EU leaders find themselves incapable of action despite wars so close to home

MARCH 20, 2026 5:19 AM CET
BY SEBASTIAN STARCEVICBRUSSELS ― Two wars on Europe’s doorstep loomed over a 12-hour summit of EU leaders ― and for very different reasons they found themselves paralyzed rather than able to do much about either.

Rarely has the bloc’s inability to take a lead on international affairs been so obvious. Between Germany’s Friedrich Merz, France’s Emmanuel Macron and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni ― heads of three of the world’s top 10 economies ― and the other 24 in attendance, they could only look the other way, squabble with each other, or offer little but words as the bombing, missile-firing and killing continued.

“In these very troubled moments in which we are living, more than ever it’s decisive to uphold the international rules-based order,” European Council President António Costa, who chaired the gathering in Brussels, told reporters. “The alternative is chaos. The alternative is the war in Ukraine. The alternative is the war in the Middle East.”And that speech was about as far as it went.

As Tehran pounded its neighbors, disrupting Europe’s energy supplies, Kyiv attacked Russian factories repairing military planes, and Donald Trump in Washington joked about the Pearl Harbor attack alongside the Japanese prime minister, European leaders used their talks to tinker with the bloc’s carbon permit scheme, the Emissions Trading System. It’s not a wholly unrelated matter to the global energy shock, but hardly an issue where the continent could demonstrate its geopolitical might.

On Iran, leaders found they had little leverage or will to make any significant intervention. On Ukraine, more than four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion ― a conflict where they do have leverage and they do have will ― they were unable to overcome internal divisions to approve sending €90 billion Kyiv’s way.

There was “no willingness to get involved across the table” on the Iran conflict, said a senior European government official, granted anonymity like others quoted in this article to discuss the talks behind closed doors.

German Chancellor Merz even complained that focusing on Iran risked shifting attention away from measures to boost Europe’s flagging economy — the summit’s original raison d’être before would affairs got in the way — according to three officials.

“The world looked very different at Alden Biesen,” an EU official said, referring to last month’s competitiveness-focused meeting in a Belgian castle that was meant to set the stage for this summit. That was before Iran’s war and Ukraine’s funding dilemma, brought about by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán going back on his promiseto approve the loan, radically reshaped the agenda.

Not our war

That’s not to say Iran was ignored completely.

There was some renewed discussion about sending French warships to protect the Strait of Hormuz, the vital oil transit point that Tehran has effectively shut down by threatening to strike ships, potentially with backing from the U.N. Security Council. “We have begun an exploratory process, and we will see in the coming days if it has a chance of succeeding,” Macron said.

But the summit’s final statement stopped short of pledging any new mission, referring only to strengthening existing EU naval operations in the region.

By the end of the talks, the EU’s leaders reached a sobering conclusion: Europe has little power or inclination to shape events.

“Middle East impacts us a lot — but are we a player in the game?” an EU official who was party to the leaders’ discussions asked. “They’re trying to find a place in this debate and we have a lot of statements and positions [but] is there a role for Europeans for solving this process?”

Evidently not, according to Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief, who warned leaders that “starting war is like a love affair — it’s easy to get in and difficult to get out,” according to two diplomats briefed on her remarks.Translation: This is not Europe’s war — and it’s not going to be.

The EU was left with doing “what we always do,” an EU official said, writing “nice statements.”

On Iran and on Ukraine, the EU didn’t get anywhere. Earlier predictions by diplomats that leaders might continue discussions through the night or even reconvene for a second day as the urgency of a world in turmoil forced them to face up to the challenges before them failed to materialize. Things were done and dusted before midnight.After 12 hours of few decisions, leaders were left with little new to tell people back home.

“There are many things worrying about this war” in the Middle East, while Orban’s veto of the loan to Kyiv “is still there and we are extremely unhappy about this, and so of course is Ukraine,” Sweden’s Kristersson told reporters upon leaving the summit.

And that was that.