‘Next-level urgency’: EU leaders spring into action as reality of US pivot to Russia hits

During dark times in Europe, which are arriving with alarming frequency these days, optimists like to say that the continent was “forged in crisis”.

The quote from one of the European Union’s founding fathers, Jean Monnet, has been wheeled out during banking crashes and sovereign debt crises, the coronavirus pandemic and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, to show that the notoriously divided bloc comes together at moments of true cataclysm.

In the cafes of Brussels, it has been heard more than ever in recent weeks, with various degrees of enthusiasm, as Europe faces what may be its greatest crisis of all: abandonment by the United States, which has provided the security blanket that has allowed widespread peace and prosperity since World War II.

After months of denial, when it was hoped that returning US President Donald Trump would stand by Europe and Ukraine, the penny has now dropped – among even the most ardent of transatlanticists – that the bloc is on its own.

“Today, it became clear that the free world needs a new leader,” said the EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas of Estonia, in the aftermath of the defenestration of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the White House on Friday.

In the days that followed, Trump’s pivot to Moscow only deepened. Reports emerged on Tuesday that he was cancelling aid to Ukraine, while on Wednesday it was reported that he would stop sharing intelligence with Kyiv, a move that would severely hamper its efforts to target Russian forces.

Even as the bad news kept coming, however, some European optimists are getting more vocal. Taboos have been dropping like flies as political action on the continent takes place at an uncharacteristic speed. Notoriously slow Europe, they say, is finally grinding into gear.

  

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