Mark Leonard is the director and co-founder of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) and author of “Surviving Chaos: Geopolitics when the Rules Fail” (Polity Press April 2026). The international liberal order is ending. In fact, it may already be dead. White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said as much last week as he gloated over the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and the capture of dictator Nicolás Maduro: “We live in a world … that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power … These are the iron laws of the world.” But America’s 47th president is equally responsible for another death — that of the united West. And while Europe’s leaders have fallen over themselves to sugarcoat U.S. President Donald Trump’s illegal military operation in Venezuela and ignore his brazen demands on Greenland, Europeans themselves have already realized Washington is more foe than friend. This is one of the key findings of a poll conducted in November 2025 by my colleagues at the European Council on Foreign Relations and Oxford University’s Europe in a Changing World research project, based on interviews with 26,000 individuals in 21 countries. Only one in six respondents considered the U.S. to be an ally, while a sobering one in five viewed it as a rival or adversary. In Germany, France and Spain that number approaches 30 percent, and in Switzerland — which Trump singled out for higher tariffs — it’s as high as 39 percent. This decline in support for the U.S. has been precipitous across the continent. But as power shifts around the globe, perceptions of Europe have also started to change. With Trump pursuing an America First foreign policy, which often leaves Europe out in the cold, other countries are now viewing the EU as a sovereign geopolitical actor in its own right. This shift has been most dramatic in Russia, where voters have grown less hostile toward the U.S. Two years ago, 64 percent of Russians viewed the U.S. as an adversary, whereas today that number sits at 37 percent. Instead, they have turned their ire toward Europe, which 72 percent now consider either an advisory or a rival — up from 69 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, Washington’s policy shift toward Russia has also meant a shift in its Ukraine policy. And as a result, Ukrainians, who once saw the U.S. as their greatest ally, are now looking to Europe for protection. They’re distinguishing between U.S. and European policy, and nearly two-thirds expect their country’s relations with the EU to get stronger, while only one-third say the same about the U.S. Even beyond Europe, however, the single biggest long-term impact of Trump’s first year in office is how he has driven people away from the U.S. and closer to China, with Beijing’s influence expected to grow across the board. From South Africa and Brazil to Turkey, majorities expect their country’s relationship with China to deepen over the next five years. And in these countries, more respondents see Beijing as an ally than Washington. More specifically, in South Africa and India — two countries that have found themselves in Trump’s crosshairs recently — the change from a year ago is remarkable. At the end of 2024, a whopping 84 percent of Indians considered Trump’s victory to be a good thing for their country; now only 53 percent do. Of course, this poll was conducted before Trump’s intervention in Venezuela and before his remarks about taking over Greenland. But with even the closest of allies now worried about falling victim to a predatory U.S., these trends — of countries pulling away from the U.S. and toward China, and a Europe isolated from its transatlantic partner — are likely to accelerate. Meanwhile, Washington’s policy shift toward Russia has also meant a shift in its Ukraine policy. And as a result, Ukrainians, who once saw the U.S. as their greatest ally, are now looking to Europe for protection. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images All the while, confronted with Trumpian aggression but constrained by their own lack of agency, European leaders are stuck dealing with an Atlantic-sized chasm between their private reactions and what they allow themselves to say in public. The good news from our poll is that despite the reticence of their leaders, Europeans are both aware of the state of the world and in favor of a lot of what needs to be done to improve the continent’s position. As we have seen, they harbor no illusions about the U.S. under Trump. They realize they’re living in an increasingly dangerous, multipolar world. And majorities support boosting defense spending, reintroducing mandatory conscription, and even entertaining the prospect of a European nuclear deterrent. The rules-based order is giving way to a world of spheres of influence, where might makes right and the West is split from within. In such a world, you are either a pole with your own sphere of influence or a bystander in someone else’s. European leaders should heed their voters and ensure the continent belongs in the first category — not the second.

