tUrsula von der Leyen’s message was forceful. “Europe can no longer be the guardian of the old world order” and needs a “more realistic and interest-based foreign policy.” In a major foreign policy speech this week, the president of the European Commission said the EU would always “defend and defend the rules-based system”, but in a precarious and chaotic world, that could no longer be trusted. The day he spoke, missiles were raining down on Tehran and southern Iran as the war entered its tenth day, proving his point.
The Middle East conflict, which has repercussions throughout Europe, has triggered a series of responses. France is sending a dozen warships to the Mediterranean and Red Sea. EU officials called an ad hoc summit with Middle East leaders in a show of solidarity with the region. EU humanitarian aid to Lebanon is being sent to help 130,000 people, after at least half a million were displaced by Israeli bombs and evacuation orders.
Despite the frenetic activity, Europe’s voice has had no weight. As Donald Trump zigzags between different war goals – in a 24-hour period declaring the conflict “very complete, practically” but “we haven’t won enough” – Europe’s silent calls for restraint have gone unheeded.
Part of the problem is disunity over how to respond. On his own, the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, has refused to “be complicit in something that is bad for the world and that is also contrary to our values.” At the other pole, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that “it was not the time to lecture partners and allies” about international law.
Amid this division, EU officials make impersonal calls for diplomacy, an approach that has drawn withering criticism, including from former officials. Brussels has “fallen into a markedly paralyzed role as a mere commentator on the geopolitical turmoil on its southern flank,” wrote a former head of the EU diplomatic service. A second former EU official also did not hold back. “Europe’s response to the US and Israeli attacks on Iran has been shameful: stunned, marginalized and disunited,” wrote the former EU representative in the Palestinian territories.
European officials have been noted to have criticized Iran for its counterattacks, without reference to the decision by the United States and Israel to launch a war when they face no immediate threat. “Europe’s collective response has been, at best, a fiasco and, at worst, strategic folly,” analysts at the European Council on Foreign Relations concluded.
“We are caught in this strange situation at a time when the Europeans are so timidly trampling on Trump, for fear of antagonizing him, that they refuse to take a meaningful position on the war,” Julien Barnes-Dacey, director of ECFR’s Middle East and North Africa programme, told The Guardian. “Can the Europeans decisively change the dynamic on their own? Probably not. But could they contribute to a broader effort to pressure Trump to hold back, by speaking out more assertively and saying that this war is a disaster and that the Europeans can’t support it because it goes against their interests? I think that’s something they could do more about.”
An obituary of international law?
The Middle East conflict has also revealed an old fault line over who speaks for Europe in the world. In a rebuke to von der Leyen’s diplomatic approach, France accused the commission of usurping the role of EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who operates with a mandate agreed by all 27 member states. Without criticizing specific policies or directly naming von der Leyen, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called on the commission to “strictly adhere to the letter and spirit of the EU treaties.” Her comments came after a senior French MEP from the ruling party, Nathalie Loiseau, criticized von der Leyen’s phone diplomacy to Gulf leaders as “NOT her business.”
This criticism is far from universal. Some EU sources argue that it is important for the commission president to take the lead during a global crisis; others said they had no problem with it. “Criticism that the commission has overstepped its mandate is just a fig leaf to say: ‘We don’t like this, that or another decision you made,’” said one EU diplomat.
But von der Leyen has created unrest for her quickness to accept regime change in Iran, interpreted as an attempt to stay close to Trump. Kallas didn’t get that far; He has said that a democratic Iran is “the dream scenario,” but it is far from certain.
There is an even greater nuance. Von der Leyen appeared to deliver an obituary of the rules-based international order that calls for “new ways of cooperating with partners.” Kallas, by contrast, called for a restoration of international law, saying that otherwise “we are doomed to see repeated violations of the law, disruption and chaos.” European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera, a Spanish socialist, issued a more public rebuke to von der Leyen, saying it was “perhaps not the most appropriate way to express herself.” Ribera added: “For me it is key to defend, underline, underline that international law is a key element in the construction of the European project and European security.” The socialist leader of the European Parliament, Iratxe García Pérez, went further and accused von der Leyen of failing to fulfill his responsibility to defend international law: “If we accept that the great powers can bomb whenever they want, then international law will cease to exist and we will end with the law of the jungle.”
Amid the criticism, von der Leyen offered a stronger defense of the rules-based order – and her approach – to MEPs on Wednesday: “Seeing the world as it is in no way diminishes our determination to fight for the world as we want it.”
For Barnes-Dacey, von der Leyen’s call for realism is an attempt to keep Trump on her side on Ukraine. It was, he said, “a tacit recognition of the illegality of this war (against Iran) and of Europe’s failure and unwillingness to denounce it based on the perception that we need to keep Trump happy.” While Trump mulled the possibility of waiving oil sanctions “on some countries” to guarantee supply (which according to Reuters could include Russia), that strategy seems doomed to failure.
EU leaders are deeply concerned about what the Middle East conflict means for Ukraine, more than four years after the full-scale invasion. Russia will benefit from rising energy prices, the diversion of air defense systems and munitions to the Middle East and reduced attention to the war it launched against its neighbor. “So far, there is only one winner in this war: Russia,” said European Council President António Costa.
Europe is making “a disastrous strategic miscalculation” in its approach to the Iran war, Barnes-Dacey said: “To manage the Ukraine conflict and avoid further trade and economic shocks, they are effectively unwilling to confront Trump in a conflict that will so profoundly affect their broader interests.”
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