Problem

Around 60,000 migrants crossed from Morocco into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta in 24 hours between July 30th and 31st, overwhelming the territory and exposing divisions within the EU.

The immediate cause is unclear. Morocco’s authorities have yet to issue an official explanation. Spanish officials have pointed to a recent Supreme Court ruling ending the automatic return of migrants intercepted while attempting to swim to Ceuta and Melilla. But the sheer scale of the crossings suggests Morocco might have deliberately relaxed border controls. The timing is also suspicious. The crisis came just ten days after Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez visited Algeria— Morocco’s arch-rival—and announced a “new phase” in Spain-Algeria relations.

The reaction within Europe has been striking. Rather than display solidarity with a member state facing pressure at the EU’s external border, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni not only blamed Sánchez’s migration policies but also called for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen area. Madrid responded by summoning the Italian ambassador and rebuking Rome’s “partisan demagoguery”.

Responses from other leaders have been similarly unsympathetic. Finnish interior minister Mari Rantanen supported Italy’s proposal to suspend Spain’s Schengen status. Manfred Weber, president of the centre-right European People’s Party, urged the European Commission to hold Sánchez accountable for failing to protect the EU’s external border. Meanwhile, France has reinforced controls along its frontier with Spain. Remarkably, little criticism was directed at Morocco itself.

Solution

In the immediate term, the EU should demonstrate solidarity with Spain. European leaders need to treat migration pressure against a member state as a collective problem and a challenge to the integrity of the EU’s external border. Publicly blaming the targeted member state lowers the political cost of weaponising migration.

Brussels should make clear that any use of migration as blackmail will carry European rather than merely Spanish consequences. Around two thirds of Moroccan exports go to the EU, which is also its largest source of foreign investment. Brussels should also be prepared to suspend negotiations on a comprehensive partnership upgrade with Rabat.

Europe also needs to revise its migration policy, which largely shapes its relations with North Africa. In the absence of a common European approach, relations default to bilateral bargains, leaving North African leaders holding the lever. And until Europe changes the incentives, Rabat will keep pulling it.

Context

Spain has managed the migration relationship with Morocco bilaterally for decades, leaving Madrid increasingly hostage to Rabat. The latter has repeatedly used migration as political leverage, most notably in 2021, when it allowed some 6,000 migrants into Ceuta in a single day amid a diplomatic rift over Western Sahara.

The following year, Spain abandoned its longstanding neutrality on Western Sahara by endorsing Morrocco’s autonomy proposal, a policy shift many attribute to the 2021 crisis. Government sources unofficially said at that time that the new bilateral understanding included Moroccan commitments to avoid a repeat of the episode.

Rabat also appears particularly emboldened at present. It enjoys strong backing both from the US and Israel, and both have become increasingly hostile towards Sánchez government. The White House responded to the latest crossings by celebrating it as evidence of the “destructive philosophy” of “extreme left and globalist policies, including those that facilitate massive migration”.

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Problem

Poland’s party system is unravelling. The Law and Justice (PiS) party, led by Jaroslaw Kaczyński, has split. More than 40 of its members have formed a separate parliamentary caucus that includes Mateusz Morawiecki, prime minister for most of the party’s rule from 2015 to 2023. This ends an era of over 20 years that has been shaped by two powerful men and their parties: Kaczynski’s right-wing nationalist, Eurosceptic PiS and Donald Tusk’s liberal-conservative, pro-European Civic Coalition (KO).

At first glance, the collapse of his old enemy is a gift to Tusk. KO leads with 29%; PiS has slipped below 19% since the split. Four groupings now compete on the right, and Poland’s voting system punishes fragmentation, so four medium-sized parties win fewer seats than one large party on the same vote.

However, Morawiecki broke away in protest at PiS’s radicalisation, hoping to win over the very centre-right voters who helped return Tusk to power in 2023 after eight years of PiS rule. Most are now disillusioned (Tusk’s government has dismal approval ratings), politically homeless and angry. If they split their vote among the four right-wing parties or stay at home, Tusk may meet the same fate as Kaczynski in 2023: he could win the election in 2027 but be unable to assemble a majority coalition.

The other problem is one of method. For two decades Tusk has, often successfully, run against Kaczynski rather than on a programme of his own. Polarisation served both men well: each could rally his own voters by invoking the threat of the other, and smaller parties were squeezed out. Kaczynski’s decline forces Tusk to find another way to win.

Solution

Rather than betting on his enemy’s demise, Tusk should proactively set the agenda and win centrists beyond his base, as in 2023. Economic and social questions will matter, but foreign policy is set to loom unusually large in next year’s campaign. A record 25% of Poles favour leaving the EU (“Polexit”), hostility to Ukraine is rising and the right-wing parties are competing to outdo one another in anti-EU, anti-German and xenophobic rhetoric.

Tusk, a risk-averse tactician, has long avoided confrontation on those fundamental issues, calculating that exposing himself to attack from the right would be self-defeating. The far-right, however, has filled that vacuum, for example through its campaign against SAFE, the EU’s defence-loan scheme, and in the hardening mood towards Ukraine.

A more volatile party system may paradoxically make anti-Tusk majorities easier to build. That is an argument for the leader of Poland’s pro-European camp to take up the fight rather than duck it. Tusk needs to explain to Polish voters, more forcefully than before, why the EU is the best response to pressure from Donald Trump and Russia; why anchoring Ukraine in Europe is a Polish raison d’état; and how Poland’s interests differ from those the nationalists describe.

Context

Poles vote for a new parliament in October 2027. Tusk’s five-party coalition faces an uphill struggle to stay in office. The coalition partners have weak support or may not be able to re-enter the government at all.

Recent polls give the four right-wing parties a majority between them; whether their rivalries would allow a coalition is another matter. PiS has moved further right in recent months to stop core voters defecting to more radical rivals, in a shift which provoked Morawiecki’s rebellion. His departure will probably set off further political realignments before the 2027 election.

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This week, Mark Leonard is joined by LuHan Gabel, associate director of the Ideas Workshop at the Open Society Foundations; Ooi Kee Beng, political historian and executive director of the Penang Institute; and Chelsea Nguyen, research assistant in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics.

LuHan highlights how young people in China are increasingly questioning the meaning of development and modernity beyond material progress. Kee Beng reflects on Malaysia’s complex relationship with China, arguing that their growing engagement is reconnecting South-East Asia to older historical patterns of regional interaction. Chelsea explains how, in Vietnam, attitudes towards China have shifted dramatically since the covid-19 pandemic, with young people becoming more curious about Chinese technology and society.

Together, Mark, LuHan, Kee Beng and Chelsea explore whether a post-Western, rather than anti-Western, generation is taking shape across the region. How did the covid-19 pandemic reshape perceptions of China in South-East Asia? Which aspects of Chinese modernity resonate most with younger generations? Is China becoming a new reference point for development and aspiration? And what do these shifts mean for Europe’s role in an increasingly multipolar world?

This podcast episode was recorded on July 10th 2026.

Bookshelf 
A Maritime Vietnam: From Earliest Times to the Nineteenth Century, by Tana Li
State Building in Cold War Asia: Comrades and Competitors on the Sino-Vietnamese Border, by Qingfei Yin
Border Country, by Raymond Williams
The Scythian Empire: Central Eurasia and the Birth of the Classical Age from Persia to China, by Christopher I. Beckwith
Adrift in the South, by Xiao Hai

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The NATO Summit in Ankara ended with a short but consequential declaration. Alongside commitments to develop a wide range of capabilities—such as drones, a warfighting cloud and AI models—the allies pledged to make them interoperable.

This is not a trivial statement. Weapons systems are becoming increasingly software-defined, and NATO standards need to keep pace. Interoperability would address a major problem of European armed forces: fragmented command-and-control systems that cannot easily share data. Yet the declaration also raises difficult questions. Interoperability requires common standards, and whoever defines these standards will control how allies operate and upgrade their militaries. Choosing the wrong architecture could replace one weakness with another.

Ukraine’s software edge

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has demonstrated the importance of AI-assisted command-and-control systems. These are “systems of systems”, unified architectures that help aggregate and analyse vast amounts of battlefield data, thereby assisting in situational awareness, intelligence, mission planning and after-action review. Much commentary attributes Ukrainian battlefield progress in 2026 to certain drone models, underestimating the significance of Delta, Ukraine’s command-and-control system.

Compared to similar systems used by European armies, Delta offers significant advantages: it is the only one that provides a single digital architecture across the armed forces, integrating sensors, weapons and units regardless of the service branch or the system’s manufacturer. It can therefore rapidly coordinate different elements to achieve the desired effect on the battlefield, whether directing artillery and drone strikes, conducting air-defence operations or treating and evacuating casualties.

In contrast, EU militaries are much more fragmented. Different countries, and in many cases different service branches within the same country, operate different command-and-control systems, with limited interoperability. A French radar may be unable to exchange raw sensor data with an Israeli command-and-control system simply because they were built by different manufacturers and use different proprietary software.

NATO’s Link 16, a secure battlefield data-sharing standard, exchanges only relatively limited information, such as friendly positions or aggregated target tracks—meaning sensor observations that have already been processed into identified targets, such as aircraft or vehicles. Exchanging raw data would have overwhelmed the computing power available in the 1990s, when Link 16 was developed. Therefore, each system, whether a Patriot battery or a frigate, must first convert radar echoes (“plots”) into confirmed targets (“tracks”) before it can share them through that network. However, sharing only processed tracks comes at the cost of discarding potentially valuable data. Echoes that cannot be confidently identified are discarded as clutter, even though combining them with data from other sensors could reveal targets that an individual system cannot detect on its own.

Modern command-and-control systems overcome this limitation. Platforms like Delta can digest huge quantities of raw data, from drone footage to radar returns and electronic intelligence intercepts. Powerful data centres then aggregate these disparate inputs to extract patterns that individual systems and their operators could never detect alone. The result is a level of intelligence and situational awareness that in the past required a wide range of high-end surveillance equipment, such as satellite constellations and fleets of expensive intelligence aircraft or ships. Smaller militaries like Ukraine’s can now achieve results once reserved for great powers.

European governments have taken notice of the trend. As NATO seeks to shift a larger share of its military burden from the US onto European members, the challenge for Europe is to achieve self-sufficiency quickly. Recreating America’s globally oriented force structures would be very expensive and probably unnecessary. The Ukrainian model of dense networks of cheap sensors linked by sophisticated software is certainly more attractive.

Without integrated digital architecture and interoperability, a pan-European combat cloud and AI-assisted command-and-control system cannot work

However, to truly emulate Ukraine, Europeans need to do more than simply buying drones. They will need to dismantle the institutional barriers that separate different countries, service branches and defence-industrial ecosystems. Without integrated digital architecture and interoperability, a pan-European combat cloud and AI-assisted command-and-control system cannot work.

One code, one gatekeeper

The commitments made in Ankara reflect this ambition. The difficult question is what comes next. Which standards will underpin interoperability? Who will provide and maintain the software? What will be the terms and conditions of its use, adaptation and application? Washington naturally favours adopting American standards and software across the alliance. Yet other allies fear that dependence on US software will have commercial and operational costs, as well as limit their sovereignty.

Take for example the Government Reference Architecture (GRA), the new US software for operating and integrating drones. On paper, GRA is a hardware-agnostic, open-source software that allows different drones from different manufacturers to operate across a common foundation. It also allows operators to integrate new algorithms and software onto existing drones, enhancing their service life and making it easier to integrate new weapons and sensors, or to re-programme the drone for new tasks and missions.

But what does “open source” really mean in a military environment? In practice, the US Air Force is still the custodian of the software, managing integration, updates and distribution. European manufacturers involved in these discussions say the source code of substantial parts of GRA is not disclosed to them.[1] If European governments and armed forces were to adopt it straight from the box, they would not be able to verify exactly what the programme enables on their platforms—nor would they be able to freely adapt it to their specific operational and tactical needs.

Furthermore, elements of the architecture fall under America’s International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), which could constrain exports of European systems built around GRA, as well as complicate cooperation with non-NATO partners. And what happens if Europeans want to use it in operations which the US does not approve? Ukraine has already experienced how American restrictions on deep-strike systems affected deliveries of European weapons using US software and data: when Britain and France supplied Storm Shadow/SCALP cruise missiles, Kyiv was initially barred from using them against targets inside internationally recognised Russian territory because the mission-planning software and the data were subject to ITAR, requiring Washington’s approval.

America’s technological lead is undeniable. Outside Ukraine, no other ally has developed digital military integration on the same scale. But AI-powered command-and-control systems will be the backbone of modern warfare, the defining factor in a military’s ability to fight effectively. If Europeans_­­­—and Canadians—sign up to the American standards, can they be certain that Washington will not abuse this power? The fact that the Trump administration has slapped tariffs on Europe despite existing commitments, threatened to invade and annex Greenland, and temporarily suspended intelligence and military assistance to Ukraine in March 2025 should give them pause.

