Shifting to a Common European Defense
By Nicolai von Ondarza
Let’s imagine a possible scenario playing out this year: It is March 2026. European Council President António Costa steps out into a cold Brussels night and announces to the media: “Not since the end of World War II has our continent ever been this threatened by war, and our security been at such peril. Our American friends have been loud, clear, and at times confrontational, to demand that Europe takes greater responsibility for its defense. This is why today the European Council has unanimously decided to activate Article 42, Paragraph 2 of the EU Treaty, moving our ambition toward a common European defense. Last year we laid the groundwork. Now is the time to go big.”
This move toward a “common European defense” would not require treaty change or the creation of a European army, it is all entailed in the EU Treaty already. The big shift it would imply, however, would be to move strategic thinking from the national or transatlantic to the European dimension.
A common European defense would entail a joint European military command that would, in the case of an armed attack on one EU member state, be empowered to assume operational control of national European armed forces for the joint defense of the European Union. With this, the mutual defense clause of the EU Treaty (Article 42.7) would also be progressively made operational. The military headquarters would work in close coordination with NATO’s SHAPE but operate on the assumption that, except in the gravest of circumstances, Europeans would deter and defend against aggression with European means.
This would also mean a major step up in joint exercises, military mobility, and operational planning for the capabilities that Europeans can field together. This would not be possible without redundancy of NATO structures, but could be done without (further) undermining NATO and in full interoperability with NATO standards.
The second major element of the decision for a “common European defense” would be to create the basis for the EU to obtain and operate strategic enablers that are currently lacking. These could build upon the major space programs the EU already operates such as Galileo, Copernicus, and the planned IRIS2 space-based communication platform, and add elements such as strategic airlift and drone defenses. These enablers would be connected to the EU military headquarters and ramp up European joint procurement.
Thirdly, the common European defense should also build upon strengthened EU security partnerships with like-minded non-EU NATO countries. The EU has already struck such partnerships with Norway, the United Kingdom, Canada, and even global partners such as Japan and South Korea. A common European defense should include the option to plug in for the UK and Norway, based on a fair distribution of contributions and responsibilities. Yet, the boldest move would be to progressively extend it toward Ukraine on its path to EU membership.
Nicolai von Ondarza is head of the Europe/EU research division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin.
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Dare to Differentiate!
By Linn Selle
If there’s one thing the new US National Security Strategy published in December revealed to Europeans it was this: The European Union finds itself in a deeply hostile environment. Even former key partners seek the EU’s dismantlement and aim to strengthen those political forces that want to destroy it from within. At the same time, the willingness of EU member states to seek European solutions to pressing problems seems to be decreasing.
Germany should, therefore, together with key partners such as France, the Benelux countries, Poland, and Italy lead the way and use frontrunner groups to deepen European cooperation. The question of frontrunner groups, or “differentiated integration,” is indeed only the second-best option to reforms with all member states. But given the current geopolitical, security, and economic challenges faced by EU member states, there is a striking urgency to create an ambition for tackling the EU’s most pressing problems now, and if needs be, in smaller circles.
This is not to say that integration should be brought back to a purely intergovernmental method. Rather, those member states that are willing to move forward should proceed within the EU structures. This could create a new dynamic of joint problem-solving whilst safeguarding the EU’s supranational institutional set-up.
In this respect, the formal instrument of enhanced cooperation (Article 20 of the EU Treaty) is rather restrictive, allowing such steps only if taken by a minimum of nine member states, and only after a council decision that the objectives cannot be reached within a reasonable period by all. However, this should not hamper member states from joining forces and going ahead.
Areas where joint problem-solving is desperately needed are both in defense and in those policy areas that are crucial for future growth and improved competitiveness. On defense, a close alliance between a group of key EU member states (also including the United Kingdom as a non-member) seems imperative to build up resources in the spirit of burden-sharing and cross-national efficiencies. In the economic field, frontrunner groups could join forces on high-level multinational projects that boost research and innovation, as well as pushing forward with joint endeavors to advance the EU’s single market, for example by further aligning economic policies, deepening the capital markets, or fostering joint projects of carbon management.
