European Union leaders have convened for emergency talks in their first meeting since last week’s explosive exchange between U.S. President Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy regarding the war in Ukraine.
Leaders of the 27-nation bloc arrived in Brussels on Thursday to discuss strategies for increasing their military budgets to support Ukraine in its war against Russia. This meeting comes amid dramatic policy shifts from Washington that have cast significant doubt over the U.S.’s commitment to European security and defense.
Following a tense meeting at the Oval Office, Trump criticized President Zelenskyy for stating that peace with Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, remains “very, very far away.” Days later, the U.S. suspended military aid and intelligence sharing with Kyiv.
Reporting from Brussels, Al Jazeera’s Natacha Butler described the summit as “a real show of support for Ukraine,” with EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa standing “shoulder to shoulder” with Zelenskyy.
“We are here to defend Ukraine,” Costa declared.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, upon arriving at the meeting, stated, “Europe as a whole is truly capable of winning any military, financial, or economic confrontation with Russia. We are simply stronger.”
Merz, a ‘Wild Card’
Butler noted that the bloc might struggle to reach a unanimous position on aid to Ukraine, as leaders aiming to strengthen their defense capabilities and increase support for Kyiv worry that pro-Russian Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán could “scupper” their efforts.
There are fears that Orbán, a strong Trump ally, may veto a statement backing Kyiv, though he has expressed support for measures to increase spending on Europe’s own defense.
“We all know that Viktor Orbán is blocking many of the moves made by other EU member states, so this will be the key stumbling point,” Theresa Fallon, an analyst at the Centre for Russia Europe Asia Studies, told Al Jazeera.
She added that Germany’s expected new chancellor, Friedrich Merz, is also a “big wild card.”
Many EU leaders welcomed the European Commission’s recent proposals to provide fiscal flexibility for defense spending and to jointly borrow up to 150 billion euros ($160 billion) to fund military expenditures among EU governments.
However, decades of reliance on U.S. protection, disagreements over funding, and differing views on how France’s nuclear deterrent could be used for Europe illustrate the challenges the EU faces in filling the void left by Washington after it froze military aid to Ukraine.
According to NATO, the U.S. provided over 40 percent of military aid to Ukraine last year.
Russian Threat
On the eve of the summit, French President Emmanuel Macron addressed his nation, emphasizing that Russia has become a threat to all of Europe.
“I want to believe that the United States will stand by us. But we have to be ready if that is not the case,” he said.
Poland and the Baltic nations have welcomed Macron’s proposal to discuss using France’s nuclear deterrent to protect the continent from Russian threats—a move Moscow quickly dismissed as “extremely confrontational.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced over the weekend that London and Paris would work on a peace deal for Ukraine and present it to Trump.
Macron told Le Figaro newspaper that the deal would include a one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine.
However, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected the proposals. Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova argued that any pause in the fighting would allow Ukraine to strengthen its military, leading to a prolonged conflict.
On Wednesday, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio sparked controversy in an interview with Fox News by describing the “stalemated” conflict in Ukraine as a “proxy war” between the U.S. and Russia.
“All the president is trying to do here is figure out if there’s a path towards peace. We have to engage both sides—the Russians and the Ukrainians. And we’ve asked the Ukrainians not to sabotage it,” he said.
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