Moldovan President Maia Sandu said she would vote to reunify with Romania if the issue ever goes to a referendum, saying it was becoming harder for her country to “survive” on its own.  With a population of about 2.4 million people sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova has become a target for Russian hybrid warfare, including disinformation and election manipulation.   “If we have a referendum, I would vote for the unification with Romania,” Sandu, who leads the pro-European government in Chișinău, told British podcast The Rest is Politics. “Look at what’s happening around Moldova today. Look at what’s happening in the world,” she explained. “It is getting more and more difficult for a small country like Moldova to survive as a democracy, as a sovereign country, and of course to resist Russia.”  Moldova was part of Romania from 1918 until 1940, when it was annexed by the USSR, before declaring independence in 1991 after the fall of the Iron Curtain. At a referendum in 2024, a narrow majority of Moldovans — 50.4 percent — voted in favor of EU membership in a vote marred by Russian interference. Sandu won reelection as president in a parallel vote with around 55 percent of the vote, defeating her pro-Russian opponent.  Despite voicing her personal support, Sandu added that she accepted the idea of reunification with Romania was not supported by a majority in Moldova — unlike joining the EU, which the country applied to do in 2022, and which she called a “more realistic objective.”  Polls show around two-thirds of Moldovans oppose reunification, while support is traditionally higher in Romania. 

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, the author of the award-winning “Goodbye Globalization” and a regular columnist for POLITICO. It was hardly the kind of peace and cheer one hopes to see leading up to Christmas. But on Dec. 7, the second Sunday of Advent, a collection of telecoms masts in Sweden were the site of a strange scene, as a foreign citizen turned up and began taking photographs. The case became widely known two days later, when the CEO of Teracom, a state-owned Swedish telecom and data services provider, posted an unusual update on LinkedIn: Company employees and contracted security had helped detain a foreign citizen, CEO Johan Petersson reported. They had spotted the foreigner taking pictures of a group of Teracom masts, which are sensitive installations clearly marked with “no trespassing” signs. After being alerted by the employees, police had arrested the intruder. “Fast, resolute and completely in line with the operative capabilities required to protect Sweden’s critical infrastructure,” Petersson wrote. But his post didn’t end there: “Teracom continually experiences similar events,” he noted. “We don’t just deliver robust nets — we take full responsibility for keeping them secure and accessible around the clock. This is total defense in practice.” That’s a lot of troubling news in one message: a foreign citizen intruding into an area closed to the public to take photos of crucial communications masts, and the fact that this isn’t a unique occurrence. Indeed, earlier this year, Swedish authorities announced they had discovered a string of some 30 cases of sabotage against telecoms and data masts in the country. How many more potential saboteurs haven’t been caught? It’s a frightening question and, naturally, one we don’t have an answer to. It’s not just communications masts that are being targeted. In the past couple years, there have been fires set in shopping malls and warehouses in big cities. There have been suspicious drone sightings near defense manufacturing sites and, infamously, airports. Between January and Nov. 19 of this year, there were more than 1,072 incidents involving 1,955 drones in Europe, and as a group of German journalism students have established, some of those drones were launched from Russian-linked ships. And of course, there has been suspicious damage to undersea cables and pipelines in the Baltic Sea and off the coast of Taiwan. I’ve written before in this publication that Russia’s goal with such subversive operations may be to bleed our companies dry, and that China seems to be pursuing the same objective vis-à-vis certain countries. But when it comes to critical national infrastructure — in which I could include institutions like supermarkets — we need them to work no matter what. Imagine going a day or two or three without being able to buy food, and you’ll see what I mean. The upside to Teracom’s most recent scare was that the company was prepared and ultimately lost no money. Because its staff and security guards were alert, the company prevented any damage to their masts and operations. In fact, with the perpetrator arrested — whether prosecutors will decide to charge him remains to be seen — Teracom’s staff may well have averted possible damage to other businesses too. Moving forward, companies would do well to train their staff to be similarly alert when it comes to saboteurs and reconnaissance operators in different guises. We can’t know exactly what kind of subversive activities will be directed against our societies, but companies can teach their employees what to look for. If someone suddenly starts taking pictures of something only a saboteur would be interested in, that’s a red flag. Indeed, boards could also start requiring company staff to become more vigilant. If alertness can make the difference between relatively smooth sailing and considerable losses — or intense tangling with insurers — in these geopolitically turbulent times, few boards would ignore it. And being able to demonstrate such preparedness is something companies could highlight in speeches, media interviews and, naturally, their annual reports. Insurers, in turn, could start requiring such training for these very reasons. After serious cyberattacks first took off, insurers paid out on their policies for a long time, until they realized they should start obliging the organizations they insure to demonstrate serious protections in order to qualify for insurance. Insurers may soon decide to introduce such conditions for coverage of physical attacks too. Even without pressure from boards or insurers, considering the risk of sabotage directed at companies, it would be positively negligent not to train one’s staff accordingly. Meanwhile, some governments have understandably introduced resilience requirements for companies that operate crucial national infrastructure. Under Finland’s CER Act, for instance, “critical entities must carry out a risk assessment, draw up a resilience plan and take any necessary measures.” The social contract in liberal democracies is that we willingly give up some of our power to those we elect to govern us. These representatives are ultimately in charge of the state apparatus, and in exchange, we pay taxes and obey the law. But that social contract doesn’t completely absolve us from our responsibility toward the greater good. That’s why an increasing number of European countries are obliging 19-year-olds to do military service. When crises approach, we all still have a part to play. Helping spot incidents and alerting the authorities is everyone’s responsibility. Because the current geopolitical turbulence has followed such a long period of harmony, it’s hard to crank up the gears of societal responsibility again. And truthfully, in some countries, those gears never worked particularly well to begin with. But for companies, however, stepping up to the plate isn’t just a matter of doing the right thing — it’s a matter of helping themselves. Back in the day, the saying went that what was good for Volvo was good for Sweden, and what was good for General Motors was good for the U.S. Today, when companies do the right thing for their home countries, they similarly benefit too. Now, let’s get those alertness courses going.