Although not all EU member states will likely participate in such frontrunner groups, it would demonstrate a new dynamic to the European and national publics, thus showcasing that the European Union is able to act to solve pressing problems.
Linn Selle is the Alfred von Oppenheim Director of the German Council on Foreign Relations’ (DGAP) Europe center.
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Mustering Courage
By Nathalie Tocci
The one thing Europe needs and lacks is the magic little word “courage.” Nowhere is this clearer than when it comes to Russia’s war against Ukraine and the transatlantic rupture that is underway. The EU needs the courage to move forward, to remind itself of what its principles are, and to have the guts to stand up for them. That’s what’s really missing.
To make it happen, the leaders in the European Council need to take heart. Or citizens need to find their own courage and elect different people. I fear that our problems go much deeper than policy. This is why I was so encouraged about the demonstrations across Europe on Gaza. It was the first timid sign of heart since the Fridays for Future demonstrations in which there has been an instance of courage and heart from below.
Nathalie Tocci is director of the Istituto Affari Internazionale (IAI) in Rome.
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Time to Talk Tough
By Alice Ekman
Reinforcing European strategic autonomy is a complex undertaking, which requires simultaneous action across multiple fronts—from building up defense capabilities to strengthening economic security. These developments should be accompanied by a rapid shift in Europe’s communication patterns, moving away from conciliatory language to tougher talk.
The European Union has often opted for soft-spoken responses and statements, driven by the belief that tougher language would damage relations with key allies and partners and ultimately undermine its own interests. But, in fact, the opposite is true: The EU is more likely to be respected if it is able to say no, loud and clear.
In recent weeks, the EU has started to speak more plainly. For instance, on December 8, 2025, European Council President António Costa said that the United States should “not threaten to interfere in the democratic life” of its European allies, after the unveiling of the US National Security Strategy. It is a start and there is certainly room to talk tougher.
Brussels has also often showed restraint in its language based on the argument that it should not mirror bad behavior; otherwise, the EU risks losing its soul. This concern is understandable, but there is room to talk tougher in a distinctly European way, grounded in facts and rigor.
For instance, when China fails to invest in its relationship with the EU at the expected, reciprocal level—as demonstrated by the sidelining of Europe in its diplomatic initiatives and uneven access to leaders and information—saying so factually and publicly would be in the EU’s interest. It would equally gain in consistently correcting distorted facts about the EU and several of its member states that are propagated by Moscow, sometimes joined by Beijing and other capitals, directed at countries of the “Global South.” And at the same time, Brussels should not shy away from launching a fact-based communications offensive globally, pointing to foreign misbehaviors in cold and concrete terms.
Last but not least, the EU has often opted for restrained language as a result of significant divergences among its member states. This reality cannot be ignored, but European representatives do not need to wait for full convergence to talk tougher. They can do so through various channels. Moreover, the “coalitions of the willing” that have emerged to address a range of crises, provide alternative formats for more candid and swifter communication. A good example is the joint statement on Greenland, issued on January 6 by the leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, the United Kingdom, and Denmark, which recalled that “the Kingdom of Denmark—including Greenland—is part of NATO” and that “it is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”
Again, the EU has scope to talk tougher. Europeans would gain from doing so more rapidly and frequently, whenever rivals, but also allies and partners, interfere in its political or social life, distort facts, or treat the EU with condescension. The risks of speaking up are far lower than those of remaining silent.
Alice Ekman is Research Director at the European Union Institute for Security Studies (EUISS) in Paris.
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Make European Societies More Resilient
By Georgina Wright
The European Union faces political, economic, and informational pressures that present serious risks as well as opportunities. In times of acute crisis, the EU has shown itself to be an impressive crisis manager: During the COVID-19 pandemic, it procured vaccines for all member states and, for the first time, issued common debt to keep businesses afloat. It also maintained unity in negotiating an orderly Brexit settlement. It has also supported Ukraine financially and militarily.