A truly open cloud

There is no doubt that NATO needs integrated and AI-supported command-and-control systems, a common combat cloud, and a standardised architecture to integrate crewed and uncrewed platforms. But they need to be truly open. That means that their source code needs to be transparent to all participating governments, while certification, management and distribution should be entrusted to an independent multinational authority rather than a single state. The Linux ecosystem offers one possible model. Many companies use and adapt the same underlying open-source software, yet no single firm controls it. Even so, a central authority is needed to maintain and certify the software’s core—in this case, that role is played by the Linux Foundation.

If America resists such a solution, the EU and its closest allies (Canada, Norway, the UK and Ukraine) will need to build their own architecture. The cost of building a parallel architecture would be high, but the cost of surrendering control over the software that underpins military power could be higher still.

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[1]     Interviews with system developers at two European drone manufacturers in May and July 2026.

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When the G20 met on African soil for the first time in November 2025, it signalled that the continent is becoming more important to the world as an economic partner. China and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have already spent the past decade gaining ground as trade partners to African countries, narrowing the EU’s long-held lead.

France and Italy have recast their economic strategies accordingly, hunting for markets and suppliers of their own in Africa as global alliances shift and supply chains fracture. In 2026 alone, Italy convened its second Africa Summit in Addis Ababa and France held its Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi, the first France-Africa summit co-organised with an African country outside France or Francophone Africa. The rest of Europe is also adapting its approach. Since 2020, at least nine European countries have revised or substantially repositioned their Africa policies, recognising that Africa can be more than a supplier of natural resources.[1]

Africa’s own governments are pressing for this shift, positioning themselves as equal partners rather than aid recipients. European language is adjusting to match, with Brussels, Paris and Rome talking more about investment and partnership than about aid. European leaders must now make those national strategies pull in the same direction, keeping pace with rivals and delivering for both sides of the Mediterranean.

Under pressure

The EU is Africa’s largest trading partner, but individually its largest member states are just middle-sized players in today’s Africa.

Investment tells a similar story. European firms hold the largest stock of foreign investment in Africa, over €250bn, but only 10% of all new investment to African companies in 2024 came from Europe.[2] China and Gulf Arab states have spent the past decade increasing state-backed private investment to build market share across the continent. On present trends, the EU will fall further behind.

The right sort of investment

The kind of investment matters as much as its scale in making Africa a stronger industrial partner for Europe: greenfield manufacturing projects, regional infrastructure and industrial ecosystems do more than capital alone to build that capacity. However, European commercial ties with Africa are more extractive than transformative. In 2025, 70% of EU imports from Africa were primary products and just 28% were manufactured goods. Both French and Italian imports from Africa follow the same trend, which also shows up in where the money goes. In 2024, Italy and France were among the top investors in Africa’s extractives. Most capital-exporting economies share this extractive bias, since it reflects where Africa’s industrial development currently stands. Manufacturing gets only a modest share of investment, even though it matters most for the continent’s shift away from raw material exports.

The reason lies in how investors price risk. Capital is expensive in Africa: investors see the continent as disproportionately risky, which pushes money towards safe, asset-backed extractive projects rather than the long-term capital needed for more uncertain sectors, such as manufacturing. Even Africa’s own $4trn in domestic capital sits idle: weak banks and cautious institutions channel it into short-term holdings and government debt instead of long-term manufacturing investment.

Winds of change

France, Europe’s traditional leader on African matters because of its colonial and post-colonial history, and Italy, now seeking to emerge as its rival in European policy towards Africa, are already trying to address these issues. Both have overhauled their Africa policies and both used their G7 presidencies (in 2024 and 2026 respectively) to position Africa and development cooperation within a broader agenda of economic security built on private capital rather than aid. Yet this shift has not been matched by greater strategic coordination across Europe.

France, Italy and the EU broadly agree on what matters—energy, critical minerals, infrastructure, skills and industrialisation—but not on how to pursue it. A growing number of other member states, such as Germany and Spain, now see the continent as a partner for secure supply chains and political influence. The EU’s Global Gateway, its flagship strategy to mobilise up to €300bn in global infrastructure investment by 2027, was meant to give these efforts a common framework. Yet these strategies largely continue to operate in parallel, reflecting national priorities, commercial interests and historical ties. That leaves Europe without the scale, coherence or investor confidence needed to support industrial ecosystems and compete with partners able to combine finance, diplomacy and commercial clout.

Italy’s flagship Africa strategy, the 2024 Mattei Plan, and France’s 2026 Africa Forward investment strategy illustrate this dynamic: though the two emerged from different starting points, they increasingly pursue the same objectives, target overlapping countries and lean on comparable financial instruments. This reflects both Europe’s converging strategic interests and the reality that Africa’s infrastructure deficit concentrates investment in a narrow set of sectors. But it also shows that these strategies are additive rather than complementary.

Doing more with less

A core part of France’s and Italy’s new strategies is how to finance their ambitions in Africa. China, the UAE and even America use their private sectors as tools of state strategy. Italy and France are responding by using public money to pull in private investment and international lenders.

The Mattei Plan itself is a modest €5.5bn public fund spread over four years (2024–2027), but it uses guarantees, development finance and partnerships to unlock far more money than that. Italy’s export credit agency, SACE, has already put up €4bn in guarantees since the Mattei Plan was launched, pulling in an estimated €18.5bn of private funds. Partners such as the African Development Bank (AfDB), the World Bank and the UAE add even more to the pot.

France’s plan, set out in the Africa Forward Summit, is part of a wider €23bn package, split between a €14bn pledge from Paris and €9bn from African partners. Of that, just €1.94bn is public funds; the rest is private. The strategy targets African strategic autonomy, especially in food and digital technology, and leans more on small businesses, private investors, and risk-mitigation tools such as the African Trade and Investment Development Insurance, a pan-African credit insurer. As with Italy, the aim is to make limited public money go further.

Rome and Paris find it easier to build coalitions with international lenders and non-European partners than with each other

Both countries have internationalised their financing—leaning on institutions such as the AfDB, the World Bank, Gulf sovereign investors and export-credit cover. Yet joint European ventures remain rare: aside from a handful of joint initiatives—such as the collaboration between the Italian, French and German state development banks on a water infrastructure project in Morocco under the Mattei Plan, or Denmark’s support for the Italy-AfDB Mattei Plan financing facility—both strategies have attracted relatively little structured participation from other European governments. Rome and Paris find it easier to build coalitions with international lenders and non-European partners than with each other. This limits opportunities to pool resources and build larger industrial investment platforms.

What Europe should do

France and Italy are changing course. The EU should now turn their separate initiatives into systems that reshape investment and drive African industrialisation. Three recommendations show how.

Share the risks

Since European countries individually cannot outspend China or the Gulf states, they must change the terms on which their capital competes. Member states and European institutions should increasingly pool guarantees, coordinate development finance institutions and build common project pipelines. Joint risk-sharing mechanisms involving institutions such as Italy’s development bank (Cassa Depositi e Prestiti), France’s development agency (Agence Française de Développement), the European Investment Bank and African financial institutions would reassure private investors more than multiple national commitments operating independently. The objective should be to change the risk calculus for investors.

Think in corridors

European countries deal with Africa country by country, or sector by sector. Industrialisation, however, crosses borders and sectors. Value chains need regional energy systems, transport corridors, customs integration, digital connectivity and labour mobility. Europe’s comparative advantage lies precisely in its experience building integrated markets. Even its most ambitious African venture, the Lobito Corridor—a planned rail line linking Congolese and Zambian mines to Angola’s Atlantic coast, backed by America, the EU and Italy—has yet to knit infrastructure, investment and regional integration into a single plan. Rather than approaching Zambia, Angola or Namibia as separate investment destinations, Europeans should use their collective weight to back it, and corridors like it, as platforms that align infrastructure, regulation, energy and manufacturing across several countries.

Help shape the rules

Some barriers sit above any single project: high sovereign risk premiums, the cost of capital and weaknesses in the global financial system continue to discourage productive investment in Africa. Europe should use platforms such as the G7 and the upcoming UK and South Korean G20 presidencies to ensure greater African participation in these discussions. It should also work to reform the global investment environment itself: support the African Credit Rating Agency, use multilateral guarantees more, and make financing cheaper for African economies. Shaping these rules is how Europe can help Africa become an industrial partner.

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Europe is adapting, and France and Italy are showing the way. The challenge now is to weave these separate national efforts into one system capable of making Africa a genuine economic partner with a stronger geopolitical voice.

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[1] Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Italy, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, United Kingdom.

[2] EU outward investment to Africa: €9bn in 2024, per Eurostat (approximately $9.7bn converted at the yearly average exchange rate of 1 EUR = 1.0822 USD). Total FDI inflows into Africa: $97bn in 2024, per UNCTAD’s World Investment Report 2025. $9.7bn ÷ $97bn ≈ 10%.

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The next phase of the war between the US and Iran may be decided not in the Gulf but in Yemen. The Houthis’ decision to blockade Saudi Arabia in the Red Sea—including by attacking two Saudi ships as well as Aramco’s oil infrastructure—could become a turning point in the wider conflict. Such escalation could force Riyadh to reconsider the diplomacy-first strategy that has defined both its response to the Iran war and its handling of Yemen after a costly military intervention failed to uproot the Houthis.

Staying out of the war

Since the Iran war began in February, Riyadh has maintained channels with Tehran and urged Washington to pursue de-escalation, diplomacy and an end to the war. This strategy stems from Saudi Arabia’s exposure to prolonged turmoil and its determination to avoid being dragged into a war.

There is also a more immediate Saudi calculation. By keeping lines open with Tehran, Riyadh sought, with partial success, to persuade Iran to spare the kingdom the kind of retaliation it directed at the UAE, whose support for the US-led war has been overt. Restraint has also strengthened Saudi diplomacy with the Houthis and helped preserve an uneasy truce.

This diplomatic approach has also allowed Riyadh to keep exporting oil even as Hormuz remained closed. Crude continued to flow through the East-West Pipeline from the Eastern Province to Yanbu on the Red Sea, preserving access to Asian markets, which account for up to 70% of Saudi crude exports. While the route still handles only a fraction of export volumes during peacetime, it provided Saudi Arabia with an economic lifeline while easing pressure on global markets.

That arrangement is now under strain. After Saudi-backed forces in Yemen struck the runway at Sana’a airport to prevent Iranian aircraft from landing (arguing they were enforcing a no-fly embargo on military supplies), the Houthis launched ballistic missiles and drones at southern Saudi Arabia, ending a four-year truce.

The attacks appear to reflect a shift in Iran’s strategy towards the kingdom. As the US expanded its attacks on Iranian infrastructure, Tehran has reportedly asked the Houthis to prepare to close Bab al-Mandab and threatened the East-West Pipeline directly, declaring a “port against port” doctrine under which Gulf infrastructure hosting American operations would become targets. By threatening both Hormuz and the Red Sea, Tehran appears to seek to raise the global cost of the American campaign—while again overestimating Riyadh’s ability to press Washington for de-escalation.

Riyadh’s choice

Saudi Arabia must now decide how to respond. If the Houthis fail to cause meaningful disruption at Yanbu and the East-West Pipeline, it may seek a new exclusion agreement with the group and Iran. Under such an arrangement, Saudi tankers, ports and infrastructure would be removed from their target list in exchange for restrictions on refuelling American aircraft and on intelligence support for American operations, as well as tighter controls on the Saudi-backed Yemeni forces. Tehran would also expect Riyadh to keep pressing the White House for de-escalation. The Houthis would likely demand concessions of their own too, such as resumed flights to Sana’a, access to the port city of Hodeidah, salary payments and a more formal recognition of their authority in northern Yemen.

If, however, the Houthis continue to block Saudi exports while attacking Yanbu, the East-West Pipeline or other critical infrastructure such as Aramco facilities, Riyadh may conclude that diplomacy has become a mechanism for managing its own strangulation. At that point, accommodation could be more dangerous than escalation. Saudi Arabia could then move closer to the American campaign against Iran while also reviving its own war against the Houthis. That would draw the Arab world’s most influential state directly into the conflict, making it far harder to contain.

After their public split around Yemen, the two Gulf powers now have a shared incentive to confront a common enemy

Riyadh would first try to deal with the Houthis. Saudi Arabia has already struck Houthi sites at the port of Hodeida and on Kamaran island. The next steps would likely involve coordination with the UAE. Abu Dhabi has long argued that Riyadh’s accommodation with the group was doomed to fail. After their public split around Yemen, the two Gulf powers now have a shared incentive to confront a common enemy. The UAE-backed forces in the south have already mobilised alongside the Saudi-backed internationally recognised Yemeni government, attacking Houthi missile and drone launch sites as well as weapons depots in Marib and Al-Jawf.

Avoiding a wider war

Such an escalation would be an enormous gamble for all sides. Iran would end up facing a broader coalition. Saudi Arabia would be joining an American military campaign that is yet to deliver a decisive blow against Iran, while reopening a conflict in Yemen that it previously failed to settle. Iran has already demonstrated that it can keep Hormuz closed despite US strikes, showing it retains highly dispersed missile and drone systems able to sustain a prolonged war at a very low cost. The Houthis can do much the same in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, a renewed ground war in Yemen could reignite the country’s longstanding civil war.

