America doing the invading, then it shouldn’t. The statements from Europe’s leaders have enraged people across this continent, especially people who were already furious over perceived double standards in how Europe treated Israel’s actions in Gaza (a less clear-cut parallel to the Ukraine invasion in my opinion, but troubling nonetheless).
“Worse than pathetic,” observed European Politics Professor John O’Brennan. “Vassaldom is now Europe’s fate. Because we have the most cowardly, supine leaders in the world.”
“Why is Europe not unanimously condemning the US attack on Venezuela?” asked Nathalie Tocci from the Italian Institute of International Affairs rhetorically today. “Two possible reasons, one worse than the other:
They fear this will turn Trump against Europe on Ukraine - perhaps some haven’t noticed he has done so already and irreversibly.
They believe this will weaken Russia, given Putin’s ties to Maduro. But ultimately, Trump’s green lighting of empire, trashing whatever’s left of international law, is right up Putin’s street.”
If our European leaders have honestly convinced themselves that either of these are good reasons to be silent, they are even more foolish than they look. Trump has already pulled most American support for Ukraine and nothing is going to reverse that situation. Whatever their motivations, it’s now too late to save international law. Merz isn’t going to suddenly change his assessment of the invasion’s legality in the coming days, even if he weirdly suggested he might. How could he, or any other European leader, after they cheered the invasion yesterday? Europe has taken its position, and there’s no going back. International law no longer applies, and these European leaders can never again appeal to it. People on this continent need to understand the enormity of what that means for all of us.
“The world is moving in a direction EU countries cannot afford to live in,” warned Politico Europe Playbook author Gerardo Fortuna today. “As the global order shifts back toward one centred on power and influence (ironically, a world Europeans once mastered before rightly repudiating it), Europe suddenly has everything to lose. Its decision-making structures are calibrated to a legalistic international order, one the EU helped shape after World War II. But that order is clearly eroding and Europe's given up keeping it alive.”
“But when a country’s capital can be bombed at the snap of one’s fingers—with minimal international pushback, regardless of how rogue the regime may be—those who fail to call this out are dramatically underestimating how irrelevant Europe risks becoming in this new order. The European response to something as basic as assessing US strikes and the consequent occupation illustrates the problem. Italy’s Meloni framed the intervention as legitimate self-defense against ‘hybrid threats’ like drug trafficking, stretching both concepts to their limits. Spain’s Sánchez, by contrast, rejected any intervention violating international law. In between, several governments remain in "monitoring mode" (Macron), others limit themselves to cheering Maduro’s overthrow, while leaders like Merz argue that the legal assessment is “complex” and best left unexplored—a position echoed by the Greek PM Mitzotakis. Meanwhile, EU institutional leaders disappeared from the scene well before the US even announced its intentions ‘to run’ Venezuela.”
Among those I’ve seen defending European leaders’ daddy diplomacy this weekend online (a number which, reassuringly, has become much much smaller than it was just four months ago), I’ve seen three arguments. One is that European leaders must back the invasion in order to secure US support for Ukraine, which is foolish because that support is gone no matter what. Another is that the reasons for defending Ukraine aren’t really about international law but about Europe’s realpolitik self interest, because once he takes Ukraine Putin will invade the EU next. This is doubly flawed reasoning. Europe staked the legitimacy of its actions against Russia on the basis of the international law which it is now helping to dismantle. That means something. And in addition, giving the US carte blanche and making no protest emboldens the US to invade Greenland next, the territory of an EU member state (Denmark). Europe is increasing the likelihood of opening a Western front of conflict through a doomed-to-failure effort to maintain US support for the Eastern front they have now. They still cannot accept that the US is no longer their protector but is now an adversary.
An American invasion of Greenland is now a very real possibility. Yesterday, just hours after the Venezuela invasion, the wife of White House policy chief Stephen Miller posted a map of Greenland with an American flag on it with the caption “soon”. In the press conference, both Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio made it clear that this is only the first of US strikes on its identified target countries, which so far are Panama, Canada, Greenland, Gaza, Nigeria, Venezuela and Iran. The US is "deadly serious about reestablishing American deterrence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere,” said US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. “This is America First. Welcome to 2026.” “Trump does not just talk,” said Rubio (who is now apparently the new de facto president of Venezuela according to Trump) during yesterday’s press conference. “If he says he is serious about something, he means it.” Just two weeks ago Trump repeated his months-long threat to annex Greenland, something Hegseth has openly said there are existing US plans to achieve through an invasion. “That is why the Kingdom of Denmark, Greenland, and the allied countries must take Trump’s threat seriously,” warned Greenlandic pundit Orla Joelsen yesterday.
