EU leaders strive to quell their quarrels and grow into a geopolitical heavyweightJames Crisp Europe Editor, in Brussels. Joe Barnes Brussels Correspondent
At an emergency summit of European Union leaders in Brussels, the building blocks of an empire were beginning to take shape.
Donald Trump’s threats over Greenland have exposed Europe’s weakness. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is waging war on its eastern flank. China’s Xi Jinping is a relentless competitor.
In a brutal new age of world powers, the EU wants to build a bigger, richer, stronger “super Europe” that is able to resist the dangerous whims of the globe’s autocrats.
Turning 27 quarrelsome small and middle-sized powers into a geopolitical heavyweight has been Emmanuel Macron’s largely unheeded call ever since the US president’s first term.
This time, though, it is different, multiple Brussels insiders have told The Telegraph.
“Let’s take a step back and realise we live in a world where the leader of the free world is willing to upend the Western alliance over something he sees on Fox News,” one EU diplomat said.
“It is not a cosy place,” Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, said in Davos of a global order changing at “an unprecedented pace”.
The EU’s answer to every major crisis has always been “more Europe”. To assert “European sovereignty”, it needs more members, more money and more military.
“Europe has got the message,” Mr Merz said, adding: “My government will do its homework and pursue an ambitious reform agenda revolving around security, competitiveness and European unity.”
A day after the summit, the German chancellor signed an accord pledging close coordination on European reforms with Giorgia Meloni, of fellow founding member Italy.
Mr Macron and Mr Merz, the EU’s two most influential leaders, are in agreement, which has not always been the case in recent times.
The French president vowed that Europe would not give in to “bullies” after Mr Trump insisted that Denmark had to sell the US Greenland or face tariffs.
Mette Frederiksen, the Danish prime minister, arrived in Brussels from visiting a supportive Sir Keir Starmer in London after Mr Trump’s climbdown.
She said: “When Europe is not divided, when we stand together, and when we are clear and strong, also in our willingness to stand up for ourselves, then results will show. I think we have learned something in the last days and weeks.”
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, said: “We know we have to work for a more independent Europe. This is not something which happens overnight. This is hard work.”
It also means that the EU is poised to get much, much bigger.
Bart De Wever, the Belgian prime minister, said: “People want to join the European Union. Nobody wants to join China. No neighbour of the United States wants to join the United States.”
He added: “Because we have respect, we have the rule of law. We do speak softly.”
Enlargement, adding new member states, was a dirty word in Brussels for years. Now no fewer than nine nations are knocking at the door of the club.
It is not quite 2004’s “big bang”, when 10 mostly former eastern-bloc nations joined the EU at once. But the war in Ukraine has changed everything.
Kyiv’s EU membership is a vital component of the peace deal Mr Trump is attempting to reach with Putin.