Back to Yalta
As 80 years ago, today’s large states aim to impose their will on smaller nations. This time, however, no European leader is at the table. Will incoming German Chancellor Merz change this? A commentary by Catherine De Vries
Exactly eighty years ago, in February 1945, three world leaders, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin, met in Crimea to discuss the end of the Second World War and a new world order.
Now, eighty years later, Crimea is in the news again, as is the logic of Yalta: the notion that large states can impose their will on smaller states. History repeats itself but with a striking difference: this time, no European leader is at the table.
Last week, Russian and American delegations discussed Ukraine's future without Ukraine's or the EU's input.
As the US government threatens to abandon Ukraine, Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, the European Union's top officials, traveled to Kyiv this week. Three years after the Russian invasion, they underlined the EU's principle so far: “No decisions about Ukraine, without Ukraine.”
Since Trump took office, the United States has openly broken with the Western alliance. During the security conference in Munich, US Vice President J.D. Vance even went so far as to mention in his speech not China and Russia as dangers in the world, but Europe itself.
The Pax Americana is over — the post-war period of relative peace in the Western Hemisphere, with the US as the dominant economic, cultural, and military world power, and the EU as one of America's most important allies.
A New Role for Germany
The EU will quickly have to adapt to this new reality. What will the role of the EU's biggest member state Germany be after Sunday's election?
Despite the large gains of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a likely coalition government will be formed between the Christian and Social Democrats led by Friedrich Merz.
In the post-election debate on German TV, Merz made it clear that Europe must take matters into its own hands. “It is my absolute priority to strengthen Europe as quickly as possible so that we can actually become independent from the US step by step.” Stark words from a politician who classified himself as a Transatlantist.
It remains to be seen how Merz achieves this goal, but he clearly aims to put Germany back into a leadership role in Europe.
German leadership has been lacking in recent years. While Paris and Warsaw took increasingly assertive positions on European security, Berlin remained overly cautious.
After the Russian attack on Ukraine, Chancellor Scholz spoke of a “Zeitenwende”, a change in German policy, but in the end, little came of it.
Since the end of the Second World War, Germany has invested relatively little in military capacity for historical reasons. Under the NATO umbrella and the close partnership with the US, this was not seen as a problem, but now the chickens have come home to roost.
The German weekly Der Spiegel headlined last week about Germany's relationship to the US: “Betrayed: First Zelensky, now us?”
Germany is now being confronted with a harsh new reality. The country will not only have to increase its military capacity dramatically, perhaps station troops in Ukraine, but it will also have to pay for all of this.
This will require overhauling the “Schuldenbremse” enshrined in the constitution: a ceiling on the national debt for the federal government and the states. Merz has announced that these strict budget rules could be changed, but the road to revision might be difficult.
The Problem with European Trump’s Allies
There is another obstacle on the road towards greater European self-reliance. Leaders of far-right parties such as the AfD, but also the PVV in the Netherlands, or the party of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico appear to be taking Trump's side. Last week, AfD leader Alice Weidel said in an interview that “Trump is implementing the policies that the AfD has been demanding for years.”
At a meeting in Madrid of the right-wing radical bloc of the European Parliament, the European Patriots, a few weeks ago, PVV leader Geert Wilders praised Trump as a “brother in arms”. Robert Fico expressed his support for Trump's pro-Russian policy at the ultra-conservative American Congress CPAC last weekend.
“No one disputes that Russian violence in Ukraine was a violation of international law,” Fico said. But Russia, he said, had “their reasons for this,” namely the provocations of the West “on the issue of possible NATO expansion.”
These politicians seem willing to risk Europe's security and prosperity for their own political gains. The American turn toward Russia and away from democracy will be a litmus test for the European project and Europe's commitment to laws and democracy.
The art of European cooperation is to achieve the possible in unforeseen circumstances, and that art will be needed more than ever.
IEP@BU does not express opinions of its own. The opinions expressed in this publication are those of the authors. Any errors or omissions are the responsibility of the authors.
