Europe ends 2025 threatened by Putin’s armed drones and heavy political accusations from Donald Trump’s administration. Hostile powers are waging hybrid land, sea, air and network warfare against the European Union in an unusual effort: to precipitate the uncontrolled volatility of the political and institutional framework that has given the Viejo Continente one of the longest periods of peace in its modern and contemporary history. This conflict between Washington and Moscow, with China ready to draw the line, places Europe facing a moment of rebuilding the club, only to then face the pain of being left in pieces if it responds poorly or at some point in the face of such concerted attacks.
And the doubt gnawing at Brussels (and other capitals) is whether the EU currently has the resources to contain the political, economic and security attacks coming from the East and the West. Some sources on the ground are possible and this response is inevitable because, in other words, the EU could be fighting for its own survival.
In the battle for the dominant political model of the 21st century, the European Union has become an enemy to beat. For Putin’s Russia, because it fears that the European model of prosperity and freedom will reach its own borders through a Ukraine which, ending with the end of the war, has gained a destiny with its EU neighbors. O like Trump, because the success of the European formula calls into question its recipes in favor of the national economic response and the imposition of its law on the entire planet.
“If Europe is not strong, why are so many people committed to achieving it?”, quipped the President of the European Council, António Costa, last night, after learning of the new Casa Blanca security strategy. A document which, surprisingly, highlights the threatening stars of Trump and Putin with regard to Europe. Both fear this EU which they describe as weak and are ready to push the European experiment into the abyss before the club carries out a rebuild to become stronger and more independent.
The winds of refoundation are pointing in several directions. Since then, I have thought, as Mario Draghi proposed, that it was necessary to take a further step towards integration on the margins of community structures to push back challenges like Orbán’s Hungary, supporters like Ursula von der Leyen’s European Commission, to remain within the current treaties and exploit its margin, wider than it seems, to move forward while avoiding Hungarian or similar attacks. Two pragmatic journeys with the same destiny.
Brussels assumes that the next frontier to cross is a common security and defense policy. In particular, develop a guarantee of mutual protection between EU members equivalent to that granted by NATO – or granted until the arrival of Trump – to all its allies. The legal basis exists in Article 42 of the Union Treaty: “If a Member State is the object of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States will have the right to aid and assistance by all means within its reach”. The development of this article would allow the EU to escape from a dependence on the United States which has left the continent at the mercy of the delusions of grandeur of an unscrupulous tycoon in matters of international legality.
The other major task facing the Europeans is foreign policy, carried out through the use of the right of veto that each of the 27 member states can exercise. But the removal of the veto, considered as a solution, could become a boomerang. If the current electoral trend continues, it will be ready for government integration supporters to use their veto to stop the gradual dismantling of the EU.
Those who were once called the caballos of Troya, like Orbán’s Hungary or Meloni’s Italy, are key players in the European conference and their Trumpist discourse on issues such as immigration or security permeates the policy of many EU socios and the European Commission itself.
The dilemma that European citizens will face from 2026 seems clear. They will have to choose between a much more integrated European Union with alternative policies to those of Trump or a Europe of nations which has the taste of the President of the United States and which serves their interests.
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