Europe has every interest in preventing that outcome. A prolonged closure of Bab al-Mandab would disrupt the Suez route, increase energy and shipping costs and heap further pressure on the European economy. If Saudi Arabia abandons restraint against Iran and the Houthis, the chances of a diplomatic settlement that addresses both Hormuz and the region’s wider security architecture would diminish significantly. The EU is now considering expanding the mandate of Operation Aspides to include minesweeping, amid concerns that Iran or the Houthis could use naval mines to keep Bab al-Mandab closed even after de-escalation. But naval and economic plans should support, not replace, diplomatic efforts. Europeans should use their channels with mediators, including Pakistan, Qatar and especially Oman to dissuade Iran from opening new fronts in Bab al-Mandab and against Saudi Arabia, while also pressing Trump to hold back from widening American attacks to core Iranian infrastructure.

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Houthi attacks on Saudi oil tankers and facilities have reignited tensions around Bab el-Mandeb. But the Iran-backed group is no longer the only threat to security in the Red Sea. Across the water, conflicts in the Horn of Africa are merging, fuelled by competing middle powers and increasingly threatening one of the world’s most important maritime corridors.

The timing could hardly be worse. The war between the US and Iran exposed the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz, renewing interest in alternative export routes. In April and May, Saudi Arabia exported between three and four million barrels of oil per day through the Red Sea, nearly double the volume shipped via the Bab el-Mandeb strait in 2024. Energy projects designed to bypass Hormuz, such as the expansion of the East-West pipeline across Saudi Arabia or Iraq’s proposed connection with Jordan’s Red Sea port of Aqaba, could increase the corridor’s importance even further.

The Houthis have shown how easily Bab el-Mandeb can be disrupted, but the danger no longer comes from Yemen alone. Sudan’s civil war is increasingly converging with the Ethiopia-Eritrea crisis. In northern Somalia, local disputes are becoming entangled with the Saudi-Emirati and Israeli-Turkish rivalries, potentially creating a new flashpoint in the Gulf of Aden. At the same time, piracy is resurging, increasingly aided by al-Shabab. Between April and May, Somali pirates hijacked three ships in the Gulf of Aden, including two oil tankers—more hijackings than in the previous five years combined.

The spread of low-cost drones means that both state and non-state actors can target this narrow maritime corridor cheaply. Although no group has yet fully replicated the Houthis’ tactics, the Islamic State in Somalia has carried out its first recorded drone strike in January, in Puntland, while reports suggest that al-Shabab has used drones for reconnaissance and propaganda.

Any major disruption to commercial and energy flows through Bab el-Mandeb would reverberate far beyond the region, with European energy importers and export-oriented economies particularly exposed. As the Red Sea becomes more important, the Horn of Africa matters more too.

When the Horn’s conflicts merge

The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan is not an isolated conflict. As it drives mass displacement and destabilises neighbours, it is also merging with the Ethiopia-Eritrea rivalry, raising the risk of a broader confrontation along the Red Sea.

Addis Ababa continues to seek sea access through Eritrea’s Red Sea port of Assab. Asmara, for its part, has strengthened ties with Tigrayan leaders and other anti-government groups inside Ethiopia. And their rivalry is increasingly spilling into Sudan. Reports indicate growing coordination between Tigrayan forces, the SAF and Eritrea in the east, while the RSF has allegedly received Ethiopian assistance in Sudan’s Blue Nile state. This new RSF front borders the areas of South Sudan where the government is trying to suppress a mounting insurgency among the Nuer, the country’s second largest ethnic group, potentially turning the vast tri-border area into a major conflict zone.

Any escalation between Ethiopia and Eritrea would likely draw in Sudanese factions and external powers, notably Egypt, which aligns closely with the SAF and Eritrea, and regards the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (located just across the border with Sudan) as a major security threat.

These tensions are amplified by competing Middle Eastern alignments: Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia support the SAF and Eritrea, while the UAE, and to a lesser extent Israel, have ties with Ethiopia and the RSF, though officially denied. Such backing risks encouraging local actors to overestimate their capabilities and could trigger a wider regional confrontation threatening Red Sea security and navigation.

Somalia’s turbulent waters

Somalia could become the second major front in the Red Sea crisis. As in the Ethiopia-Eritrea-Sudan triangle, domestic feuds are becoming entangled with broader Middle Eastern rivalries.

In December 2025, Israel recognised the breakaway, UAE-backed republic of Somaliland. The two sides signed security agreements covering training and intelligence cooperation, and Israel could soon deploy asu limited military presence in the Emirati base in Berbera, which is reportedly under expansion. A visit to Israel in late June by Somaliland’s president Abdirahman Irro showed how quickly the relationship is deepening.

Mogadishu responded to the recognition by severing diplomatic and security ties with the UAE. It has since moved closer to Saudi Arabia and Qatar through defence agreements, while strengthening its longstanding partnership with Turkey. In January, Turkey deployed F-16 fighter jets to the Somali capital.

Amid its dispute with Mogadishu, Abu Dhabi has continued to support for Puntland and Jubaland,[1] two federal states that broke relations with the Somali government in 2024 in pursuit of greater autonomy. That support has become more consequential as Somalia enters another struggle over federal leadership.

In March 2026, President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud extended the mandates of both the presidency and parliament by one year beyond their May 15 expiration date. Opposition figures, including the leaders of Puntland and Jubaland, rejected the changes and demanded elections. After mediation failed, government forces and opposition-aligned groups clashed in Mogadishu on June 3rd and 4th, echoing the violence surrounding the 2020–2021 electoral process.

Although the federal government’s substantial deployment in the capital makes the forcible removal of the president unlikely, violence may intensify elsewhere.[2] The most concerning area lies in northern Somalia, where a local territorial dispute is increasingly drawing in external actors.

Since declaring independence in 1991, Somaliland has controlled most of this area, but its authority has long been contested in the eastern regions of Sool, Sanaag and Cayn by local clans and by neighbouring Puntland. These tensions erupted into conflict in 2023, when the pro-government Dhulbahante sub-clan defeated Somaliland forces. In the aftermath, Mogadishu then backed the creation of a new state, the North East State, covering territory claimed by both Somaliland and Puntland.

The main prize is Sanaag, located along the strategically important Gulf of Aden coast. Its sub-clans are divided in their loyalties among Somaliland, Puntland and Mogadishu, and a worsening drought is fuelling clashes over resources.[3] Such fractures offer tempting openings for outsiders.

Turkey reportedly plans to establish a presence in Lasqoray, Sanaag’s main coastal town, where both Turkish vessels and aircraft linked to the UAE have been spotted.[4] Meanwhile, Mogadishu is courting Puntland sub-clans and business elites dissatisfied with the state’s president, and has suggested that the army stands ready to deploy in Somaliland.[5]

Northern Somalia is therefore becoming a battleground where local and national rifts collide with rivalries between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and between Israel and Turkey.

Northern Somalia is therefore becoming a battleground where local and national rifts collide with rivalries between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and between Israel and Turkey. Any serious escalation would pose a direct threat to the Gulf of Aden. It would also create opportunities for other groups: piracy networks, the Islamic State in Somalia and al-Shabab also operate in the area, with the two jihadist groups receiving smuggled weapons from the Houthis across the sea last year.

Message for Europe

Instability in the Horn of Africa creates new threats to Red Sea navigation, with direct consequences for European security and economic stability. Strained European economies cannot afford another disruption after Hormuz.

Europe must therefore abandon the widespread perception that it is primarily a provider of aid. Prevention must combine soft and hard power.

The EU already deploys two naval missions in the Horn of Africa’s seas: Aspides and Atalanta. But both were designed for a different threat environment. Atalanta was created to combat Somali piracy, while Aspides was established to protect shipping from Houthi attacks with a deliberately defensive mandate.

As maritime threats intensify, the EU should increase deployments and expand the mandates of both missions to include offensive operations, particularly against al-Shabab and the Islamic State in Somalia. This would strengthen anti-piracy efforts, increase pressure on destabilising actors and signal a more credible European security posture in the Red Sea. To ease fears of retaliation, Europeans should reassure regional states such as Saudi Arabia and Djibouti that the expanded mandate will not include offensive operations against the Houthis. Europeans should also seek a greater naval presence from Asian players with major stakes in Red Sea security, such as South Korea and Japan.

At the same time, the EU and its member states should engage more directly with northern Somali actors, including Somaliland and Puntland. A stronger European presence through security and development instruments would increase influence in this highly contested area, feeding into its de-escalation efforts. An expanded mandate for EU naval missions, for instance, could support Puntland’s and Somalia’s federal government operations against the Islamic State in Somalia and al-Shabab.

Greater engagement would also give Europe more leverage to encourage dialogue between the federal government, Somaliland and Puntland over disputed territories, and help push Somali political actors toward a resolution of the electoral standoff. In this regard, the EU must act transactionally to ensure that its 2026 funding packages, including €75m for the African Union peace mission and €63m for humanitarian aid, contribute to these stabilisation goals.

The EU should also coordinate closely with America and Britain, which in the past have led credible mediation efforts around the electoral standoff and security initiatives in the north, such as anti-IS operations. Similar coordination could support de-escalation efforts between Ethiopia and Eritrea, where Washington has recently engaged both sides.

Finally, engagement with Middle Eastern actors is unavoidable. The Horn of Africa’s instability is increasingly shaped by the competition between the two emerging blocs around Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey on one side and the UAE and Israel on the other. The recent war with Iran has increased the value these states place on reliable international partners and regional stability. Europe should use this moment to press for restraint. The EU, Germany, France, Italy and Spain, in coordination with the UK and, where possible, the US, should make clear to Middle Eastern powers that any support to Ethiopia and Eritrea in the context of an all-out escalation would cross a red line and trigger immediate consequences on relations with them across the board. A similar approach should be adopted for northern Somalia.

Europeans can do far more to prevent the Horn of Africa’s conflicts from converging into a wider crisis. They cannot afford to wait until they become another maritime emergency.

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[1] Author’s interview with Somalia security expert on May 21.

[2] Author’s interview with European diplomat on May 10.

[3] Author’s interview with Somalia security expert on May 21.

[4] Author’s interview with European diplomat on May 10.

[5] Author’s interview with Puntland-based civil society representative on May 12.

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Serbia is in the middle of its largest protest movement in decades. What began in 2024 with the deadly collapse of the Novi Sad railway station canopy has grown into a much deeper crisis of trust—one in which citizens are mobilising in huge numbers while confidence in political parties and state institutions continues to collapse.  

In this episode, Jessica Hendrick welcomes Igor Bandović, director of the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy and head of the Belgrade Security Conference; and Luka Filipović, research associate at the Institute for Contemporary History in Belgrade working on the RE-ENGAGE project. Igor argues that Serbia is now in “authoritarian suspension”: the government still holds the machinery of power but is increasingly losing its ability to convince citizens that institutions work in the public interest. Luka points to an equally striking finding from the research—trust between citizens is strengthening even as trust in formal institutions falls.  

Drawing on the student-led protests, the debate over snap elections and Serbia’s complicated relationships with Brussels, Moscow, Beijing and Washington, Jessica, Luka and Igor discuss whether a leaderless movement can turn civic mobilisation into political change, why the EU’s approach to Serbia has struggled to build democratic credibility, and how Belgrade’s strategy of “geopolitical shopping” is reshaping the country’s place between East and West.  

Can Serbia’s protest movement convert public anger into lasting democratic change? Has Europe prioritised stability over democracy for too long? And how long can Belgrade continue balancing between competing powers before that strategy begins to break down? 

Further reading: 
RE-ENGAGE research on Serbia
RE-ENGAGE policy recommendations on Western Balkans

This podcast was recorded on July 21st, 2026.

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This week, Mark Leonard is joined by Loubna El Amine, lecturer in political theory at King’s College London and affiliate of the Lau China Institute, and Cobus van Staden, head of research at the China-Global South Project. They draw on insights from Africa and the Middle East to examine how younger generations in these regions view China, Europe and the US, and together they discuss the new “China-native generation”.

Cobus explains why many young Africans increasingly associate China with modernity, technological progress and economic opportunity, while Loubna posits that, in the Middle East, China is often viewed less as an aspirational model. Instead, China has become more of a counterweight to US influence—it is a relatively neutral actor and potential balancing force in the Middle East’s changing geopolitical landscape.

Together, Mark, Cobus and Loubna explore whether a new post-Western, rather than anti-Western, generation is emerging. They discuss the political consequences of China’s growing presence, the legacy of colonialism and the challenges of building intellectual and economic connections beyond traditional Western frameworks.

How is China changing ideas of development across Africa? Why does it occupy such a different place in the Middle Eastern political imagination? Can South-South partnerships create new pathways for growth and influence? And what do these changes mean for Europe’s relationships throughout the world?

This podcast episode was recorded on July 10th 2026.

