The News
European Union leaders convened in Brussels Thursday as they seek to beef up their military might and claw back influence on Ukraine.
“Putin must stop making unnecessary demands that only prolong the war and must start fulfilling what he promises the world,” Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told summit attendees via a video link.
The meeting came after Zelenskyy and Russia’s Vladimir Putin separately agreed to a limited ceasefire, but both Kyiv and Moscow have accused each other of violating the pact, which sought to halt attacks on energy infrastructure. White House officials said US President Donald Trump was mulling US control of Ukrainian power plants for “protection,” although it remains unclear what that would mean in practice.
Also on Thursday, top military officials from more than 20 countries are meeting in London to discuss plans to deploy a peacekeeping force in Ukraine as part of the UK and France’s “coalition of the willing.”
SIGNALS
Europe is yet to nail down the details on defense
The overarching aim of the European Union’s Thursday summit was “to find the money and draft the rules needed to turn the bloc into a military superpower,” Politico wrote. But the bloc is deeply divided over how to achieve those objectives: Finland’s president said he wants to “militarize Ukraine to its teeth,” while the EU’s debt-fueled rearmament campaign does not sit well with already highly indebted nations, like France, Italy and Spain. Other countries, like Hungary, are less moved to action by the apparent threat Russia poses to the bloc’s security. Even among the more bellicose, there is doubt over the credibility of Europe’s plans. As Le Monde put it, while “the declarations are strong […] the facts [are] more ambiguous.”
Europe’s rearmament could boost its economy, but tariff threat looms
In the last two months since Donald Trump returned to office, “the moods across the Atlantic have switched,” The Wall Street Journal wrote: The euro is doing well and European stocks are up; the inverse is true in the US. “WWII got the US out of the Great Depression; Europe’s rearmament should do wonders for Europe’s cyclical outlook,” two analysts wrote in a note this week, the Journal noted. There is “a growing consensus” among analysts that higher defense spending will boost European economies in the near term, but “just how much will depend on how well that money is spent and where,” The New York Times wrote. A trade war could offset any gains: The US tariff threat prompted the European Central Bank to lower expected eurozone growth for this year.
Canada and Europe seek to deepen military cooperation
The summit comes as Canada draws closer to Europe. Ottawa is eyeing major defense deals with European manufacturers, Bloomberg reported, and both are reconsidering plans to purchase US-made F-35 fighter jets: “You’re not just buying an airplane, you’re buying a relationship with the United States,” one analyst noted. “The budding defense cooperation […] would boost Canada’s military manufacturers and offer the country a new market” as relations with the US weaken, The New York Times wrote, as Ottawa advanced talks to join the EU’s security-spending efforts. But the partnership will take “years to bear fruit.”