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Politico (19 February 2025)

Guy Verhofstadt and Domènec Ruiz Devesa

Guy Verhofstadt is a former MEP and president of European Movement International. Domènec Ruiz Devesa is a former MEP and president of the Union of European Federalists.

Every cloud has a silver lining. And as Europe is finally faced with the opportunity to build a real European Defence Union amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s disruptive return, this could not be more true.

Despite several achievements in the EU’s Common Security and Defence Policy throughout the years — including the deployment of no less than 40 missions and operations for crisis management and peacekeeping around the world — the bloc has continued to rely on the security umbrella provided by NATO and the U.S. for its territorial defense.

There were good reasons for this. After all, NATO’s mission is the collective security of the Euro-Atlantic area and most of the bloc’s member countries are also part of the alliance. Therefore, many considered the EU becoming a major security provider to be an unnecessary duplication, if not a possible cause of dangerous confusion in the line of command in the event of an attack.

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