Bookshelf
How China Escaped the Poverty Trap by Yuen Yuen Ang
Fire in Every Direction by Tarek Baconi

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Summary

• The prospect of a peace settlement in Ukraine has prompted a flurry of activity among the EU and member states on how to carry out enlargement.
• For now, the debate is contained among elites. But this will need to change.
• Key “clusters” of member states can begin to address this. They should work together to create a new approach to enlargement and tailor messages to voters.
• To drive an accession framework suitable to the geopolitical and domestic challenges of today, a “Team Enlargement” coalition of ten key EU states should come together.
• This coalition, led by Germany, should work through a four-step timetable to deliver this strategy over the next 18 months.
• The coalition should also promote a narrative that is flexible enough to reflect national and local contexts while sharing the benefits of enlargement for European security and prosperity.

Time to move

The EU lacks a strategy to get Ukraine quickly and safely through the door.

The question has surged to the fore because EU membership is highly likely to be essential to any peace settlement that Kyiv—and the Ukrainian people—would accept. America has also made clear it sees Ukrainian membership as an indispensable element of such a settlement. Ukraine itself is pushing to join as early as 2027.

But the EU and its member states are not ready. They have struggled for decades to absorb new members, and more recently failed to agree on how to bring in Ukraine, Moldova and others. In 2026, proposals have swirled around Brussels and member state capitals; and Berlin has shared a notable proposal that aims to answer the question of how to make accession happen.

It is time for the EU to move forward decisively. The geopolitical case for enlarging the EU to include Ukraine, Moldova and the Western Balkans has never been more compelling. Failing to integrate candidate countries bordering the bloc represents a growing vulnerability in economic, political and strategic terms. European leaders largely understand the geopolitical imperative for enlargement. Where they hesitate is over how to make it work in practice. They are faced with public scepticism, questions about the EU’s own preparedness, the rise of far-right parties as well as American transactionalism that undermines EU conditionality frameworks. Many are thus asking the same question: Can the EU successfully enlarge without overstretching itself?

This policy brief identifies the key challenges shaping the current enlargement debate within the EU. It acknowledges the array of competing enlargement models and explores the lack of alignment between the EU, its member states and candidate countries. The paper draws on the findings of more than 25 interviews conducted by the authors with officials and experts working on enlargement in Europe. Views and ideas shared in closed-door seminars and dinners in Berlin, Paris and Vienna also informed the paper, as did the expertise found in ECFR’s network of national offices across Europe.

Listening to policymakers, alongside studying public opinion data, enabled the authors to propose three distinct clusters of member states on enlargement. The “principled conditionalists”— Denmark, Germany and Sweden—support enlargement in principle but also provide its credibility backbone by insisting on rule of law safeguards and institutional reform. The “conditional sceptics”— Austria, France, Italy and the Netherlands—carry political weight but remain risk-averse, with their backing more subject to national concerns. The “security maximalists”—Lithuania and Poland—are driven less by unconditional enthusiasm than by an urgency rooted in their exposure to Russia. Hungary sits as an outlier that is nevertheless supportive of enlargement in the Western Balkans.

The clusters’ logics are not mutually exclusive, and a credible enlargement strategy will need to weave together narratives that appeal across many countries. On this basis, the paper offers solutions that are limited in number but potentially transformational if achieved. EU member states should agree a core, but sizable, Team Enlargement coalition to thrash out the issues. They must make a definitive proposal for a new enlargement framework, agree a timetable for 2026 and 2027, and work hand in hand with candidate countries to make the political case and allay fears about enlargement.

Member states have not yet converged around a single strategy. The moment to move is now; or enlargement may never happen.

Getting on the front foot

The EU debate over enlargement has entered a new, more dynamic phase. This is principally because discussions around an eventual peace settlement for Ukraine invariably presuppose EU membership for the country. This geopolitically driven situation led the European Commission to present member states with three options for enlargement at a dinner in Brussels in March this year. The options were:

• The status quo: continue the existing, merit-based accession process, with all its strengths and weaknesses.
• Enhanced gradual integration: a version of “gradual integration”—an established idea under which candidate countries would access specific EU policies and benefits progressively, but before they have completed full accession. The enhanced model would introduce new benefits and be linked to negotiation clusters.
• Phased integration: also known as “reverse enlargement”, under this model new members would be initially integrated into a small number of selected EU policies, with full rights and obligations extended to them over time. It would make Ukraine a political member before it fulfils all the criteria.

But the commission found little support for reverse enlargement in particular among member states; in the words of an EU official, “this presented the real unity of member states”.[1] Member state representatives pushed back hard against what they saw as the commission developing new proposals without engaging them first, and indeed on a model they felt to be undeliverable. Nonetheless, member states still seem willing to explore the contours of an enhanced gradual integration model.

Merz’s letter

Following the backlash, the commission asked countries for their own ideas.[2] Small groupings of member states set about drawing up proposals.

One idea, initiated by Austria, came from the informal group of EU member states known as the Friends of Western Balkans. France and Germany each shared plans for Ukraine’s accession aiming mainly to develop the concept of gradual integration. France also floated “an integrated state status”, which it envisaged would be granted through a European Council decision to open all accession negotiations and provide access to EU funds available to third countries.

But the most influential proposal came in May when German chancellor Friedrich Merz sent a letter to European institutional leaders proposing associate membership for Ukraine. This would give Ukraine a presence in the European Council, European Commission and European Parliament, without voting rights but retaining the eventual aim of full membership. The proposal was unlike anything suggested for an accession country before. (Merz has also argued on several occasions that the EU cannot afford to frustrate the aspirations of Western Balkans countries.)

Among those most closely involved in planning for enlargement, the move was welcomed as a first step in the right direction.[3] Officials regard it as the most compelling proposal on the table, perhaps the only one with a realistic chance of building consensus.[4] It has yet to be developed into a full concept. But it has already ignited debate across Europe and could open the way to a feasible enlargement strategy.

Ahead of an EU summit with Western Balkans states held in Montenegro in June, France and Germany issued a joint proposal whose thrust was to simplify the joining process for Western Balkans countries and Moldova. At the European Council meeting in June, Germany pushed for a debate among member states on this idea and his Ukraine proposal. One major change in the first half of 2026 was the result of the Hungarian general election, after which Budapest lifted its veto over starting accession talks for Ukraine. The council duly agreed to open the first cluster on fundamentals for both Ukraine and Moldova.

Merz and Macron further institutionalised their joint proposal in their ministerial council meeting on July 17th, and emphasised enlargement’s contribution to building “a secure, prosperous and democratic Europe”. The two leaders further called on the EU to push for progress internal reforms and trailed an in-depth discussion at the October council meeting.

The politics of enlargement in an age of fragmentation

As they begin to peer over the precipice, domestic decision-makers know they need to create politically sustainable coalitions to see enlargement through.[5] To build a bridge to enlargement, they will have to tailor both policy design and political messaging to the concerns that dominate in member states. Security, rule of law safeguards, migration management, economic stability, identity and sovereignty concerns—all shape how enlargement is perceived and politically contested across the EU. But the next phase of EU enlargement will not be decided by technical accession criteria alone.

The enlargement debate has so far remained confined to policy circles. However, the lack of conversation with domestic audiences may leave fertile ground for populist and far-right narratives. Such narratives often frame enlargement and associated issues not as a strategic investment but as a source of risk: a driver of migration, a fiscal burden and a potential importer of instability. In particular, the prospect of Ukraine joining the EU is a potential flashpoint, with various forces—from Russian disinformation to European political players—portraying the country as a war risk, a reconstruction and economic liability and a governance challenge. This frames enlargement as something that will harm Europe and Europeans rather than something that will strengthen the EU and keep people safe.

Trump’s return to power, alongside the deepening political and ideological links between MAGA-aligned actors and European far-right parties, has given related movements in Europe a renewed sense of confidence and legitimacy. In candidate states, America’s transactionalism is eroding the very conditions candidate countries must meet to join the EU—even as Washington still expects Ukraine to become a member. In the Western Balkans, Washington has been actively undermining the EU’s rule of law conditionality by engaging with illiberal leaders, including lifting sanctions previously placed on them. Its focus on making money for American business has led to episodes such as the EU ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina warning that US antics were jeopardising the country’s EU accession process.

In this political environment, the fear of handing additional ammunition to populists, the spectre of divisive national referendums on future accessions, and the lingering trauma of dealing with Hungary deter decision-makers in EU capitals from openly engaging with the enlargement debate.[6]

Building a team

Enlargement can only succeed if the process, the chosen model and the accompanying politics all address the concerns outlined above. Member states remain divided over which model to adopt for acceding countries. But what commonalities could EU capitals converge around? What could give them a solid basis with which to go to their electorates?

To find out what plausible coalition could look like, the authors of this paper focused on the following ten EU members: France, Germany and the Netherlands (members that talk above all about the importance of merit-based accession and the rule of law); Austria and Italy (the driving forces in the existing Friends of Western Balkans group); Denmark, Poland, Lithuania and Sweden (which border Ukraine and the eastern neighbourhood and support the accession of Ukraine and other candidate states); and Hungary (an outlier, because it supports the integration of Western Balkans countries but long blocked Ukraine’s accession).

The authors then examined four key issues that could bring the ten member states together and enable consensus on enlargement. As noted, they drew on interviews with officials in Brussels and EU capitals, discussions with experts at different convenings and their own desk research.

Maintaining merit-based conditionality and adherence to the rule of law

The first of the four unifying issues is merit-based conditionality and the rule of law: they are the foundation of the enlargement process, and the one point on which none of the ten disagrees. European Council president António Costa and European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen reconfirmed the centrality of these issues at the most recent EU-Western Balkans summit. These principles are also firmly embedded in the 2020 revamped enlargement methodology. The “Fundamentals” cluster  covers core EU values and principles, the rule of law, fundamental rights and the democratic functioning of institutions. This cluster is first to open in accession negotiations, but it is also the last to close. This is to ensure rule of law conditionality is applied throughout other clusters and chapters.

Denying access to membership funds before full accession

The second issue is driven by fears that new members’ financial demands will reduce the amount of cohesion funding existing member states receive. The common agricultural policy (CAP) is often the main focus of policymakers because of worries about Ukraine’s massive agricultural potential. Although the commission has suggested pre-accession allocated funds for Ukraine and other accession countries, its new proposal for the new multi-annual financial framework omits any suggestion of allocated funds for new members. Since the recommencement of Russian aggression in 2022, the commission has increased the amount of pre-accession funds for the Western Balkans, Moldova and Ukraine. The growth plan for the Western Balkans aims to integrate countries into the single market and deepen EU-related reform.

Applying safeguards and reversibility

In June, Belgium, France, Germany, Luxembourg and the Netherlands suggested the accession treaties of new member states should include a new blueprint to support “sustained progress after enlargement”. The goal was to strengthen the rule of law but also to boost public support for the ratification of future accession treaties. The commission and member states are looking for ways to insulate the new enlargement framework from Orban-style regression in the rule of law and democratic practices after new members join. Aligning around this issue will reassure both policymakers and voters that the EU can enlarge without then being undermined from within.

Controlling migration

Migration is the top concern connected to enlargement according to the latest EU barometer on “Attitudes towards EU Enlargement”, at 40% (followed by corruption and organised crime at 39%, and the cost to European taxpayers at 37%). In Austria 47% of people express concern about uncontrolled migration arising from future enlargement, and the figures are similar in Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Poland and Sweden. Although mobility concerns are driven more by Schengen arrangements and transition periods than by accession itself, this remains an under-communicated element of the accession debate. Parts of the accession process (Chapter 24, Justice and Home Affairs) are aimed at preventing migrants from transiting through candidate countries. Still, enlargement-sceptic countries refer to the issue of uncontrolled migration to slow-walk accession.

The only genuine common ground across all ten member states examined (including Hungary) is merit-based conditionality—it is the glue that holds this group together. No member state publicly opposes this; disagreement centres on what “merit” means in practice and how fast the bar can be cleared. What could keep the group divided is the tension between Ukraine becoming a member first, with Western Balkans states coming later (although a new enlargement approach open to all candidates could address this tension).

Three clusters on enlargement

The ten countries analysed can be clustered into three distinct groupings. Each has different primary drivers, domestic constraints and potential roles in building a coalition to drive enlargement.

ECFR polling shows that a big chunk of European voters are yet to make up their mind about enlargement in the current context. Space remains for opinions to change, either for or against enlargement. The following three clusters can help shape this trajectory. (The clusters are covered in more detail in the annex, including public opinion polling.)

Principled conditionalists, comprising Denmark, Germany and Sweden

These countries’ support for enlargement is genuine but calibrated by strong insistence on a merit-based approach, the rule of law and strict institutional quality. These member states provide credibility on governance standards without which an enlargement framework could appear to trade the rule of law and conditionality for geopolitical imperatives.

Conditional sceptics, comprising Austria, France, Italy and the Netherlands

These countries’ support for accession is real but determined through specific national concerns (decision-making safeguards for France, fiscal prudence for the Netherlands, migration for Italy and Austria).  It is unlikely the members of this group will proactively champion enlargement in the near term. But they could come along as supporters of an initial framework for future members, especially if they can secure specific gains.

Security maximalists, comprising Lithuania and Poland

These countries’ support for enlargement is not entirely unconditional, but it is urgency-driven and anchored in these countries’ existential threat perception of Russia. Lithuania and Poland articulate the geopolitical urgency and the eastern European solidarity essential to any future enlargement framework.