Vladimir Putin called European leaders “little pigs” who wanted to profit from the collapse of Russia. Speaking at an annual meeting with the Defense Ministry, the Russian president blamed former U.S. President Joe Biden for “consciously” unleashing the war in Ukraine and said that the “European little pigs” immediately backed the Americans. Europe wanted to get back “something they’ve lost in previous historic periods and to take revenge” on Russia, Putin said, adding that these plans have “completely failed.” “Russia has demonstrated its steadiness in the economy, finance, in the internal political situation of the society … and in the sphere of defense capacity,” Putin said. Putin also said that Russia is ready for dialogue with Europe, but that won’t be possible with the current crop of European politicians. He praised the Russian military, saying that “no one in the world” has an army as good as Russia’s and that it is now “war experienced.” According to Russian media, former Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev — now head of Putin’s Security Council — used the words “little pigs” to desribe Western leaders on his Telegram channel back in 2022.

BRUSSELS — A deal on providing cash to fund Ukraine’s war effort must be struck at a summit of EU leaders this week. That was the message from both Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and the European Commission’s Ursula von der Leyen hours before the crucial summit starts in Brussels. Both leaders made clear that no decision had been taken on whether to use frozen Russian assets to help Ukraine. Addressing the Italian parliament in Rome, Meloni admitted that finding a “sustainable solution” to funding Ukraine’s war effort “will be anything but simple.” Thursday’s summit is crucial for Europe and for Ukraine, and the most pressing, unresolved issue is whether to grant Ukraine access to frozen Russian assets to bankroll its war efforts. Belgium, where the majority of those assets are held, is holding out against using them, fearing it would be on the hook to repay the full amount if Russia attempted to claw back the money. Other countries, Italy included, have also expressed doubts about using the frozen Russian assets. Meloni made it clear Wednesday that Italy has not made a decision on whether to support the use of frozen assets. Italy had “decided not to withhold its support for the regulation establishing the immobilization of Russian assets — though I want to underline clearly that we have not yet endorsed any decision on how to use them,” she said. “We did so despite not agreeing with the method used, to avoid any doubt about Italy’s consistent line of support for Ukraine.” Meloni made it clear that “decisions of such legal, financial and institutional magnitude — including any potential use of frozen assets — must be taken by leaders.” “We believe that if this path [using the frozen Russian assets] is taken, it would be shortsighted to focus attention on a single entity holding frozen Russian sovereign assets — namely Euroclear [which is based in Belgium] — when other partner nations also have immobilized assets in their financial systems.” The Italian prime minister also said she intended to “request clarity on the possible risks linked to the proposal to use the liquidity generated by the immobilization of assets — particularly reputational risks, risks of retaliation, or risks of imposing new burdens on national budgets.” Meloni was not the only leader casting doubt over whether a deal could be struck, or if another way forward would be necessary. Speaking two hours earlier before the European Parliament in Strasbourg, von der Leyen said she had “proposed two different options for this upcoming European Council. One based on assets and one based on EU borrowing. And we will have to decide which way we want to take, which route we want to take.” “But one thing is very, very clear. We have to take the decision to fund Ukraine for the next two years in this European Council.” Stressing the need for stronger European defense capabilities, von der Leyen added, “Europe must be responsible for its own security. This is no longer an option. This is a must. We need to be ready.” “There is no more important act of European defense than supporting Ukraine’s defense. The next days will be a crucial step for securing this,” von der Leyen said.

