European Leaders Seek New Ukraine Strategy

French President Emanuel Macron hosted emergency meetings with European Leaders to formulate new strategies for the war in Ukraine (Flickr).

The halls of Munich’s Bayerischer Hof may have emptied of ambassadors, attachés, and heads of state, but the aftereffects of the Munich Security Conference (MSC) it hosted still linger, chief among them seismic shifts in the United States’ attitude towards Ukraine. The Trump Administration’s volte-face on the issue drove European leaders to devise new plans for handling Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine during a series of emergency meetings on February 17 and 19.  

While it was widely understood that President Donald Trump would be less supportive of Ukraine than his predecessor, Joe Biden, it remained unclear just how sharply he might diverge from the past three years of American foreign policy. That ambiguity vanished during the MSC. A blistering speech from Vice President J.D. Vance, heavily-criticized remarks from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and a spate of statements from Trump—who remained stateside—made clear that, as the BBC characterized it, “Europe can no longer automatically rely on the US...”

In an attempt to coordinate strategies for moving forward, French President Emmanuel Macron convened leaders from eight European nations alongside top EU and NATO officials at the Élysée Palace on February 17. The meeting, LeMonde reports, discussed options for Ukrainian security guarantees and potential peace deals. Macron followed the mini-summit with another gathering two days later, hosting the heads of nineteen countries to further address the conflict in Ukraine, per LeMonde. The meetings contrasted sharply with the February 18 bilateral meeting between the United States and Russia, which excluded Ukrainian and other European participants. 

The outcomes of the emergency talks were mixed. Attendees reached a consensus on sanctions that, according to Politico EU, target aluminum imports, shadow vessels, and refinery maintenance. However, notable divisions remain. Prior to the talks, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, said that Britain is “ready and willing to contribute to security guarantees…[and put] troops on the ground if necessary” in an opinion piece for the Daily Telegraph. Macron, as the New York Times notes, has taken a similar stance for months. 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, however, staunchly oppose such a proposal, with Scholz characterizing it as “premature” and “inappropriate.” Germany is holding parliamentary elections in which Scholz’s chief political rivals, the center-right CDU, are expected to take power, so the swearing-in of a new Chancellor may shift the country’s position. A group of smaller European states, who are closer to the frontlines and have staunchly supported Ukraine, also criticized their exclusion from the recent meetings.  

With the contours of both diplomatic and physical battlefields evolving every day, it remains to be seen whether Europe will ultimately unite or fracture in the face of the most significant shifts in its regional security and alliances since the fall of the Berlin Wall, if not the Second World War.