The outlier, comprising Hungary

Prime minister Peter Magyar’s government will not obstruct Ukraine’s accession and financial support like his predecessor, Viktor Orban, did. Moreover, with Budapest no longer providing a convenient shield, some member states may increasingly have to reveal their own rather sceptical positions on enlargement.

The clusters were constructed by the authors on the basis of an assessment of interviews, public opinion data, the public positioning of the countries on EU enlargement and analysis of the narratives surrounding EU enlargement. They reflect recurring themes identified across EU enlargement debates, including salient domestic public concerns and sensitivities, as well as framings advanced by political parties. As such, they help identify narratives and measures (such as safeguards and transition periods) with the greatest potential to resonate with both governments and their electorates, foster support for enlargement and explain each cluster’s role within the coalition.

The review and the summarising table display the different logics of the clusters and the roles each would play in a broader coalition. Those logics and roles are not mutually exclusive. If balanced correctly, these can be used to devise a credible, watertight (to the extent this is possible) enlargement strategy that respects the urgency of the matter while bringing EU citizens on board. For example, a French government can confidently say it is insisting on rigorous merit-based standards while retaining its influence in EU decision-making. A Dutch government can say it is applying strict rule of law principles as well as fiscal prudence. An Austrian or an Italian government can say it has secured migration management as a precondition.

The coalition’s centre of gravity is situated between the urgency felt in Lithuania and Poland and the emphasis placed on conditionality in countries like France and the Netherlands. The credibility insisted on by Denmark, Germany and Sweden can enable them to build bridges among the different clusters. Austria and Italy could be brought along provided some of their wishes, such as controlled migration and economic security, are met. The politics of Hungary could always prove difficult but the opportunity now exists to move ahead.

How to make enlargement happen

Set up a “Team Enlargement” coalition

The ten member states examined here should form a “Team Enlargement” coalition. Its goals would be to agree the parameters of the next phase of accession and actively shape domestic discourse on enlargement.

Germany would be a key player because of its support for merit-based accession, exploration of new approaches, and express political commitment to accession countries. Merz’s May letter set Germany apart as the member state willing to lead on this major question facing the EU. The principles set out in the letter encapsulated almost completely the issues that divide—but could unite—Team Enlargement: its stipulation that associate membership is intended as an interim step towards full membership; its insistence that candidate states must fulfil the criteria to become a fully-fledged member; its denial of access to funds reserved for EU states until full membership is achieved; its enshrining of reversibility should the country show signs of regress.  

A Team Enlargement coalition also aligns with evolving German policy more generally. In May 2026, the German federal foreign minister Johann Wadephul laid out six points on Germany’s role in Europe’s politics. The first point described forming coalitions of member states around topics where consensus cannot be found among all 27 EU member states.

Take four steps to lock in a durable enlargement strategy by 2027

Team Enlargement should take the following four steps to drive a new enlargement strategy.

Step one—Agree to develop the “Merz letter” into a full concept

Timeframe: From now until the October 2026 European Council meeting)

A German lead supported by the security maximalists and principled conditionalists should move forward and turn Merz’s letter into a fully developed enlargement concept. This would set out a framework of principles structured explicitly around the four key issues: merit-based conditionality, no access to certain funds before full membership, safeguards and reversibility, and migration. Next, Germany should circulate the concept to the remaining coalition members—conditional sceptics will have the ability to ensure it adequately addresses domestic concerns and is shaped with national sensitivities in mind, thereby strengthening its political viability. The concept would then be refined through iteration and broadened out to other supportive member states. Throughout, Germany should continually work with France as a co-shaper of the process. Meanwhile, discussions with Hungary would focus less on shaping the concept itself and more on mitigating potential veto risks and limiting future obstruction.

Step two—Share a new narrative on enlargement

Timeframe: From now until late 2026

Wherever they are starting from, each member state should recognise the inevitability—and potential urgency—of providing for Ukraine, and being seen to play their part in bringing about peace.

Member state governments would therefore be well advised to invest in domestic narrative work. This would include parliamentary debates, media and influencer outreach, civil society action, social media campaigns and expert analysis. But effective narrative preparation cannot be the responsibility of governments alone. The political sensitivity of enlargement means a whole-of-society approach is essential to ensure the conversation is credible and inclusive. Experts, academics and think-tanks can contribute evidence-based analysis that helps counter misinformation. Businesses and economic stakeholders would bring practical perspectives, highlighting opportunities for the economy. Civil society organisations can involve local communities, youth groups and underrepresented voices. Governments can share lessons learned and best practice among themselves, and especially so within the clusters.

On specific messaging, the principled conditionalists can lead and anchor the process in rule of law, safeguards and credibility. The conditional sceptics can demonstrate that enlargement can be managed in ways that protect economic stability and address public concerns. The security maximalists can set out the security rationale to their domestic audiences but also to the other coalition members. As such, rather than promoting a single rigid vision, a broad European narrative should allow member states to emphasise the aspects most relevant to their domestic realities.

Step three—Secure endorsement by the European Council

Timeframe: October and December 2026  

The coalition would propose the new enlargement framework as a formal position in the General Affairs Council ahead of the October European Council meeting, with coalition members working to gain the support of other member states. Coalition clusters should draw on their respective strengths in this effort: principled conditionalists should underline the framework’s credibility; conditional sceptics should help reassure more cautious governments that concerns related to migration, fiscal impacts and economic disruption have been adequately addressed; security maximalists should make the strategic and geopolitical case for enlargement. Acting in concert, the coalition would aim to demonstrate the framework combines security and geopolitical imperatives with responsible governance and risk management.

At the October 2026 European Council meeting, EU member states should endorse the new enlargement proposal. The Irish presidency would be charged with using the December 2026 European Council to agree political conclusions that endorse the framework.

Step four—Put the new framework into practice

Timeframe: Throughout 2027

The EU would apply the framework to candidates Albania, Moldova, Montenegro and Ukraine to demonstrate its use as a functional governance instrument. In particular, Montenegro’s accession treaty will provide the first opportunity to put the new framework into practice. This would build confidence among sceptical EU member states that enlargement can be both strategically necessary and responsibly governed. The accession treaty could then act as a final membership contract for Montenegro as it joins.

Work more closely with candidate states

Candidate states have an important role to play in helping reduce anti-enlargement sentiment across the ten member states analysed in this paper. Beyond aligning with formal accession requirements, candidate countries will need to adapt to a far more politicised and fragile enlargement environment inside the EU itself.

This means the governments of candidate states must prepare to take seriously the fears surrounding enlargement in existing members. They must of course demonstrate a clear and sustained commitment to implementing EU reforms in full and swiftly, particularly regarding the rule of law, anti-corruption measures, democratic governance and institutional resilience. They should also demonstrate openness to discussing safeguards, transitional arrangements, migration management mechanisms and other tools. This can help reassure sceptical member states and voters that enlargement would remain controlled and manageable.

Crucially, candidate states need to pay close attention to the domestic political realities within member states. Political leaders in member states operate within politically constrained environments and contend with strong domestic pressure on issues such as migration, economic security and agriculture. In turn, EU member states should signal how domestic sensitivities may obstruct the path to accession. With this two-way communication in place, candidate countries should work with member states to identify ways to make enlargement more politically sustainable across different national contexts.

This could include candidate state representatives speaking directly with audiences in member states. Citizens’ dialogues, town hall discussions and public debates on issues that matter to local communities should become the hallmark of a sustained public communications and outreach campaign. Business roadshows, investment forums, study visits, cultural initiatives and exchange programmes for community leaders—all these activities can make candidate countries more familiar and relatable to EU citizens. These should take place across all parts of a country, not just in capital cities.

Conclusion

The approach suggested by this paper can help build a broad European narrative around enlargement: one that combines enhanced security with enlargement that is credible, responsible and managed. The purpose of such a narrative would be not to erase national differences or political sensitivities—having a single grand and rigid vision on enlargement could be counterproductive. But it will allow different member states to emphasise the aspects of enlargement most relevant to their domestic political realities while remaining part of a coherent collective strategy.

European leaders must be ready to promote and defend stories and visions for a better future. They should also do this sooner rather than later, given the calendar of elections in the coming years. The opportunity for a newly minted enlargement framework will shrink as the months pass—France’s 2027 electoral cycle will freeze discussions and decision-making around enlargement, as will elections in other member states during the second half of 2026 and 2027. The uncertainty around when a ceasefire might take place in Ukraine only increases the pressure on the EU and member states to prepare.

While none of the candidate countries (with the possible exception of Montenegro) is ready to join the EU today, now is precisely the moment for the EU and its member states to act. This means seeing through reforms via a credible and strictly conditional accession process. The other main challenge will be for the EU to prepare itself internally—its institutions, politics, and, crucially, its publics—for the moment when candidates are ready to join. This, too, will require a specific, and urgent strand of work which must take place in parallel to the work lead by Team Enlargement.

Annex

Today, enlargement politics are rooted in different political logics competing over what kind of enlargement Europe can politically sustain. As such, enlargement can only succeed if it addresses multiple forms of insecurity simultaneously among the clusters of countries identified in the paper. The clusters provide a way to understand the dynamics at play, the commonalities between countries and domestic drivers within them.

Principled conditionalists (Denmark, Germany and Sweden)

This cluster favours EU enlargement in principle and brings a backbone of credibility and legitimacy to the process. For the states in this cluster, safeguards within the enlargement process are crucial, as they dread new dysfunction within the EU, do not want a repetition of dealing with Hungary in the Orban years, stress the importance of the rule of law and have fiscal concerns.[7] This group worries about the EU falling apart if enlargement is not carried out correctly. As such, the principled conditionalists may not fear enlargement itself, but they do fear enlargement without control.

This generally positive stance is strongly reflected in public opinion—75% of people in Denmark, 49% in Germany and 79% in Sweden back EU enlargement. In all these countries, respondents identify “complicated decision-making at EU level” as their biggest concern about enlargement. Worries around corruption, organised crime, terrorism and costs to European taxpayers follow. Unsurprisingly, respondents stress upholding the rule of law, the fight against corruption and protecting fundamental rights as the elements crucial to the success of future enlargement.

Such topics are often found among the narratives of the far-right—that new members would bring corruption with them into the EU, make European cities less safe through uncontrolled migration and worsen the already-bureaucratic monster of EU decision-making. In this context, the principled conditionalists cluster could help take on the challenge contained in these attacks by supporting the credibility of enlargement policy. The commitment to enlargement shown by the members of this cluster means they can play an important role as the broker between geopolitical urgency and ensuring the credibility and feasibility of the enlargement process.

Conditional sceptics (Austria, France, Italy and the Netherlands)

The states within this cluster carry significant political weight but are (domestically) politically risk-averse towards enlargement. The governments of these countries worry that enlargement would not be politically survivable with their electorates. As such, their politics often revolve around issues such as domestic stability, migration, economic security, social cohesion and fiscal concerns. Top concerns among conditional sceptics for both governments and publics centre on economic security, the costs of enlargement and the financial burden created by admitting new members. In countries such as France and Italy, these are the practical worries that likely include fears of reduction of cohesion funds, destabilisation in the labour market and the impact of Ukraine’s membership on the CAP given its massive agricultural sector. All that being said, voters in these countries could be further persuaded in either direction: 45% of people in Austria, 43% in France, 53% in Italy and 69% in the Netherlands are in favour of further EU enlargement.

Voters in the countries in this cluster also have other worries: respondents in France and Italy note uncontrolled migration as their main concern. In Austria, the costs to European taxpayers, corruption, organised crime and terrorism, downward pressure on employment or wages, and uncontrolled migration are the main concerns.

The conditional sceptics are unlikely ever to become enlargement enthusiasts. But they could find ways to secure reassurance for themselves and their voters and refrain from blocking the process. They do not respond well to moralising and share many of the ideas and worries of the principled conditionalists—they have a pragmatic approach that emphasises practical gains, control, predictability and risk management. Addressing these should thus be core to any enlargement strategy.

Security maximalists (Lithuania and Poland)

In Lithuania and Poland, enlargement is looked on very favourably: 74% of people in Lithuania and 70% of people in Poland indicate their support. When asked about the biggest benefit of future enlargement, a “more secure EU and better defence against foreign influence” is the top choice among respondents in both countries. Alongside this, the countries of this cluster and their publics stress the necessity for a merit-based approach and emphasise the rule of law. Nevertheless, the sense of urgency is palpable, which may allow the security maximalists to be creative in the solutions for enlargement they would accept. This could include being open to interim solutions for candidate states.

In Lithuania especially, Ukraine’s accession is considered a key element in Europea’s security architecture. Poland’s position is also supportive, with the added nuance that this support is driven by Ukraine’s integration into the West (and especially into NATO) being a strategic necessity for Poland. Concerns around domestic agricultural competition, labour markets and historical memory issues can induce a somewhat more cautious outlook regarding Ukraine’s EU accession. This leads many in Poland to favour a gradual approach, complete with safeguards, transition periods and carve-outs.