LONDON — Donald Trump is “frustrated” with Vladimir Putin’s irrational approach to peace talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, according to Nigel Farage, the British politician who is closest to the U.S. president.  Farage said Trump was doing his best to secure a fair deal for Ukraine, adding that the current proposals for limits to the size of the Ukrainian armed forces and ceding territory to Russia were not acceptable.  “Putin proves with every week that goes by that he’s not rational, that he doesn’t want a just settlement, and frankly he is an incredibly dangerous man,” Farage told reporters on Thursday.  In response to a question from POLITICO, Farage said Ukraine had been offered a bad deal under which it would be forced to accept limits to the size of its military that would usually apply only to a country that had signed an “unconditional surrender.”  Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s position is in doubt amid a corruption scandal, Farage said. But Kyiv could not “give up territory they’ve lost tens of thousands of lives defending,” he said. “So the deal as it is at the moment doesn’t work and can’t stand.”  Farage emphasized that his comment was not a criticism of Trump’s efforts to broker a truce, adding that the U.S. president was “a peacemaker” who was doing his best to secure a fair deal. “I admire him hugely for it and I know how frustrated he’s been by Putin’s lack of rationality,” Farage said.  Farage’s assessment offers a boost to Ukraine and its allies who have worried that Trump might force an unbalanced settlement that favors Russia on Kyiv. The Reform UK leader’s remarks carry weight as he counts Trump as a “friend” and is in regular contact with the president. This week, Trump sent his son in law Jared Kushner and peace envoy Steve Witkoff for five hours of direct talks with Putin. But the Russian leader dismissed the proposals, which had been adjusted in light of input from Ukraine and its European allies. Trump said this week that the path to peace was still unclear.

U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration blame the EU and migration for what they say is imminent, total cultural unravelling in Europe.  The explosive claim is made in the U.S. National Security Strategy, which notes Europe has economic problems, but says they are “eclipsed by the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure” within the next 20 years.  “The larger issues facing Europe include activities of the European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence,” the Trump administration says in the 33-page document released overnight.  That narrative is likely to resonate deeply among most of Europe’s far-right parties, whose electoral programs are primarily based on criticism of the EU, demands for curbs on migration from Muslim-majority and non-European nations, and a patriotic push to overturn their countries’ perceived declines.  The new security strategy offers a clear ideological alignment between U.S. President Donald Trump’s populist MAGA movement and Europe’s nationalist parties. The U.S. administration — which has developed increasingly closer ties with far-right parties in countries such as Germany and Spain — appears to hint it could help ideologically allied European parties. “America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit, and the growing influence of patriotic European parties indeed gives cause for great optimism,” the strategy states. The document is a rare formal explanation of Trump’s foreign policy worldview by his administration. Such strategies, which presidents typically release once each term, can help shape how parts of the U.S. government allocate budgets and set policy priorities. In an introductory note to the strategy, Trump called it a “roadmap to ensure that America remains the greatest and most successful nation in human history, and the home of freedom on earth.” The Trump administration does concede that “Europe remains strategically and culturally vital to the United States,” but its views on the continent are aligned with the administration’s past negative public statements. Vice President JD Vance shocked the mainstream political class at the Munich Security Conference in February by attacking Europe over migration and free speech. The document also echoes the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which asserts that elites are plotting to diminish the voting power of white Europeans by opening their countries’ doors to immigration from the African continent, specifically Muslim countries. “Over the long term, it is more than plausible that within a few decades at the latest, certain NATO members will become majority non-European,” the document states. The war in Ukraine is mentioned, in a brief departure from discussing Europe’s “civilizational erasure.” The U.S. stresses that it’s in America’s interest for the Kremlin’s war to stop, including in order to restore “strategic stability” with Russia. However, the U.S. administration claims that “unstable minority governments” in Europe have “unrealistic expectations for the war,” while also hinting they are hindering the peace process. The comments come as European leaders privately warn that Washington could “betray” Ukraine during peace negotiations with Moscow. In contradiction to NATO’s open-door policy for candidate countries, the U.S. administration also wants to “end the perception, and preventing the reality, of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance.” While it’s no secret that Trump doesn’t want Ukraine to join NATO, that was also Washington’s position under his predecessor Joe Biden.  