Let’s assume that international law is dead and Europe is no longer willing to stand up for it. Fine. But there are more reasons than just upholding international law to oppose Trump’s invasion of Venezuela. If we are now in a might-makes-right world where there are no rules or norms, then there is nothing stopping the US from invading Greenland other than a show of strength by Europe. Weakness is inviting an invasion. “At this point the EU is practically begging Trump to take Greenland,” noted Giulio Mattioli. “There is little that would hold back Trump from declaring US forces and bases in Greenland to be annexed as sovereign US territory, among other steps,” observed The Economist’s defence editor Shashank Joshi. “A president who sees the world in terms of spheres of influence and resource acquisition would have little compunction about this.”
And that brings us to the third justification I saw from people online defending European leaders’ silence: that there is no way Europe can fight back against the US so there’s no point in even trying. “How could Europe even stop the US taking Greenland even if they wanted to?” one European commented on my X post. “French and Italians aren’t going to fight to keep Greenland Danish. There’s no point in needlessly angering Trump when we can’t do anything to back up stronger statements.”
This “we can’t do anything” attitude is unfortunately endemic on this continent. But as European Council on Foreign Relations Editorial Director Jeremy Cliffe argued today: “Europe needs to get much more comfortable threatening Trump with serious deterrent measures, and if necessary implementing them. Tariffs, taxes and bans on US firms; selloffs of US Treasuries; expulsions of American troops; sanctions on individuals. Speak his language: strength.”
It is just not true that Europe has no tools to fight back. Yes, with its disunited army and military dependence, Europe cannot win a war with the United States right now. But they can put in place sanctions to dissuade the US from an invasion. Europe could destroy the US economy with a coordinated sell-off of American bonds. European countries can immediately expel the US soldiers on their soldiers, who do not have an automatic right to be here but are here on the basis of national permissions. Such actions should at least be maintained as viable threats. But suggest it to any European leader in power right now and their heads would explode. Europeans are not powerless, they just have a mentality of powerlessness. And so Europe’s weakness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The cowardly and supine reaction to the Venezuelan invasion is not a question of “diplomacy” as so many of this continent’s Atlanticists like to say. Other parts of the world did not react the same way. In a blistering attack against Prime Minsister Starmer, the Labour MP Richard Burgon (from Starmer’s own party) pointed out the difference yesterday. “A shameful and reckless statement from the Prime Minister,” he responded. “International law is being cast aside to appease Donald Trump. The world will see this hypocrisy for exactly what it is. Contrast it with the principled words of Brazil's President Lula. That's real leadership.”
In a statement, President Lula said yesterday: “the bombings on Venezuelan territory and the capture of its president cross an unacceptable line…attacking countries, in flagrant violation of international law, is the first step toward a world of violence, chaos and instability where the law of the strongest prevails over multilateralism.”
Or take the statement of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum who said: “The Government of Mexico strongly condemns and rejects the military actions carried out unilaterally in recent hours by armed forces of the United States of America…It also urges the United Nations to act immediately.”
Mexico has much more to lose from conflict with the United States than Europe does. And yet Mexicans show courage while Europeans do not. Why is this? I have theories, and they are outlined in my new book The Owned Continent. It is partly America’s cultural hold over this continent that keeps Europeans locked into an unquestioned lifetime of American servitude. And that has resulted in European leaders humiliating this continent so severely while leaders in Mexico, Brazil, India and China maintained the dignity of their citizens by standing up to Trump (and still winning out in the tariff wars in the end, as opposed to Europe which lost so embarrassingly).
It is time for this continent to grow a spine and learn the concept of dignity and self-respect. Our leaders have gotten us to this horrible situation, and they have contributed to the collapse of international law with their silence. Going forward, we will no longer have these basic principles that we’ve known our whole lives up to this point to protect us. And so we must enter this new era with strong leaders who will defend us. I don’t know where those leaders can come from. But it is truly frightening that looking at a side-by-side comparison of the reactions by Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen yesterday, I am more inclined to support her over him. This cannot stand. We desperately need new leadership on this continent. We do not need the far-right nationalists who will in the end only make this a collection of 27 vassal states to Russia and America. Trump, Putin and Xi look set to divide the Earth into three spheres of influence. Europe will be split in two under this new arrangement.
Where can we find leaders with courage in this new world? And can we find them in time before this continent sinks into hopeless defeated despair?