The tension is evident both within the public but also between the oft-diverging views of the Polish government, presidency and other political power centres. Just recently, a leader of the nationalist far-right Confederation party argued Poland should block Ukrainian accession over historical disputes, including a military unit name controversy and Volhynia massacre exhumations. Such anti-Ukraine sentiment is also reflected in ECFR polling, which shows that the voters of the two far-right parties in Poland see Ukraine as primarily a “rival” or an “adversary”. (Similar sentiments are shared by supporters of the Freedom Party of Austria, Fidesz in Hungary and Alternative for Germany.) 

The security maximalists may lead on the geopolitical and security narrative of enlargement and present it as a crucial element of European security. Without the close involvement of this cluster, the whole process could slip into proceduralism or slowly disappear altogether. At the same time, this cluster can strongly relate to, and cooperate with, the principled conditionalists and conditional sceptics on the need to uphold the rule of law and obtain clear commitments to reforms from candidates.

Outlier (Hungary)

This year’s change of government in Hungary may well enable a reset between Budapest and Brussels on questions of enlargement. ECFR data reveal that the new prime minister’s mandate is not straightforward. While the new government aims to restore trust and ties with its European allies and partners, Magyar will be dealing with a society that expects domestic matters to come first. It is split on Ukraine following a decade of anti-Kyiv propaganda, with Fidesz voters being particularly opposed Ukraine’s accession bid moving forward.

A total of 64% of Hungarians say they favour further EU enlargement, for mainly pragmatic reasons: being part of a larger, more innovative market, and gaining more opportunities for work and skilled labour. Causes for worry include corruption, organised crime and terrorism, along with increased vulnerability to security challenges.

Hungary is unlikely to seek creative solutions around EU enlargement, especially when it comes to Ukraine. Its government will have to navigate turbulent waters and needs time to change public perceptions. Nevertheless, there is good reason to believe Budapest will drop its previous role as blocker-in-chief on Ukrainian membership. Domestically, enlargement could gain more sustainable traction if the economic and pragmatic benefits of welcoming new members are tangibly showcased to citizens, in a similar vein to the challenge facing members of the conditional sceptics cluster.

About the authors

Engjellushe Morina is a senior policy fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations’ European Security programme, based in Berlin. Her work mainly addresses the geopolitics of EU enlargement, Kosovo-Serbia relations and Euro-Atlantic integration.

Gabrielė Valodskaitė is the European Security programme coordinator at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in Berlin.

Acknowledgments

We are deeply grateful to all the interviewees who generously shared their time, expertise and candid insights with us. Their perspectives were invaluable to this research.

We would also like to thank ECFR’s European Security programme team for their thoughtful feedback and support throughout the development of this paper. Their insights helped sharpen our analysis at every stage, and their patience in listening to our reflections, debates and occasional frustrations about the intricacies of enlargement was greatly appreciated.

Special thanks go to Adam Harrison for his sharp editing and for helping transform a collection of ideas into a coherent argument. We are also grateful to Nastassia Zenovich, whose talent for turning data into clear and compelling visualisations greatly enhanced this paper.

This paper was made possible with support from the ERSTE Foundation but does not necessarily represent the views of the ERSTE Foundation.

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[1] ECFR closed-door high-level dinner, Berlin, May 2026.

[2] Author interviews with high-level EU officials, Brussels, March 2026.

[3] ECFR closed-door high-level dinner, Berlin, May 2026.

[4] ECFR closed-door high-level dinner, Berlin, May 2026.

[5] Author interview with officials, Paris, March 2026.

[6] Author interviews in Brussels, Paris and Berlin, March and April 2026.

[7] Author interviews in Brussels, March 2026, and Berlin, April-May 2026.

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Problem

Bulgaria has agreed to host up to eight American refuelling tankers at its Bezmer military base to support US operations in the Middle East. The announcement came just days after prime minister Rumen Radev withdrew his country from the European coalition of the willing (CoW) for Ukraine, arguing that military support would only prolong the war and that Bulgaria lacks the resources to contribute.

Radev has put the final decision on Bezmer to a vote in Bulgaria’s parliament, allowing him to spread the political responsibility and limit direct ownership of the move. Now the prime minister can maintain his rather clumsy position: by rejecting military support for Ukraine (despite previous parliament votes) and justifying logistical support for American military operations elsewhere, he hopes to preserve US security guarantees without dedicating Bulgaria to Europe’s developing security architecture.

These decisions expose a growing inconsistency in Bulgaria’s strategic posture. Sofia is distancing itself from European efforts to strengthen Ukraine and is planning for its own defence, while simultaneously supporting Washington’s military operation in the Middle East. Rather than aligning with the broadly pro-European consensus and anti-American sentiments in Bulgarian society, Radev is attempting to balance competing security frameworks without sufficiently considering European security interests.

This ambiguity also presents a broader challenge for Europe. As the Trump administration continues to conduct foreign policy through bargaining, some European governments appear tempted to pursue bilateral arrangements with Washington rather than invest in European unity. Such behaviour risks weakening collective defence, precisely when strategic coordination is needed.

Solution

European security cannot rely on member states choosing cooperation only when politically convenient. The EU needs to engage more actively with the Bulgarian government and push back on Radev’s form of hedging while political conditions remain favourable, to help strengthen defence cooperation among the EU’s 27 member states.

The EU should also reinforce the political and practical incentives for participation in common defence initiatives, for example through its Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and other European defence instruments. At the same time, it needs to reduce opportunities for external powers—particularly China, Russia and the US —to exploit divisions, institutional weaknesses and the strategic ambiguity encouraged by MAGA. Bulgaria’s recent work to delist two Russian oligarchs and a Russian patriarch from the EU’s 21st sanctions package is an example of Russia’s growing leverage over the government in Sofia.

Overall, the EU should treat Bulgaria as an urgent political case rather than a lost cause. This is especially true given that, in 2027, Europe will see several major elections which have the potential to return governments that are more concerned with nationalism than European unity. This, in turn, would constrain the political space in which governments committed to a strong European foreign and security policy can act.

Context

Since taking office in May 2026, Radev has gradually shifted Bulgaria’s foreign policy away from alignment with its European partners. Bulgaria did not join the international agreement to establish the Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, nor did Radev attend May’s B9 summit in Bucharest. Bulgaria’s decision to leave the CoW has attracted strong criticism from pro-European parties and raises broader questions about Bulgaria’s long-term strategic orientation.

The latest move in Bezmer follows the previous deployment of as many as 15 US tanker aircraft at Sofia Airport between February and June, which sparked political controversy. The government ended the deployment, which was linked to arrangements for (unsuccessful) discussions on Bulgaria’s inclusion in the US Visa Waiver Program, on June 30th.

Delays in military modernisation and uncertainty surrounding planned defence-industrial cooperation, including a Rheinmetall partnership, are compounding Sofia’s lack of clarity about whether it intends to become a consistent contributor to Europe’s security architecture. As it stands, Radev appears to be pursuing more transactional, case-by-case relationships with both Europe and the US.

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Problem

Industrial decarbonisation is not easy. While EU leadership in the field has brought some benefits—it was the first to offer innovative, low-carbon products to the global market, for example—there are also transition costs, especially in sectors such as steel and chemicals.

Now Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine and the US-Israel-Iran conflict are pushing up energy prices; there is fierce competition from China and others for products such as chemicals, fertilisers and steel. At the same time, companies also face growing emission trading costs. Other parts of the world are not moving fast enough to reduce cost differences for European front-runner companies; the 2025 IEA Breakthrough Agenda report shows that global low-carbon industrial transitions are happening too slowly to achieve the targets of the Paris Agreement.

At the EU level, climate diplomacy is not sufficiently prioritising partnerships for industrial decarbonisation and instead focuses on general mitigation and financing issues. While the launch of the EU Task Force for International Carbon Pricing and Markets Diplomacy in 2024 was an important step, it did not address how Europeans can help develop the infrastructure, access to finance, intellectual property rights and personnel skills necessary for industrial decarbonisation.

The EU thus requires a stronger and more coherent diplomatic approach to industrial transformation. Most of all, it needs to focus on improving its outreach and expanding its offers on finance, market demand and innovation cooperation.

Solution

An informal meeting of environment and climate ministers (ENVI) is taking place on July 23rd-July 24th. It has two relevant items on the agenda: decarbonisation and competitiveness, and climate diplomacy. But these items are interconnected, and ministers should take an integrated approach when addressing them.

The EU should learn from the more active industrial policies of China, Japan and South Korea, which have the institutional capacity to make strategic choices about which technology to support, and have designed a good mix of policy instruments to promote them. Europeans should also look at how European coal regions, for example in Poland, have transitioned to create new green jobs. Such areas provide a blueprint for other countries trying to build public acceptance for closing mines and winding down fossil-dependent manufacturing.

The EU needs to devote more resources to international cooperation with partner countries on industrial transformation, for example by lowering the climate impact of steel and cement production. Such partnerships should be long term and include innovation cooperation for emerging clean technologies. Ministers should include industrial transformation diplomacy in the strategic roadmap document that underpins their discussions, and push for adequate funding in the next “Global Europe” instrument for development policy.

The EU must address the lack of coherence between EU and member state initiatives and promote a “Team Europe” approach. To meet the China challenge, even big member states such as Germany cannot build strong enough partnerships alone. But this requires a more cooperative culture; staffing for climate diplomacy in Brussels and at EU delegations should be increased to facilitate this.

Finally, ministers should engage more positively in the industrial decarbonisation agenda under the Paris Agreement. This could follow Brazil’s 2025 initiative to launch a process for accelerating low-carbon transformations of industry, and Turkey’s ambition to continue this work at COP31 in November 2026.

Context

The EU has set ambitious climate targets for 2030 and 2040, with the bloc aiming to become climate neutral by 2050. However, policy instruments are being hotly debated. For example, on July 17th the European Commission proposed weakening EU emission trading to accommodate industry while simultaneously strengthening its support mechanism for green transitions.

In parallel, EU environment ministers and their climate negotiators have started a process to improve climate diplomacy after what many saw as disappointing, weak language on reducing overall emissions at the 2025 COP30 in Belém. The process has so far focused on improving preparations for formal climate negotiations, such as the upcoming COP31 in Turkey—and less on broader partnerships around, for example, industrial decarbonisation.

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Summer is here, and with it ECFR’s entertainment list. As the year passes its midpoint, with headlines dominated by uncertainty, crises and conflict, it’s time to take a break. And with the Annual Council Meeting 2026 held in Vienna, a city which provided one of the biggest intellectual movements of the 20th century, this year’s entertainment list could hardly be anything but enlightening.

This year, our contributors’ choices take us to the US—but far beyond the newspaper headlines—to learn about the country’s people, their fights and their struggles. With Russia’s war in Ukraine showing no sign of abating, another recommendation for a book about the difficulty to survive provides insights about real life on the ground. We’ll take a quick stop in Alexandria to learn more about books, libraries and the written world, and jump forward in time to England’s Tudor court and what it meant to be powerful. Then our journey takes us to Nigeria’s civil war, where we explore themes of identity, displacement, trauma, love and the enduring legacy of colonialism.

Enjoy all of this and much more with the recommendations below. ECFR wishes its readers pleasant journeys and a restful summer.

“Half of a Yellow Sun”, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Recommended by

“Half of a Yellow Sun” recounts the Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970), also known as the Biafran War, through the eyes of Ugwu, a village boy who comes to work for Odenigbo, a university professor. Alongside Odenigbo lives his partner, Olanna, who abandons her privileged life in Lagos to be with him; Olanna’s twin sister, Kainene, who takes over her parents’ business; and Kainene’s British lover, Richard. Through their intertwined lives, Adichie explores identity, displacement, trauma, love and the enduring legacy of colonialism with remarkable empathy, allowing the reader to immerse themselves in Nigerian and Biafran perspectives of the time. She creates deeply compelling characters who exist against the vivid backdrop of the social and political realities of 1960s Nigeria. By foregrounding voices that have long been marginalised in European narratives, Adichie demonstrates exceptional prose and storytelling.

“Beloved”, by Toni Morrison

Recommended by

“Beloved” is inspired by the true story of Margaret Garner, an African-American slave who in 1856 escapes to the free state of Ohio. The book tells the story of escaped slave Sethe, her daughter Denver and a mysterious woman named Beloved. It covers multiple topics, including slavery, identity crisis, discrimination, the condition of female slaves, trauma and madness; “Beloved” mixes history, fiction and the supernatural. Morrison won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1988 for her novel, and the Nobel Prize in 1993 for her work.

Ozark, available on Netflix   

Recommended by

“Ozark”,an American crime thriller tv series with Jason Bateman, Julia Garner and Laura Linney (yes, the Laura Linney from Love Actually!) follows the story of the Byrde family, who move from Chicago to the Lake of the Ozarks region in Missouri. Family fights, strong women, weak men, strange people, plot twists, and beautiful and peaceful landscapes will keep you on the edge of your seat from beginning to end of this four season and 44-episode show.