Russia will seize Donbas as well as Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions one way or another, President Vladimir Putin warned Thursday in an interview with the India Today television channel. “It all comes down to this. Either we liberate these territories by force of arms, or Ukrainian troops leave these territories and stop fighting there,” Putin told the Indian news station ahead of a visit to New Delhi, where he is due to meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Russian leader’s statement comes during yet another round of peace efforts spearheaded by American officials and reaffirms that he has no intention of backing down from his maximalist war goals. According to open-source maps of the conflict, Russian forces now control about 80 percent of the Donbas region, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk. Russia this week claimed it had — after more than a year of fighting — captured the key city of Pokrovsk, which Ukraine has rejected. Ceding Donbas was one of the points in the 28-point-plan, circulated by U.S. President Donald Trump’s team, which drew criticism from Ukrainian and European officials as heavily lopsided in Russia’s favor. An updated proposal watered down some of the more pro-Russian aspects of the initial plan. Meetings between U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Putin to discuss the updated plan yielded no progress toward ending the war in Ukraine, and instead saw the Kremlin blaming Europe for thwarting the peace process. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly vowed that Ukraine will not give up Donbas as part of the ceasefire deal as that would give Putin a springboard for a future invasion.

HOW BELGIUM BECAME RUSSIA’S MOST VALUABLE ASSET Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever is unmoved in his opposition to a raid on Moscow’s funds held in a Brussels bank for a loan to Ukraine.  By TIM ROSS, GREGORIO SORGI, HANS VON DER BURCHARD and NICHOLAS VINOCUR in Brussels Illustration by Natália Delgado/POLITICO It became clear that something had gone wrong by the time the langoustines were served for lunch.  The European Union’s leaders arrived on Oct. 23 for a summit in rain-soaked Brussels to welcome Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with a gift he sorely needed: a huge loan of some €140 billion backed by Russian assets frozen in a Belgian bank. It would be enough to keep his besieged country in the fight against Russia’s invading forces for at least the next two years.  The assorted prime ministers and presidents were so convinced by their plan for the loan that they were already arguing among themselves over how the money should be spent. France wanted Ukraine to buy weapons made in Europe. Finland, among others, argued that Zelenskyy should be free to procure whatever kit he needed from wherever he could find it.  But when the discussion broke up for lunch without agreement on raiding the Russian cash, reality dawned: Modest Belgium, a country of 12 million people, was not going to allow the so-called reparations loan to happen at all.  The fatal blow came from Bart De Wever. The bespectacled 54-year-old Belgian prime minister cuts an eccentric figure at the EU summit table, with his penchant for round-collared shirts, Roman history and witty one-liners. This time he was deadly serious, and dug in.  He told his peers that the risk of retaliation by the Russians for expropriating their sovereign assets was too great to contemplate. In the event that Moscow won a legal challenge against Belgium or Euroclear, the Brussels depository holding the assets, they would be on the hook to repay the entire amount, on their own. “That’s completely insane,” he said.  As afternoon stretched into evening, and dinner came and went, De Wever demanded the summit’s final conclusions be rewritten, repeatedly, to remove any mention of using Moscow’s assets to send cash to Kyiv.   Bart De Wever attends the European Council summit, in Brussels, Belgium, on Oct. 23, 2025. | Dursun Aydemir/Anadolu via Getty Images The Belgian blockade knocked the wind out of Ukraine’s European alliance at a critical moment. If the leaders had agreed to move ahead at speed with the loan plan at the October summit, it would have sent a powerful signal to Vladimir Putin about Ukraine’s long-term strength and Europe’s robust commitment to defend itself. Instead, Zelenskyy and Europe were weakened by the divisions when Donald Trump, still hoping for a Nobel Peace Prize, reopened his push for peace talks with Putin allies. The situation in Brussels remains stuck, even with the outcome of the almost-four-year-long war approaching a pivotal moment. Ukraine is sliding closer toward the financial precipice, Trump wants Zelenskyy to sign a lopsided deal with Putin — triggering alarm across Europe — and yet De Wever is still saying no. “The Russians must be having the best time,” said one EU official close to negotiations. The bloc’s leaders still aim to agree on a final plan for how to stop Ukraine running out of money when they meet for their next regular Brussels summit on Dec. 18.  