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Politico (24 April 2024)

By  BARBARA MOENS, JACOPO BARIGAZZI,  KARL MATHIESEN, ALEX WARD and CAMILLE GIJS

This is the moment most of Europe’s leaders hoped they would never see. The date is November 7, 2024, two days after Donald Trump edged out Joe Biden in the U.S. presidential election, and already the once-and-future president has announced he will force Ukraine to strike a peace deal with Russia and cede territories the Kremlin has claimed as its own.

Gathered in Budapest for a meeting of the European Political Community, the continent’s leaders stare out over the majestic Danube River with just one thing on their mind: How should they react?

Can they double down in the face of Trump’s opposition and finally give Kyiv whatever it takes, as a group of leaders clustered around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and French President Emmanuel Macron are arguing? Should they follow Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s lead and welcome Trump’s initiative to bring the conflict to an end? Wouldn’t it be better to work with Washington and help shape the deal, as the German and Italian delegations keep saying? And most importantly, how can the continent’s leaders keep the sharp turn in U.S. foreign policy from driving their countries apart?

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