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For a long time, the European Union avoided external relations by concentrating on enlargement. Becoming a normal power now does not mean that it is compromising its original values, quite the opposite.

Continued, extensive military assistance, a new Marshall Plan to facilitate the country’s democratic, prosperous future, and a clear path to full EU membership: this way Ukraine will turn into a cornerstone for European security.

The European Union’s policy toward the Middle East and North Africa has been reinvigorated by Russia’s war against Ukraine, Enrique Mora, Deputy Secretary General of the European External Action Service, tells IPQ in an interview. And Brussels’ focus has been moving to the Gulf.

If Germany’s Zeitenwende is to be a success, it is not only its security institutions that need to be reviewed. The processes that have been in place up to now also need to be scrutinized.

Berlin’s security policy of recent decades has proven to be strategically erroneous. Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s “Zeitenwende” speech promised a new course. But this has not gone far enough.

There is a growing assessment in Paris that Germany’s Zeitenwende has not yet delivered much on defense and, furthermore, that it has failed to generate momentum for a renewed Franco-German relationship on defense.

Germany’s cultural-historical traumas run deep. In many ways, the country continues to define itself against the past rather than position itself for the future. It needs to prepare itself for the many challenges ahead.

The political peacocking at the Munich Security Conference seemed supercharged this year. At stake: the prize for Best Atlanticist. In the end, much to the frustration of their fellow Europeans, Germany came out on top once again.  

With the Russian economy now on a war footing, if the West wants Ukraine to prevail in the war, it will not only have to sustain the delivery of weapons but also further tighten its sanctions regime against Russia.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has brought a modicum of stability and political sobriety after the melodramas of recent years. When it comes to foreign policy, while he recognizes the challenges ahead, his room for maneuver is perilously small.

Enacting the EU’s precipitous Green Deal Industrial Plan in response to the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) would be a grave error. It would transform a modest transatlantic friction into a disorderly intra-European industrial confrontation.

Russia’s war against Ukraine has confirmed the importance of both NATO and the EU in European security. The thinking now needs to move toward “European defense space.”