But as the clock ticks down, one key problem remains: Can the EU’s most senior officials — European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and António Costa, the president of the European Council — persuade De Wever to change his mind? So far the signs are not good. “I’m not impressed yet, let me put it that way,” De Wever said in televised remarks as the Commission released its draft legal texts on Wednesday. “We are not going to put risks involving hundreds of billions … on Belgian shoulders. Not today, not tomorrow, never.” In interviews, more than 20 officials, politicians and diplomats, many speaking privately to discuss sensitive matters, described to POLITICO how European attempts to fund the defense of Ukraine descended into disarray and paralysis, snagged on political dysfunction and personality clashes at the highest levels. The potential consequences for Europe — as Trump seeks to force a peace treaty on Ukraine — could hardly be more severe. SPOOKING THE HORSES  According to several of those close to the discussions, the reparations loan proposal started to hit trouble when tension began to build between De Wever and his neighbor, the new German chancellor, Friedrich Merz. A Flemish nationalist, De Wever came to power just this past February after months of tortuous coalition negotiations — a classic scenario in Belgian politics. Three weeks later, Germany voted in a national election to hand Merz, a center-right conservative, the leadership of Europe’s most powerful economy.  Like De Wever, Merz can be impulsive in a way that is liable to unsettle allies. “He shoots from the hip,” one Western diplomat said. On the night he won, he called on Europe to work for full “independence” from the United States and warned NATO it may soon be history.  Amid delays and continuing failure to agree on a way forward, bad-tempered briefings have been aimed at Bart De Wever, and increasingly at Ursula von der Leyen, too, in recent weeks. | Nicolas Tucat/Getty Images In September, the German chancellor stuck his neck out again. It was time, he said, for Europe to raid its bank vaults in order to exploit immobilized Russian assets to help Ukraine. With his outburst, Merz apparently spooked the Belgians, who were at the time in sensitive private talks with EU officials trying to iron out their worries. Several officials said Merz went rogue in putting the policy into the public domain so forcefully and so early — before De Wever had signed up.  Five days later, von der Leyen discussed it herself, though she was careful to try to reassure anyone who might have concerns: “There is no seizing of the assets.” Instead, she argued, the assets would just be used to provide a sort of advance payment from Moscow for war reparations it would inevitably owe. The money would only be returned to Russia in the unlikely event that the Kremlin agreed to compensate Kyiv for the destruction in Ukraine.  The idea gained rapid momentum. “It’s important to move forward in the process because it’s about making sure that there is funding to meet the budgetary and military needs for Ukraine, and it’s also a moral issue about making Russia pay for the damage that it has caused,” Jessica Rosencrantz, Sweden’s EU affairs minister, told POLITICO. “In that sense, using the frozen Russian assets is the logical and moral choice to make.” THE SPIDER’S WEB  Most of the work of a European Council summit is already done long before the bloc’s leaders arrive at the futuristic “space egg” Europa building for handshakes and photos. Ambassadors from the bloc’s 27 member countries gather to discuss what the summit will achieve — and to thrash out the precise wording of the plans — during the weeks leading up to each meeting.  Ahead of the October summit, Belgium’s ambassador to the EU, Peter Moors, had been sending signals to his colleagues that making progress on plans to use Russia’s frozen assets would be fine. The problem, according to four officials familiar with the matter, was that Moors wasn’t speaking directly to De Wever, and all the decisions about Russian assets rested with the prime minister.  While others inside the Belgian government knew that the prime minister was implacably opposed to ransacking Euroclear, one of his country’s most valuable and important financial institutions, the diplomat negotiating the summit deal a few hundred meters up the road apparently did not.  That meant nobody in the EU machinery really understood just how serious De Wever’s opposition was going to be until he arrived on summit day with steam coming out of his ears.  Moors is well respected among his peers and within the Belgian government. He is seen as effective, experienced and competent, having had a long career in diplomacy and politics. Before he took on the role of ambassador to the EU, he was known as the “spider in the web” of Belgian foreign policy.  Several officials said Friedrich Merz went rogue in putting the policy into the public domain so forcefully and so early — before Bart De Wever had signed up. | Tobias Schwartz/Getty Images The trouble, it seems, may have been political. He was the chief of staff to De Wever’s rival and predecessor as prime minister, Alexander De Croo, and comes from a party that lost power in last year’s election and now serves in opposition. It’s hardly uncommon in politics for such distinctions to affect who gets left out of the loop.  