European leaders must “toughen up” and lead the continent, rather than wait for direction from the U.S. or even the EU institutions, Sweden’s Deputy Prime Minister Ebba Busch said.

In an interview with the EU Confidential podcast on the eve of the Munich Security Conference, Busch, who leads the Christian Democrats in Sweden’s center-right coalition government, added: “Europe has to be saved from itself” by becoming more agile and not being slowed down by an increasingly powerful bureaucracy.

She said that instead, European leaders need to “toughen up and need to stop waiting for the Commission to take a lead” on deregulation, competitiveness and promoting energy security through new nuclear energy.

Despite expressing her admiration for European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Busch had strong words of criticism for the EU institutions.

“The European Union was built for stability, not for speed,” she said. “We need to make sure that we are building strong democracies and not very large bureaucracies,” she added, because the latter are eroding the bloc’s public legitimacy.

“That’s why we lost our British friends, and that is why we’re also now seeing long-term support for the union being undermined in a lot of member states.”

Busch said member states need to take the initiative in certain areas, rather than Brussels. “Just look at the commitment of cutting our dependence on Russian gas, for example, after the full-scale invasion [of Ukraine]. It took until the Energy Council in Luxembourg last October before we made the final decisions. And then we’re still waiting a few more years [for them to be implemented].”

It’s a warning she’s repeated before: Following weeks of tension after President Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland from Denmark, Busch advised her EU counterparts to follow the lead of Nordic and Baltic states in boosting defense and energy security. As EU leaders meet today in Belgium to discuss the bloc’s future, it remains to be seen whether they will heed her advice.

Busch warned that Europe is at a “crossroads now, not only in words, but in action” as the war in Ukraine approaches its fourth anniversary. Asked why the Trump administration is sidelining Europe in the peace talks, Busch said: “This is the reason why Europe needs to be respected in its own strength and unity, because it’s very apparent that the Trump administration has become increasingly unpredictable and is not very impressed by our slow and steady institutions.”

She added: “The president does not respond well to weakness.”

An emerging figure with forthright views on the European stage, Busch is no stranger to controversy at home. She has argued that extremist forms of Islam have no place in Swedish society and criticized pro-Palestinian protestors for threatening freedom of speech after protesting outside ministerial offices.  

This week, the Swedish government has proposed toughening the rules on deportations of foreign criminals and is calling on other European countries to overhaul international conventions — particularly the UNHCR — that can limit the scope of such deportations.

“If you look at where we’ve seen gun violence and predominantly the gang violence in Sweden, it has been in areas where we have a high degree of migrants,” Busch said, adding that even migrant communities now say “someone is actually fighting for Swedish values and Swedish law to apply to me.”

Listen to the full interview on EU Confidential here.