“My Life on the Road”, by Gloria Steinem

Recommended by

“My Life on the Road”, by Gloria Steinem, is a splendid biography of the author’s life as a writer, reporter and activist. This book is a compilation of the stories she learned on the road while growing up—and afterwards, throughout the rest of her life.

Here she describes her campaign trail: from Bobby Kennedy to Hillary Clinton, her early experience with social activism in India, of organising ground-up movements in the US and listening to people whose voices, ideas and values would inspire change and revolution. This book has some of everything: it is shocking, it is funny and it is inspiring.

“My Life on the Road” is a great book for anyone who wants to understand the people behind the headlines. As Steinem points out, focus on country capitals often overshadow the lives of ordinary people and paint a distorted picture of a country. But through her travels, she shows how the true character of a place is found on its streets and roads.

“The Odyssey”, attributed to Homer (translated by Emily Wilson)

Recommended by

With Christopher Nolan’s big-screen version of “Odyssey” hitting cinemas in mid-July, there is no better moment to revisit Emily Wilson’s translation, which deserves a place on any reading list. The story—a man’s 20-year journey home from war—is well known, but Wilson’s rendering lays bare the flaws in both its hero and his household. Odysseus, for all his cunning, loses all his men during his voyage back to Ithaca and, once home, dispatches every one of Penelope’s suitors in a scene of slaughter that is excessive and genuinely uncomfortable to read. His son Telemachus, meanwhile, spends much of the poem sulking, more petulant adolescent than budding king.

Wilson does not sand down these rough edges, nor does she soften the poem’s darker vocabulary: where earlier translators reached for “servants”, she writes “slaves”, restoring an uncomfortable truth that previous polite translations had smoothed away. The effect is a text that feels more modern and raw; with heroes who are flawed, and their misfortunes partly the result of their own natures. Those wanting more should turn to the film “The Return” (2024), Ralph Fiennes’s stripped-back 2024 take on Odysseus’s homecoming.

“Endling”, by Maria Reva

Recommended by

“Endling”, by Maria Reva, is a witty, powerful novel about three women whose lives intersect through Ukraine’s booming marriage industry. What begins as a search for a missing mother and a fight to protect a rare species soon becomes an unforgettable road trip across a country on the brink of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Blending dark humour with emotional depth, Reva explores gender, survival and resilience in a story that lingers long after the final page.

“Bundyville”, a podcast by NPR

Recommended by

Like most folk, I have an outsized love for my hometown community and, as a result, an exaggerated view of its historical importance. Thus, I believe that an armed standoff between a libertarian Mormon ranching family and the federal government outside of Las Vegas in 2014 was a precursor to the Trumpian years that followed—and thereby I recommend my favourite podcast.

Structured like a true-crime series, “Bundyville” follows the Bundy family of Bunkerville, Nevada, through interviews with people at the centre of their fight with the federal government over cattle-grazing rights. Compared to January 6th 2021 and the right-wing unrest that followed, the conflict looks almost quaint; but it reveals just how deep American distrust of the government runs, and how far people will go in the name of “freedom”.

“Salvage the Bones”, by Jesmyn Ward

Recommended by

If you’re looking for a light summer read, this is not it. “Salvage the Bones” begins like a coming-of-age novel as 14-year-old Esch discovers love, desire and her changing body, all during a long Mississippi summer. But she is also growing up in a world shaped by poverty, neglect and misogyny, where the consequences of her choices fall far more heavily on her than on the boys around her. Hurricane Katrina approaches, but it is only one of the many forces threatening her family. Over 12 days, the novel paints a devastating portrait of those living on the margins, abandoned by the systems meant to protect them. This novel describes the quiet resilience of people forced to survive with almost nothing. It is a powerful reminder that disasters are never equal, and that for some, the storm began long before Katrina made landfall.

“Papyrus: The Invention of Books in the Ancient World”, by Irene Vallejo

Recommended by

“Papyrus”, by Irene Vallejo, is a captivating journey through the history of books, libraries and the written word in the ancient world. From Egyptian papyrus scrolls and the legendary Library of Alexandria, to the rise of the codex, Vallejo traces how books shaped civilisations and preserved human knowledge. Blending history, mythology, literature and personal reflection, she introduces a vibrant cast of emperors, librarians, scholars, poets and rebels whose lives were intertwined with the power of words. Along the way, she explores enduring themes such as education, censorship, identity and cultural memory. Both scholarly and accessible, Papyrus is a celebration of humanity’s enduring love of stories and a tribute to the books that have carried ideas across centuries.

“The Automobile Club of Egypt”, by Alaa Al Aswany

Recommended by

Alaa Al Aswany’s “The Automobile Club of Egypt” is entertaining and easy to read: but it is above all a thought-provoking account of Cairo in the 1950s that blends history, politics, love and family drama. Through the lens of a corrupt British-run club, Al Aswany exposes the hypocrisy and class struggles of colonial Egypt. The novel’s multi-layered narrative follows a variety of characters—from the club’s elitist members to its marginalised Egyptian employees—each grappling with power, identity and resistance. The book explores themes of power, justice, loyalty and social change, while Al Aswany’s storytelling blends satire, social critique, sharp dialogue and vivid descriptions to make it the perfect summer read.

“Wolf Hall”, by Hilary Mantel

Recommended by

There’s a reason everybody likes the Tudors. The dynasty, which began with Henry VII becoming king in 1485 and ended with the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, was so embedded in rivalry, passion and intrigue that it has long provided rich material for all manner of cultural outlets. But perhaps no one captured the emotion behind the machinations of the Tudor court quite like the late Hilary Mantel. “Wolf Hall” is the first in her trilogy of novels which imagine the consolidation of power and eventual fall from grace of Thomas Cromwell, the son of a blacksmith who rose from obscure beginnings to become one of Henry VIII’s most trusted advisers. While “Wolf Hall” is a hefty book, with the paperback clocking in at 672 pages, it is nothing less than a page-turner; the plot, with its twists and turns, is aided by Mantel’s gift for writing as if she were alongside Cromwell at court. For anyone who wants to remember why the Tudors remain so fascinating—or who is discovering their story for the first time—”Wolf Hall” is one of the best places to begin.

“Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty”, by Patrick Radden Keefe

Recommended by

“Empire of Pain” is about three generations of the Sackler family. As the owners of the pharmaceutical company behind OxyContin, they are renowned for their philanthropy—but notorious for the role they have played in the US opioid crisis. This book is a gripping story about greed, impunity, justice and the importance of investigative journalism.

I also recommend, as an accompaniment, the book “Demon Copperhead” by Barbara Kingsolver. Where Keefe does not let the reader forget that his book is non-fiction, Kingsolver makes them feel the impact and human cost of the opioid crisis.

“The Power of the Powerless”, an essay by Václav Havel

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Mark Carney’s speech at Davos brought renewed attention and relevance to Havel’s 1978 essay, in which he analyses how the communist regime in Czechoslovakia functioned and sustained itself for decades. In his essay, Havel describes dissidence as a form of opposition that brings together thinkers from conservative circles, liberals and radical leftists, with Havel serving as a central and unifying figure. The core of the movement—and its power—lies in its non-negotiable demand to live in truth and in the parallel society of dissidents who shared this worldview. This is exactly what Havel brings to today’s world of unorder: reject conformity and the ruthlessness dictated by others, stand for truth, and engage with those who share this bare-minimum vision and values.

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Summary

• The war in Ukraine will eventually end, but probably in a ceasefire that leaves Russia, Europe and America locked in open-ended, low-grade, chaotic confrontation.
• Europe has the greatest stake. It is closest to the conflict and would carry much of the cost should it escalate. America will still have an interest in maintaining stability, but other, more pressing priorities will likely come first.
• American and European policymakers should keep that confrontation stable enough to prevent it from tipping into another war. They should aim for a state of “managed disorder”, where rivalry continues but becomes less likely to escalate.
• They can achieve managed disorder through a staged framework that combines credible deterrence, compartmentalised cooperation and conditional, reversible incentives.
• To succeed, the framework will need to accommodate divisions between America and Europe, and within Europe itself. It will also need to give Ukraine, Russia, China and other players in the region clear incentives to comply with the framework, and clear costs for defecting from it.

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After the ceasefire

It is 2028. The war in Ukraine ended in an uneasy ceasefire eighteen months ago. Russian forces remain in occupied territories, and Ukrainian forces hold defensive positions, armed with American weapons and European money. The ceasefire talks failed to establish either a buffer zone or an observer mission because the parties could not agree on the terms. Europeans have given vaguely formulated “security guarantees” with an ill-defined American backstop, but NATO has no clear presence near the contact line.

One morning, Ukrainian intelligence detects Russian armoured movements towards the ceasefire line. The government in Kyiv claims Russia is preparing for invasion; officials in Moscow insist it is routine repositioning. Within 48 hours, shooting starts and each side blames the other. Russian forces cross the ceasefire line at three points. Calls go out to European capitals and Washington, but no one agrees on what the intelligence shows. The security guarantors reach for the ceasefire documents and find they say different things depending on who is reading them.

Nobody knows what to do—whether NATO should respond militarily, whether European states should act alone, or whether America, focused since 2027 on a series of interventions in Latin America, should engage at all. Nobody has agreed what the rules are, what triggers intervention, what constitutes a proportionate response or who decides.

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The outcome of this scenario is chaos and escalation driven by uncertainty and domestic political pressure. These are the conditions that precede catastrophic wars. The goal of this paper is to help prevent that scenario or, more precisely, to ensure clear answers exist before the shooting starts. The post-war environment in Europe will be unstable in the near term and perhaps for a generation or more because the war will almost certainly end without a genuine peace settlement that resolves key questions of sovereignty, security, power or identity. The wounds are too deep and the sides too evenly matched to agree on a comprehensive peace.

This is not an unusual situation after inconclusive wars. To adapt the historian Michael Howard’s insight, the end of fighting does not itself create peace. Between war and peace lies a large and dangerous space of armistices, frozen conflicts and unstable political settlements. The task for American and European policymakers will be to build enough structure around that dangerous space to prevent it from producing the next war.

America and Europe can do this by transitioning from chaotic confrontation with Russia to “managed disorder”: a state in which rivalry remains, but becomes less vulnerable to accident, panic and domestic political pressure.

To achieve this state of managed disorder, this paper proposes a staged framework built on verification, certification and conditional incentives. The framework would temporarily freeze facts on the ground, but not legitimise them, and give the main actors reason to adhere to agreements. This would help American and European policymakers maintain stability in Europe, defend Ukraine and deter further revisionism while reducing the risk of escalation. It would also give Russia a sense of safety and a seat at the table to discuss European security. Hostility would persist but it would be channelled into rules, limitations and predictable behaviour.

Managed disorder does not imply legitimising territorial conquest or rewarding aggression. It also falls well short of a durable settlement. Importantly, it does not require “trust”, a commodity that is generally lacking in international affairs and particularly in relations with Russia.

However, building such a system will be politically hard. Russia may prefer chaos to managed disorder. Ukraine may reject any arrangement that appears to freeze partition. European states will disagree over deterrence, sanctions, reconstruction, enlargement and engagement with Moscow, and the US may remain indispensable but unreliable. But these are not objections to managed disorder; they are the reasons it is needed. Its purpose is precisely to manage these political pressures through rules, incentives and procedures before a crisis makes improvisation the only option.

This paper traces the hard road to the modest achievement of managed disorder. It first outlines the sources of disorder after the war in Ukraine and why the key players might find managed disorder preferable to the alternatives. It then describes a staged plan to get from a ceasefire in Ukraine to a hopeful but realistic stability. The plan accepts that the future is contingent and will certainly surprise us. It therefore seeks to adapt to circumstances even as it keeps in mind where we want to go and what we want to avoid.  

The sources of post-war disorder

The war in Ukraine is likely to leave relations between Russia, Europe and the United States in significant disorder. A ceasefire, armistice or exhausted pause in the fighting would stop large-scale violence but not settle the question of sovereignty over contested territories. Russian forces will probably remain on Ukrainian territory while Ukraine continues to assert its territorial integrity. Europe will still face a revisionist Russia on its borders and the United States will still have to decide how much of European security it intends to underwrite.

This state of affairs will be the first source of disorder. The ceasefire will probably not resolve any of the geopolitical ambiguity. It will also likely fail to clarify what counts as a violation or establish who monitors the ceasefire, who enforces it and who decides when one side has broken it. This is the central danger of the post-war moment. Although major combat may be absent, every movement of forces, artillery exchange, drone incident, act of sabotage and political crisis in Kyiv or Moscow could result in renewed escalation.

The second source of disorder lie within the West itself. America and Europe will not enter this period as a single strategic actor, even though they will retain important common interests—both will want to prevent a wider war, avoid nuclear escalation and stop Russia from conquering Ukraine outright. For the US, Russia will remain a nuclear power and a disruptive actor, but no longer the organising threat of American strategy. Washington will increasingly focus on China, the Western Hemisphere and the fiscal costs of global leadership. Europe will have no such luxury. Russia will stay a nearby military threat, and Ukraine’s reconstruction will become a European problem. Any failure of deterrence will unfold on Europe’s doorstep.