The other complicating factor was Belgium’s political dysfunction. As De Wever himself put it, he had been locked in negotiations with his compatriots trying to agree a national budget for weeks with no deal in sight.  “I’ve been negotiating for weeks to find €10 billion,” De Wever said on the way into the EU summit. A scenario in which Belgium would have to repay Russia more than 10 times that amount would therefore be unthinkable, he added.  As the summit broke up with only a vague agreement for leaders to look again at financing Ukraine, officials were left scratching their heads and wondering what had gone wrong.  AMERICA FIRST   The question of what to do with hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Russian assets locked in Western accounts had been hanging over Ukraine’s allies since the funds were sanctioned at the start of the war in February 2022. Now, though, it’s not just the Europeans who have their eyes on the cash.  The American side has quietly but firmly let Brussels know they have their own plans for the funds. When EU Sanctions Envoy David O’Sullivan traveled to Washington during the summer, U.S. officials told him bluntly they wanted to hand the assets back to Russia once a peace deal was done, according to two senior diplomats.  Trump is increasingly impatient for Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a full peace treaty. True to their word, the Americans’ original 28-point blueprint for an agreement included proposals for unfreezing the Russian assets and using them for a joint Ukraine reconstruction effort, under which the U.S. would take 50 percent of the profits.  The concept provoked outrage in European capitals, where one shocked official suggested Trump’s peace envoy Steve Witkoff should see “a psychiatrist.” If nothing else, Trump’s desire for a speedy deal with Putin — and his apparent designs for the frozen assets — lit a fire under the EU’s negotiations with De Wever.  WASTED TIME   Many EU governments are sympathetic toward the Belgian leader. Officials and politicians know just how difficult it is for any government to contemplate a step like this one, which could theoretically open them up to punishingly expensive legal action. De Wever is worried the stability of the euro itself could be undermined if a raid on Euroclear forced investors to think again about placing their assets in European banks.  In recent weeks, von der Leyen’s most senior aide, Björn Seibert, among others, invested time in trying to understand Belgium’s objections and to find creative ways to overcome them. Moors and other ambassadors have discussed the issues endlessly, during their regular meetings with each other and the Commission.  But as the nights draw in, the mood is darkening. Amid delays and continuing failure to agree on a way forward, bad-tempered briefings have been aimed at De Wever, and increasingly also at von der Leyen in recent weeks. She has held off the decisive step of publishing the draft legal texts that would enable the assets to be used for the reparations loan. These documents are what all sides need to enact, alter or reject the plan. “We have wasted a lot of time,” Jonatan Vseviov, secretary-general of the Estonian foreign ministry, told POLITICO. “Our focus has been solely on the Commission president, asking her to present the proposal. Nobody else can table the proposal.” He said it would have been “better” if the Commission had produced the legal texts setting out the details of the loan earlier than Wednesday, when they were eventually released. “We have wasted a lot of time,” Jonatan Vseviov, secretary-general of the Estonian foreign ministry, told POLITICO. | Ali Balikci/Getty Images “We all have a responsibility” to speed up now, another diplomat said, while a third noted that even Belgium had been imploring the Commission to publish the legal plans in recent weeks. An EU official said everyone should calm down and noted that De Wever still needed to get off his ledge. Another diplomat said Belgium “cannot expect all their wishes to be granted in full.” WINTER IS HERE Merz is particularly agitated. He worries that it will be his country’s taxpayers who have to step in unless the assets loan goes ahead. “I see the need to do this as increasingly urgent,” the German leader told reporters on Friday. “Ukraine needs our support. Russian attacks are intensifying. Winter is approaching — or rather, we are already in winter.” De Wever, in the words of one diplomat, is still “pleading” for other options to remain in play. Two alternative ideas are in the air. The first would ask EU national governments to dig into their own coffers to send cash grants to Kyiv, a prospect most involved think is unrealistic given the parlous state of the budgets of many European nations.  The other idea is to fund a loan to Kyiv via joint EU borrowing, something frugal countries dislike because it would pile up debt to be repaid by future generations of taxpayers. “We are not keen on that,” one diplomat said. “The principle of saying Russia needs to pay for the damage is right.”  