This shows that when the benefits of collective action are visible, the EU defies predictions of fragmentation. However, when threats have yet to hit crisis point, the opposite is true. In a harsher coercive economic environment, amid cyber aggression and foreign interference, the EU often appears hesitant and reactive, and unable to act decisively.
At this point one idea that could bring the EU forward is a far stronger commitment to societal resilience. Citizens experience interconnected vulnerabilities every day: Technological dependence exposes supply chains to cyberattacks, extreme weather disrupts transport and energy systems, and misinformation erodes trust in democratic choices. The pandemic showed that neglecting such gaps can quickly become a disaster.
While resilience is principally a member state competence, crises do not respect borders, and the EU can improve coordination across national responses. Brussels should therefore complement national efforts with a European framework that assesses vulnerabilities in the short, medium, and long term and helps close them collectively.
Some elements already exist. The EU has instruments to counter disinformation, and the European External Action Service supports capitals in detecting and exposing false narratives. But the scale of the problem demands more than exposure. The EU could invest in a European Resilience Academy to train public servants and private-sector specialists, share best practice, and channel more funding toward protecting critical infrastructure and community preparedness. National governments cannot commit as much funding as they should to societal resilience—the EU’s support could make a difference.
Such an innovation would recognize that government at any level cannot act alone. Resilience must be shared between individuals, communities, businesses, and governments across Europe. If the EU helps weave those contributions together, it will strengthen public trust, safeguard its policies from misrepresentation, and ensure that tomorrow’s shocks find an EU already prepared rather than scrambling to respond.
Georgina Wright is a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States’ (GMFUS) Paris office.
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A Laser-Focused Global Partnership Strategy
By Minna Ålander
In order to assert itself in a world where the United States is actively seeking to sideline Europe from international decision-making and China wants to dominate the global order by the middle of this century, the Europe Union needs a focused partnership strategy. Europeans have to start viewing the globe from a different angle than they are used to, mainly looking across the Atlantic.
Like-minded countries like Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea are looking to Europe for deeper relations as the US is detaching itself from the collective West. The EU and its member states should analyze the potential of each partner and identify core areas of mutual benefit in the strategic competition, be it in defense, space, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and other emerging technologies, telecommunications, or trade. Apart from the Indo-Pacific partners and Canada, the African continent is of high long-term strategic value to Europe and ceding ground there to China and Russia will come with high costs in the future.
It goes without saying that the nearest and dearest partner for the EU member states is the United Kingdom. Europe as a whole has to get over the last lingering Brexit grievances and start working together on the above-mentioned strategic areas, and preferably more. There is no time for further UK-EU squabbles.
When forming new strategic partnerships, the wheel does not have to be re-invented entirely. Europeans used to think that they could buy themselves in on a partnership with the US by purchasing US military equipment and thus ensuring interoperability with American forces. However, the same can apply to European and other strategic partners: Instead of trying to establish more European co-production, which has usually been a bad experience in terms of timelines and costs, accepting more specialization within Europe and buying whatever each European country is best at producing could foster such relationship buy-in.
Minna Ålander is an associate fellow with Chatham House in London and a non-resident fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) in Brussels.
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A Fiscal “Big Bang”: Setting Up an Intergovernmental Mechanism for Common Debt
By Jeremy Cliffe
The NextGenerationEU instrument runs out at the end of December 2026. For all its imperfections, since 2021 the mechanism has lifted growth in those EU member states where it has been most generous (despite much greater fiscal caution overall in Europe compared to the United States). It has supported worthwhile projects like Spain’s ambitious Recovery, Transformation, and Resilience Plan, which is partly credited with the country's ongoing economic boom.
And the wider context is one of urgent European investment needs. Mario Draghi’s report identified an annual €800 billion investment gap—much of it in fields like green energy, electricity grids, digital infrastructure, and clean mobility. The continent’s need to fund and integrate its own security is intensifying as the United States pulls back. In some European states, the civic fabric has deteriorated in the straitened years since the eurozone crisis.
