The European Union changes its mentality to face the greatest challenge in its history

Brussels"We are writing history", "we are in an existential phase" or "in exceptional times, exceptional measures are needed". These are some of the grandiloquent speeches that the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has delivered in recent months to justify any of the ambitious strategic plans.rearmament, reindustrialization or the application of tariffs—that is moving forward. And, in fact, she is not the only European leader who, with more or less pomp, wants to make it clear that the time is serious and decisive for the future of the continent. The vast majority of EU leaders gathered at the emergency summit held this week In Brussels, the European leaders have agreed to warn of the challenge posed by Vladimir Putin's expansionism, Donald Trump's abandonment and the aggressive commercial competition from China.

The importance of the moment is evident. European leaders have met in just a few weeks in Brussels Munich, Paris, Brussels (on several occasions) and London, apart from the bilateral meetings that, for example, Emmanuel Macron and Keir Starmer have held with Donald Trump at the White House. Next week, senior European military commanders will meet again in the French capital, and in two weeks, the heads of state and government of the community bloc will meet again in the Belgian capital. And, at these summits, it is no longer just about potential negotiations for a ceasefire or peace agreement in Ukraine that is being discussed. The discussions that Europe's leaders have are going far beyond the war; They want to relocate the new European Union in the new international context.

Just over three years ago, Putin blew up relations with the EU, which were based primarily on a dependence on industrial powers such as Germany on Russian fossil fuels. And, apart from the more immediate economic consequences - energy crisis and inflation - the member states saw how, suddenly, they no longer had a guaranteed peace. What if Putin's imperialist desires do not end in Ukraine? This is the great fear that has taken hold in the EU, especially in the eastern countries, and that is gaining more and more strength.

But the threat does not end here and it does not only come from the authoritarianism of the Kremlin. In the midst of a war on the borders of the European bloc, Trump returns and the main ally of the EU blows up the Euro-Atlantic relations that have dominated the West since the Second World War. Washington is clamping down on Moscow and strangling a Europe in industrial decline and without the military capacity to protect itself or make itself heard too loudly in a potential resolution of the Ukrainian conflict.

So, suddenly, Europe finds itself with Putin threatening its eastern flank and Washington giving up its role as a protective umbrella, as it has done for the past eighty years. It is at this point that one of the most Atlanticist countries in the EU, Germany, proclaims its will to stop depending on the Pentagon in the military field. "We must achieve independence," said the future German chancellor, the conservative Friedrich Merz, as soon as he won the elections. Nobody expected to hear these words from a German leader and Merz himself said that he would never have thought he would end up saying them.

In this sense, the EU's objective is clear: to rearm itself in order to regain military autonomy. Therefore, to abandon the strategy of soft power and replace it with hard power; to stop guaranteeing peace with internal commercial interdependencies and with third countries and to return, in a certain way, to protectionism and high military expenditure. This, of course, represents a major shift in the EU's mentality and breaks the taboo on warmongering that has dominated the European project, which was born and conceived in the trauma of the Second World War.

In fact, the President of the European Council, António Costa, said that European leaders discussed on Thursday the way to rearm and seek a new position on the international scene without "any taboos on the table." The very conclusions agreed upon at the meeting contain measures that were unimaginable a short time ago: flexibility of fiscal rules, diverting European regional funds to defense or, among others, the EU's guarantee of multi-million euro loans to manufacture weapons. In total, Brussels estimates that some 800,000 euros could be mobilized in four years.

Beyond Brussels, the two main powers of the EU, Germany and France, are also committed to increasing military spending at a forced pace. Even Paris is willing to offer a nuclear protection umbrella in the rest of the European partners and Berlin has broken with its historical dogma for austerity, and the German government - which is also in office - advocates, together with Merz, reforming the Constitution and giving itself more fiscal room to go into debt, both for military spending and for all kinds of investments. A measure that they did not take even in such critical situations as the economic crisis of 2008, when the euro was in danger, or during the pandemic. The return of compulsory military service is on the table of several executives of the community club.

More protectionism

On the trade front, the prospects are similar. Trump threatens to start a trade war, ties with Putin are completely broken, and in recent years relations with China have also deteriorated, to the point that the EU now considers the Asian giant a "systemic rival." The EU is looking for new allies under the rocks and Von der Leyen Last week he traveled to India

Brussels is thus warning Trump that it will not hesitate to respond with tariffs to his tariffs and has already raised import duties on, for example, Chinese electric cars. In addition, Von der Leyen has proposed several legislative proposals to prioritise the protection of the European Union. Made in Europe in the awarding of public contracts or aid, and promises to be stricter with imports that may be likely to fail to comply, for example, with environmental or human rights standards.

In this way, the EU is debating in almost all areas about the values that saw it born and that have been its reason for being until today. However, all this can change, and it seems that European leaders are willing to change it because, as Von der Leyen herself has said on more than one occasion, Europe is facing the "existential threat" posed by Putin - with the contribution of Trump and China - and is heading towards "a new era".