The fight for Europe is on – POLITICO Europe

Both men were brutally honest in their addresses, putting Europe on the spot to make some fundamental decisions, and make them quickly — no easy task for a bloc that’s consensus-based decision-making process is designed to move agonizingly slow. It won’t be easy at the national level either, as all 27 countries are grappling with critical economic challenges and bitter, highly polarized political divisions.

Nonetheless, the bloc is now faced with a stark choice, and given the state of the war in Ukraine and the pressing demands of an impatient and increasingly bullying administration in Washington, the clock is ticking.

In ideological terms, Europe is being forced to choose between MAGA illiberalism and the classical liberalism that underpins its own existence. Put even more simply: At a time of intensifying great power competition, the EU has to pick between becoming a satrap of the U.S. or breaking free to steer its own course.

In Vance’s blistering attack, as aggressive as Russian President Vladimir Putin’s 2007 speech at the summit, the vice president went out of his way to offend and tell the bloc it has to dance to the ideological tunes of U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration.

While the summit had been focused on burden sharing and increased defense spending, Vance flipped the script. He wanted far more than that. The key point was a demand for Europe to embrace Trump’s nativist ideology and authoritarianism or be considered unworthy of defense guarantees and friendship. He railed against Europe, accusing its leaders of suppressing free speech, failing to halt migration and running in fear from voters.

Even many of the bloc’s conservatives attending the summit were left reeling, though they have their own doubts about the bloc’s handling of free speech and remain frustrated at the failure to curb migration. Vance’s take was a highly distorted picture that oversimplifies complex problems. Plus, it’s one thing to criticize yourself, it’s another thing entirely for someone to come into your house and say you suck.

Coming quick on the heels of his speech at the Paris AI summit earlier last week, where he instructed Europe to back off regulations disliked by U.S. tech magnates, Vance’s message couldn’t have been clearer: Our way, or we’ll join Putin in hybrid warfare to roil your domestic politics — something billionaire Elon Musk has already done by boosting the prospects of the far-right Alternative for Germany party.

His speech also underlined how MAGA’s chief ideologues don’t view it as just a national project but a civilizational one, a politico-cultural crusade that’s to be carried out well beyond the U.S. It is a project to save Western civilization — from itself, if necessary — and force it back to its Christian roots, as far as MAGA ideologues see it. And Vance has been tasked with spreading the reactionary revolution.

Zelenskyy’s speech, on the other hand, was a rallying cry for European confidence. A wartime leader fighting for his nation’s very survival, Zelenskyy didn’t mince his words. He stressed that the familiar, comforting relationship between Europe and the U.S. is drawing to a close, and that the continent needs to adjust as the divergence in values grows. “I really believe that the time has come that the armed forces of Europe must be created,” he said. “Let’s be honest, now we can’t rule out that America might say ‘no’ to Europe on issues that might threaten it.”

In short, it’s time to take back control.

“Europe has everything it takes. Europe just needs to come together and start acting in a way that no one can say ‘no’ to Europe, boss it around, or treat it like a pushover,” Zelenskyy said.

Because of its shock value, Vance’s speech got more attention in Munich, but Zelenskyy’s speech was a brave one, marking a bold switch from flattering Trump in the hopes that he won’t abandon Ukraine to a more defiant tone. “He sounded like the leader of the free world,” former U.S. diplomat Michael McFaul told POLITICO.

And despite America’s might in comparison to the precariousness of the situation in Ukraine, there was no doubt which speech the majority of summit participants favored.

Vance’s words were met with stony faces, frosty glares and only a smattering of applause from a small claque of supporters. It was followed by a clamor of disapproval as summiteers discussed his speech in the coffee shops and lobbies of Munich’s Bayerischer Hof hotel. Zelenskyy’s speech got a standing ovation.

The question now is whether Europe will act on this preference. “Maybe we should thank JD Vance for so bluntly attacking Europe because Europeans got a sense that Trump is coming after them as well,” former Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told POLITICO.

“In Paris, he literally said, ‘Don’t try to compete with us on AI. Embrace our companies, remove all the obstacles, and then everything will be fine.’ … Then he came here, and after attacking Europe’s economic model, he attacked its political model,” Kuleba said. “Now it’s all in the hands of the Europeans. Let’s see how they react to it.”

And that’s the real challenge. A European army was first broached in the 1950s, with interest waxing and waning ever since and no real progress made. It was so much easier just leaning on the Americans. And cash-strapped as it now is, Europe will have to make some hard choices between social spending and defense spending — a debate that will inevitably throw domestic politics into further turmoil, adding to the list of grievances the left-behind have with their political leaders.

Coming together as Zelenskyy urges isn’t so simple. There will be disruption from Trump “fifth columnists,” like Hungary’s Viktor Orbán and Slovakia’s Robert Fico, to contend with, while Trump will, no doubt, use tariffs to cajole and target countries individually. 

Nevertheless, the fight for Europe is on.