The result is stagnation, waning competitiveness, looming external and internal threats, and a mood of angst. That in turn is leading to political fragmentation and polarization. All of which further constrains European governments’ confidence and ability to act. Inaction begets crisis, and crisis begets inaction.
Something has to break the cycle: a fiscal “big bang” at least on the scale of that unleashed in 2021, but this time done on a permanent basis. It must fund those necessary investments, rebuild that civic fabric, ensure European security, and lubricate the wheels of economic integration (another vital point of the Draghi report)—all while harnessing the vast global appetite for non-dollar-denominated debt. Action begetting optimism, and optimism begetting action.
Europe’s fragmented politics gets in the way of another NextGenerationEU, let alone the treaty change needed to enshrine its endurance at the EU level. (The €90 billion Ukraine loan agreed at the EU December 2025 summit, to be raised by common debt, has shown, however, that where’s a will there’s a way.) So, the answer is for a coalition of governments to create a joint investment entity, capable of borrowing on international markets, and backed collectively by its participants. It might be modelled on the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), likewise operating outside the EU’s political and legal structures but cooperating closely with the European Commission.
That approach would have the benefit of circumventing spoiler states. And some coalitions-of-the-willing win new recruits over time. Even if, say, a dozen states led by France, Germany, and Spain set out to launch this new intergovernmental borrowing-and-investing facility, others could join in due course as the benefits of participation became clear. Full integration into the EU’s legal framework (as has been discussed for the ESM) could then follow in time.
Jeremy Cliffe is Editorial Director and Senior Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations’ (ECFR) Berlin office.
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Bolstering the EU’s Guardrails to Defend Democracy
By John O’Brennan
The most important book published in 2025 is in my view Giuliano da Empoli’s The Hour of the Predator. It very succinctly describes the unholy alliance that has been built between “strongmen” authoritarian regimes and big tech platforms. The latter corporations are amongst the most powerful the world has ever seen and have been key enablers of the erosion of democracy in Europe and the United States in particular. The European Union was built on the principles enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union. These principles are daily being challenged by both strongmen regimes and big tech titans. So the EU is being squeezed on both fronts by what many regard as different iterations of the same type of phenomenon—entities opposed to the rule of law and pluralism.
Thus, the most important set of interventions the European Union might make in the near future are those designed to protect the fabric of democracy and resist both authoritarian subjugation and big tech's amoral and inordinately threatening activity. This means the EU needs to double down on both its own internal rule of law mechanisms and simultaneously defend and extend the world-leading legislation, including the Digital Services Act, that constitutes the vanguard of EU resistance to democratic decline. In doing so it will need to resist the enormous pressure from the Trump regime, which is becoming more explicitly fascist by the day, and the aggressive rearguard actions being mounted by big tech platforms.
This will not be easy. The politics of individual EU member states may well throw up important challenges, as far-right parties make more and more electoral ground. If Europe experiences anything like the financial crisis it experienced after 2008 the entire European project may collapse under pressure from resurgent fascist impulses (actively being encouraged by the Trump administration, to judge by the newly published US National Security Strategy).
It is now very clear that the EU is the greatest contemporary site of contestation between democracy and renewed authoritarianism. The United States is pivoting increasingly to the authoritarian camp. NATO is dead. Ukraine is almost a proxy for the entire continent and the pressure on the post-1945 European idea of coexistence, cooperation, and interdependence.
The EU has to step up to the mark and defend its value system. That means putting in place the most substantive guardrails to protect the rule of law and pluralism. It means protecting the integrity of elections. It means responding to Russian aggression with robust measures. It means enhancing both democratic and societal resilience across the Union. It means supporting member states in developing tools to deepen digital media literacy. But more than anything it means having the courage to confront the worst vestiges of authoritarianism and make the case for the democratic pluralism that has made the EU the best place in the world to live.
John O’Brennan is the Director of the Maynooth Centre for European and Eurasian Studies and Jean Monnet Chair of European Integration at Maynooth University, Ireland.
