After year of shocks, EU faces crunch talks on Ukraine, China and its economic future

Late last year, as European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen began her second term in office, a giant purple banner was draped over the side of the EU executive arm’s headquarters, declaring: “United for our Future, 2024-2029.”

While unity among the EU’s 27 member states has always been elusive, it has rarely been more critical.

Its leaders will gather on Thursday to try to round off the year with a collective bang, but there is growing fear it will end with a series of disparate whimpers.

The wish list for EU leaders includes converting frozen Russian central bank assets into a reparations loan to fund Ukraine’s war effort; the conclusion of a trade deal that has been more than two decades in the making with South America’s Mercosur bloc; and the establishment of an aligned geoeconomic strategy to deal with the United States and China.

But on each of these, the member states appear more inclined to go it alone than to pull together, creating an air of existential dread ahead of Thursday’s meeting of the European Council, a body that allows national and institutional leaders to thrash out policy direction.