EU leaders are gearing up for major fights over issues ranging from joint defense projects to economic reforms as a drive to loosen Europe’s dependence on Donald Trump’s America lays bare deep divisions among the bloc’s 27 countries.
Ahead of an informal leaders’ retreat on Thursday focused on competitiveness, capitals had pledged to show unity and plot a path toward greater European autonomy after the U.S. president’s threats against Greenland set off the worst transatlantic crisis in decades.
But as leaders prepare for their summit, that united front is already cracking — and long-standing disagreements are resurfacing over how to turn lofty ambitions for “strategic independence” into concrete action.
While the meeting is not expected to produce binding commitments, it will set a broad political direction for the European Commission, which is due to draw up proposals ahead of a formal summit in late March.
“Everyone around the table must … face a moment of truth,” said Manfred Weber, leader of the European People’s Party, whose members include German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. Leaders should “not complain about each other” but do their “homework” to ensure reforms can be completed, he added.
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told POLITICO ahead of the summit that “Europe has lots of leverage. We just need to stick together and make decisions … instead of whining and complaining, we need to understand that through strength Europe will actually have [a firm] position.”
A glaring example is the recent disagreement between EU powerhouses France and Germany, whose leaders clashed over Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to endorse the EU-Mercosur trade deal. In an interview published Tuesday by several European newspapers, the French president trumpeted the need for joint European borrowing to finance ambitious industrial and defense projects — a call that was promptly rebuffed by Germany.
“You will have seen the interview with the French president published today,” said a senior German government official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive summit preparations. “We think that … this distracts a little from what it’s actually all about, namely that we have a productivity problem.”
Other capitals were quick to chime in. “[It’s] good that Macron sees the need to invest in Europe’s future economy,” said an EU diplomat from a mid-sized country. But, the diplomat added, such a push amounts to “daydreaming” given the possibility to spend via the EU’s long-term budget.
In his interview, Macron also threatened to suspend a Franco-German program to jointly develop a battle tank, after a blame game over the lack of progress on a joint fighter jet program. “You can imagine that, if the German partner questioned the future of the joint plane, we would have to question the joint tank.”
It’s one of dozens of fault lines being exposed ahead of Thursday’s retreat in a flurry of position papers from EU capitals. While France is advocating “Buy European” policies that would prioritize EU industries for subsidies and public procurement contracts, Nordic and Baltic countries have pushed back against the idea in a joint position paper, saying it would add unwanted complexity just as Europe is trying to deregulate.
At the same time, Germany has joined forces with Italy to push back against French initiatives, instead promoting an agenda heavily focused on deregulation. In a joint discussion paper backed by Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, they call for an “emergency brake” on new EU legislation, granting capitals the right to stop Brussels from coming up with laws they don’t like.
But diplomats from other countries argue that the Berlin-Rome push misses the larger point, which is that Europe needs to wean itself off foreign dependencies. “Simplification (deregulation) is important,” said a second EU diplomat. “But it cannot be the alpha and the omega of our European policy. Bureaucracy isn’t everything. We urgently need to think about supply chains and how to reduce our dependencies.”
A third EU diplomat put the situation bluntly: “We have the diagnosis, we have the prescription, we haven’t gone to the pharmacy.”
Trump in the room
If these disagreements are now emerging into the cold light of day, it’s because leaders who have long avoided difficult conversations about internal reforms can now no longer afford to do so.
Trump’s threats against Greenland triggered a reckoning among leaders during an extraordinary Council gathering in January, at which von der Leyen said Europe must now take the path of independence. Several diplomats briefed on the leaders’ discussions described the summit as a Rubicon moment from which there was no turning back.
“Without GDP growth we will be really vulnerable for external shocks,” said Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domański. The Commission and other EU policymakers, he said, will have to “focus on growth, focus on deregulation and being more ambitious,” something that critics say has been too little, too slow.
The problem is that translating that rhetoric into reality comes at huge political cost for leaders. Indeed, reforms to finalize the bloc’s fragmented single market or build up a true European deterrent capacity have been on the table for years, in some cases decades. Leaders have long opted to politely ignore them because following through on reforms would threaten national industries.
Take the proposal to form a European capital markets union.
The idea of joining up the EU’s fragmented capital markets to create a far vaster pool of investable capital was first pitched more than a decade ago, and has won endorsement from former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi as a crucial step toward independence. But it has gone nowhere for years due to opposition from Berlin and Rome, among other capitals, which have blocked the initiative due to the threat it poses to regional banks.
“Look at the Capital Markets Union,” said the EPP’s Weber. “The concept, the initiatives are on our table for years now.”
The elephant in the room when leaders gather Thursday will be Europe’s relationship with the Trump administration.
Despite consensus around the need for Europe to plot its own path, several countries are unwilling to risk alienating Washington — or seeing their companies prevented from selling into U.S. markets — due to protective EU policies. Relations between Brussels and Washington may well snap back to normal after the Greenland crisis, some diplomats suggest.
But for some leaders, there is no turning back to the way things were before.
“As we left the worst of the [Greenland] crisis, there was a cowardly form of relief,” Macron said. “There are threats and intimidation, then all of a sudden Washington retreats, and we think it’s over. But don’t think that for one single second … every day, there are new threats.”
Max Griera and Nette Nöstlinger contributed reporting.
Follow