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Your Turn, Think Tanks: Designing the Next Step of European Integration
By Áurea Moltó
The European Union has come up with solid diagnoses of its current woes, innovative ideas to address them, and detailed roadmaps on almost everything, including competitiveness, strategic autonomy, the green transition, foreign policy, and European citizenship. There is hardly any economic, technological, defense, social, or cultural field in which sensible proposals for progress do not already exist.
Yet, none of these ideas has managed to shift Europe’s center of gravity. The EU’s problem is not intellectual; it is political, and also civic and emotional. It seems stuck in a low-intensity paralysis—quiet, procedural, bureaucratic—precisely when the international environment demands rapid, ambitious, and coordinated decisions.
After the Letta and Draghi reports, drafted under institutional mandate to restore Europe’s competitiveness and unlock its economic potential, the time has come for a different approach: an initiative born outside the institutions, one that pulls the EU out of its comfort zone and restores a sense of historical weight.
The aim is not to contradict the institutions, but to complement them where they are weaker: in building social consensus and articulating a vision of the future that speaks to citizens, political elites, the business and cultural communities, and the European media ecosystem. Because what is missing today is not yet another technical paper, but a collective drive that turns accumulated knowledge into a mobilizing agenda.
This is where European think tanks should make a qualitative leap. Too often they operate in the wake of events, reproducing a cacophony of similar analyses—partial and overly anchored in national perspectives. As the international order that enabled Europe’s prosperity comes apart, European think tanks cannot continue working as if nothing were happening. The challenge is not to comment on the new world order, but to help define it, and to specify how the EU can position itself within it to the greatest possible advantage. The Europeans needs to stop reacting and start shaping.
EU member states have think tanks strong enough to lead their own European “Project 2025”—a major strategic and doctrinal document, jointly produced, with integrated proposals across all fields and a genuinely pan-European lens. A convergent vision that dares to think of Europe as a whole. The task is not to add another layer of technocracy; it is to turn evidence into conviction, and conviction into public action.
No other undertaking seems more urgent today for European think tanks, which have the intellectual capital and resources to craft a shared document that offers an inspiring vision and rises above the sum of national interests, presenting the next phase of European integration not as an ideological luxury, but as a vital necessity and a feasible reality.
Áurea Moltó is director of REDElcano at the Elcano Royal Institute in Madrid.
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A Vision for a United Europe
By Panagiota Manoli
How can the European Union escape its slow agony? Will the end of the world order as we know it bring about the downfall of the EU and the European model of governance?
Such existential questions have never been posed with such urgency, despite the various crises the EU has faced in its troublesome history. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen opened her 2025 State of the Union Address by urging the Europeans to “make no mistake—this is a fight for our future.” Mario Draghi, in his oft-cited “Report on the Future of European Competitiveness,” has spoken in no less dramatic tones of the “existential challenge” facing the EU. He argued that EU’s very raison d’être will cease to exist unless it changes drastically and becomes more productive.
There seems to be no single idea universally agreed upon that would drive the EU’s change and revive its raison d’être. But one is needed. Amidst uncertainty, EU strategies range from bolstering Europe’s autonomy, competitiveness, and resilience to strengthening its collective security and defense capabilities. Eventually, the driving force of the EU is a combination of vision (to deliver peace and prosperity for its citizens) and capabilities (to shape its future and respond acutely to immediate challenges).
The most impactful idea that has been prioritized today for the EU to move forward is a comprehensive strategy for strengthening its collective security and defense capabilities. This idea is deemed vital for the EU to act autonomously and safeguard its interests. However, in parallel with building its material capabilities, the EU needs to present its people with a vision for a United Europe.
Attaining this vision is more urgent today than ever before. Unlike at any time in the past, the European countries and societies must address this call standing alone in this world, under pressure from allies and rivals alike. The vision of belonging in a United Europe that safeguards its peoples’ values, sovereignty, prosperity, and security should guide the transformation of the EU and its strategies.
“More Europe” and “a more capable Europe” should not be talked down as wishful thinking, but rather as the only pragmatic way ahead. This is a time for making choices, and it is also a time for leadership.
Panagiota Manoli is Associate Professor at the University of the Peloponnese and a research fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP).