Some combination of these ideas might be inevitable, especially if the reparations loan is not finalized in time to meet Ukraine’s funding needs. In that case, a bridging loan will be required as an emergency “plan B”.  In a letter to von der Leyen on Nov. 27, De Wever underlined his opposition, describing the reparations loan proposal as “fundamentally wrong.”  “I am fully cognizant of the need to find ways to continue financial support to Ukraine,” De Wever wrote in his letter to von der Leyen. “My point has always been that there are alternative ways to put our money where our mouth is. When we talk about having skin in the game, we have to accept that it will be our skin in the game.”  “Who would advise the prime minister to write such a letter?” one exasperated diplomat said, dismayed at De Wever’s apparent insensitivity. “He talks about having ‘skin in the game.’ What about Ukraine?” RUSSIAN DRONES  Despite frustrating his allies, De Wever still has support from within his own government for the hard-line stance he’s taking. His position has been reinforced by Euroclear itself, which issued its own warnings. In a sign of how critical the subject is for Belgium, Euroclear’s bosses deal directly with De Wever’s office, bypassing the finance ministry.  Some also fear the threat to Belgium’s physical security. Mysterious drones disrupted air traffic at Brussels Airport last month and were spotted over Belgian military bases, suspected of spying on fighter jets and ammunition stores. The concern is that they may be part of Putin’s hybrid assault on Europe, and that Belgium would be at heightened risk if De Wever approved the use of Moscow’s assets.  Another major hurdle to progress on the loan is Hungary. Russia’s assets are only frozen because all the EU’s leaders — including Putin’s friend Viktor Orbán — have agreed every six months to extend the sanctions immobilizing the funds. Should Orbán change his mind, Russia could suddenly be free to lay claim to those assets again, putting Belgium in trouble.  In the end, the task may just be too big even for the Commission’s highly qualified lawyers. It’s far from certain that a legal fix even exists that could duck Hungary’s veto and Russian retaliation, keep Belgium happy, and avoid the need for European taxpayer money to be committed up front.  Mysterious drones disrupted air traffic at Brussels Airport last month and were spotted over Belgian military bases, suspected of spying on fighter jets and ammunition stores. | Nicolas Tucat/Getty Images As the next crunch European Council summit on Dec. 18 gets closer, European officials are feeling the pressure. “This is not an accounting exercise,” Estonia’s Vseviov said. “We are preparing the most consequential of all European Councils … We are trying to ensure that Europe gets a seat at the table where history is being made.” For the EU, one essential question remains — and it’s one that is always there, in every crisis that crosses the desks of the diplomats and officials working in Brussels: Can a union of 27 diverse, fractious, complex countries, each with its own domestic struggles, political rivalries and ambitious leaders, unite to meet the moment when it truly matters?  In the words of one diplomat, “It’s anyone’s guess.” Jacopo Barigazzi, Camille Gijs, Bjarke Smith-Meyer and Hanne Cokelaere contributed to this report.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said in an interview published Wednesday that conditions for a just peace in Ukraine are unlikely to be met. “The reality is that peace can be good, bad, or some kind of compromise. The reality is also that we Finns must prepare for the moment when peace comes, and that all the conditions for a just peace we’ve talked so much about over the past four years are unlikely to be fulfilled,” Stubb said in an interview with MTV Uutiset. He added that “we are closer to peace today than yesterday” and that the coming days and weeks will show whether the negotiations yield any results. Stubb’s interview comes on the heels of meetings between U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and Russian President Vladimir Putin, which yielded no progress toward ending the war in Ukraine, and instead saw Putin blaming Europe for thwarting the peace process. “We’re not planning to wage a war with Europe, but if Europe decides to start a war, we’re ready right now,” Putin said. A 28-point plan prepared by Witkoff and Russian negotiator Kirill Dmitriev was criticized by European and Ukrainian officials as it heavily favored Moscow. The updated proposal watered down some of the more pro-Russian aspects of the initial plan. Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said Wednesday at a NATO foreign ministers’ meeting that Europe will soon be briefed on the latest peace talks but “apparently they have not been able to reach massive consensus last night in Moscow.” “Russia is not willing to make any compromise,” she said, adding that any peace deal must not only stop killing, but also include terms that “make Ukraine strong enough to in the future resist not only invasion on the military side, but also any political interference, which is fully in the Russian playbook.”