This divergence means that the Atlantic alliance will become less automatic, even if it does not collapse. The US may remain essential for nuclear deterrence, intelligence, sanctions enforcement and crisis diplomacy with Moscow, but it may also grow less willing to sustain Ukraine’s conventional defence, less patient with European divisions and more tempted by bilateral understandings with Russia that promise quick gains or theatrical success. Europe will fear both American abandonment and American freelancing. It will need Washington to work towards managed disorder, but will no longer be able to count on it to take the lead.

Europe will also generate disorder of its own. The war has produced a rhetorical consensus—Ukraine must survive and Europe must do more for its own defence—that hides deep disagreements. Poland, Sweden and other eastern and northern states will judge any post-war arrangement through the lens of deterrence, vulnerability and Russian deception. Spain, Italy and others will place more weight on stability, fiscal pressures and eventual economic normalisation with Russia. Some governments, such as those in the Baltics, will want to accelerate Ukraine’s integration into the EU and the European defence economy. Yet others, like Poland, will worry that Ukraine’s accession—and its agricultural exports, corruption, security needs—could transform the bloc in ways it cannot control.

These divisions will shape security policy and domestic debates. Russia will try to exploit them. Any post-war arrangement must therefore manage Europe as much as it manages Russia. It must prevent European disunity from becoming an instrument of Russian strategy.

Ukraine itself will form a further source of disorder. It will depend on American and European weapons and money for years after the fighting stops—creating leverage but also resentment. If Ukraine concludes that a post-war order locks in partition while offering only vague promises of future integration, it may resist the whole idea. If Europe concludes that Ukraine is using its support to pursue military aims that Europe cannot sustain, European commitment may fracture. This arrangement, therefore, cannot simply constrain Ukraine. It must give Ukraine a visible future: a defensible state, deepening European integration, reconstruction and a credible non-military path to eventual territorial restoration.

Russia will create the most obvious source of disorder, but not necessarily through renewed invasion. Moscow may accept a ceasefire because it believes time is on its side. It may calculate that Ukraine will become politically divided, that European publics will tire, that American attention will wander and that sanctions will erode. It may use the pause in fighting to rebuild forces, probe American and European resolve, influence European politics and normalise its gains—all while formally conceding nothing. A ceasefire may therefore mark not the end of Russian revisionism, but its movement into a different register.

American and European policymakers should not assume Russia fears disorder the way they do. Disorder may serve Russian purposes. Ambiguity can help Moscow test thresholds. For instance, hybrid operations impose costs on the West while preserving deniability. Political interference can weaken European unity without triggering a military response. For America and Europe, deterring a second invasion of Ukraine may well be the easier task; the harder one will be to curb Russia’s appetite for exploiting turbulence around Europe’s borders.

The post-war order will also face regional spillover. Ukraine will remain the epicentre of the confrontation with Russia, but Moldova, the Black Sea and the Arctic could face intensified coercion too. Africa and the Middle East may offer Russia opportunities to punish Europe indirectly through migration, mercenary activity, energy disruption or political leverage. A system that manages only the line of contact in Ukraine will not contain all of the disorder stemming from the conflict.

China will add another layer of complexity. Its economic weight can cushion Russia from Western pressure, but Beijing’s interest in stability also constrains Moscow’s options.

The final source of disorder will come from the absence of accepted leaders. During the cold war, the US claimed and largely exercised the role of Western leader. That world will not return. Europe cannot yet replace America: the EU cannot speak with the speed or unity of a state. NATO can deter, but it cannot resolve every political dispute a bad ceasefire creates. Individual European leaders may speak to officials in Moscow, Washington or Kyiv, but none can credibly represent the whole continent. In that vacuum, others will try to manage the disorder: private envoys, Gulf intermediaries, business figures, transactional American negotiators or ad hoc coalitions formed in crisis. Without rules, the system will fill with middlemen.

These sources of disorder will keep producing flashpoints that risk a return to war. Maintaining stability in post-conflict Europe will take conscious, active management. A comprehensive settlement to the Russia question remains out of reach for now, so the aim should be to prevent a bad and incomplete peace from decaying into a more dangerous confrontation.

The incentives that will shape a settlement

Managed disorder will hold together only as long as its incentives do. America and Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and China each bring different interests, so the system of managed disorder must align incompatible motives around a limited common interest: avoiding a return to uncontrolled war.

Ukraine is the hinge

Stabilising and strengthening Ukraine is the foundation of the entire system. For that, Ukraine must want to comply with it rather than be forced to because it needs American and European money and weapons to rebuild itself and deter Russia. The benefits need to be tangible and politically defensible at home. Therefore, in addition to sustained military aid, joint defence production and reconstruction funding, a stable system must offer Ukraine a path into the EU and a credible route to recovering lost territory without renewed fighting. Ukraine will not abide by the rules of managed disorder if it experiences it only as a restraint on its actions rather than as a route to a stronger Ukrainian state.

The main part of that route goes through EU membership. Europe should tie the pace of Ukraine’s accession—market access, regulatory alignment, reconstruction funding—to its conduct within this system. Cooperation opens the door; obstruction closes it. No Ukrainian government can afford to turn its back on a European future.

That pull is real, but it has limits. EU membership is economic and political; the bloc’s mutual-assistance clause, Article 42.7, carries none of NATO’s integrated command structure or binding defence commitments. However, Ukrainian officials under domestic pressure may present accession as delivering that protection anyway, leaving the public expecting a NATO-style military response that Article 42.7 was never built to provide. Any actual security guarantee will need its own separate instrument with defined triggers, scope and decision-making process.

In any case, Ukraine will benefit more from sustained American and European military aid, joint defence production and a homegrown arms industry than from any ambiguous or unenforceable security guarantee. The country will need artillery, air defence, drones and the factories to build them for decades to come. But offensive or long-range systems—capable of striking deep into Russian territory—should come from Western allies only if Russia attacks again, keeping the line between defending Ukraine and arming it for renewed war visible to Moscow and to sceptical Western publics.

Ukraine’s own expanding arms industry will blur that line. Washington and European capitals can condition their weapons transfers, but they cannot control what Ukraine builds. To manage disorder, therefore, they should tie reconstruction, defence-industrial cooperation and military assistance to rules about defensive posture and escalation.

The territorial question needs careful handling. A settlement must preserve Ukraine’s claim to the occupied lands—legally, politically and morally. Refusing to recognise Russia’s conquests should remain a core principle. But America and Europe must be honest too: Ukraine cannot retake its territory by force. Restoration will come through Ukrainian resilience, European integration, legal non-recognition, diplomacy and long-term shifts in the balance of power—not a bet on a better war later. Ukraine can keep hoping for its territory back without believing that another war is the way to get it.

Coalition dynamics will shape compliance with managed disorder too. Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—Ukraine’s strongest backers—will have to be part of any difficult trade-offs. If these countries can support a compromise, Ukrainian leaders can argue that managed disorder strengthens Ukraine rather than abandons it, and western European governments can show that restraint does not mean appeasement. If they oppose it, critics in Kyiv and across Europe will portray the arrangement as a deal made over Ukraine’s head and at the expense of Europe’s most vulnerable states. In that case, neither Ukrainian nor European leaders could easily sell compliance at home.

In the end, Western policymakers must design Ukraine’s decision space, not just hope it will make the right decisions. They must show that cooperation delivers EU integration, reconstruction, military assistance, long-term deterrence and a path to restoring territory by weakening Russia over time—West Germany pulled off exactly that with the East, decades later. Obstruction delivers economic stagnation, dwindling aid, isolation and an indefinite war footing with nothing to show for it. The goal is to make cooperation the rational, defensible choice for any government in Kyiv.

Russia’s calculations

This paper does not assume that Moscow wants peace or even managed disorder. The only assumption is that a ceasefire would reveal some Russian interest in pausing large-scale war. The task is to exploit that pause to make restraint more attractive to Moscow than going back to war.

The logic is structured choice. Russia should know exactly what it gets for playing by the rules and what it loses for breaking them. If Russia complies, the rewards should be tangible—for instance, sanctions relief is immediate but reversible. If Russia violates the rules, the costs should be just as immediate—for example, suspended sanctions snap back automatically.

Military realities can reinforce this logic. The war has cost Russia dearly in soldiers, equipment, ammunition and political attention. Yet Russian weakness should not lull the US and Europe into assuming that Moscow’s appetite for aggression has diminished. Russia’s calculation will change only if Ukraine, armed by Europe, can defend itself. A second full-scale invasion would offer no easy win. Russia would confront a better-prepared Ukraine, a more fortified eastern flank and a Western sanctions system built to escalate rather than merely restore previous penalties.

Economic incentives can also matter, though they will not by themselves drive Russian policy. The Kremlin has shown it will sacrifice prosperity for war and ideology. But Russians value access to markets, targeted relief and the ability to travel, which shape interests inside the system, especially once the immediate demands of wartime mobilisation recede. Sanctions can thus create constituencies for restraint. Relief should remain selective, staged and reversible. It should reward observable behaviour, not political promises. And it should be designed so that renewed escalation hurts the specific people and networks that benefit from playing along.

None of this guarantees Russian cooperation. Moscow may still conclude that exploitable disorder serves it better than regulated confrontation, particularly if it can strike a bilateral understanding with Washington over Europe’s head. Western policymakers should therefore expect Russian violations and aim to narrow Russia’s room to exploit ambiguity.

Moscow does not need to like managed disorder to live with it. It only needs to face a world in which restraint brings some gains and cheating brings higher costs. Of course, the Russian government has not always responded to such incentives. No amount of pressure guarantees good behaviour. All any arrangement can do is make every alternative worse.

Turkey as a partner

Turkey belongs in this system because the Black Sea cannot be managed without it. Ankara controls access to the Black Sea through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits, has direct interests in maritime security and commerce, and has maintained working channels with both Russia and Ukraine throughout the war. Any post-war arrangement that touches naval access, grain routes, energy transport, Russian warship movements, or the security of Ukraine’s southern coast will require Turkish participation. Ankara can either reinforce the framework or complicate it. Managed disorder should therefore treat Turkey as a necessary regional partner.

China in the background

The other major power shaping Russia’s future options is China. The two are not formal allies, but their partnership is more than a marriage of convenience. Russia needs China for markets, technology, diplomatic cover and long-term economic resilience. Moscow’s options depend as much on what Beijing will tolerate as on what Washington and European capitals will permit.

China need not endorse managed disorder for its interests to tacitly reinforce it. Beijing benefits from a stable Russia that checks American and European power, but not from a Russia that collapses or continually destabilises Europe. Endless war raises energy prices, invites secondary sanctions and risks escalation that could disrupt China’s own growth and global positioning. A structured post-war settlement that freezes borders, channels competition and conditions economic reintegration offers China predictability without forcing political alignment. If American and European sanctions tie relief to Russian conduct and penalises circumvention, Beijing may find it cheaper to let the system work than to help Russia rearm—provided the system leaves Russia viable as a geopolitical ally for China and a source of natural resources.

Economic interests pull in the same direction. Beijing values access to European markets and reconstruction opportunities in Ukraine. Western leaders should therefore make clear that stability unlocks better China-Europe economic ties, while a collapse of managed disorder would push Europe toward militarisation, protectionism and tighter technological coordination with the United States. China can benefit from this arrangement without choosing between Europe and Russia, so long as it prefers predictability and stability to escalation and sanctions spirals.

Managed disorder also needs a China clause. If Russia uses China to rearm and restock its munitions, the consequences cannot fall on Moscow alone. Europe should tighten its China policy, deepen coordination with America and target Chinese firms enabling violations with economic pressure. China must understand that helping Russia evade these rules costs Beijing more than it benefits it, while tolerating stability keeps the door to European markets open.

In this sense, China is neither an adversary nor an essential partner, but a structural constraint that can reinforce, undermine or passively enable whatever security order emerges in Europe. A system that links market access to stability, invites selective Chinese participation and penalises circumvention turns Beijing, intentionally or not, into a stakeholder in restraint.

The path to managed disorder

How the war in Ukraine ends will go a long way towards deciding the path to managed disorder. A fully disarmed or “neutralised” Ukraine is unacceptable to Kyiv and unsustainable for Europe. A permanently offensive Ukraine capable of striking deep into Russian territory would risk escalation and be unacceptable to Moscow. The same would be true if Ukraine were to host Western troops.

Between these poles lies the most workable model: a defensible, resilient Ukraine that is armed to deter, but not configured for offensive operations. This “steel porcupine” posture follows the same logic as cold war West Germany: strong enough to make conquest costly but not positioned as a launchpad for offensive war. It separates Ukraine’s legal and political claim to territorial restoration from the military means that could reignite the war, without conceding Russia’s territorial gains.

Europe is likely to bear long-term responsibility for Ukraine’s rebuilding, military assistance and eventual integration into European institutions. Even a supportive United States may commit fewer resources over time. A framework for managed disorder must ensure that Europe can sustain Ukrainian security on its own if America steps back, while leaving room for deeper US involvement should political conditions allow.

To reach that state, American and European policymakers will need to work amid mistrust, division and partial compliance. They must create a system in which Ukrainian restraint earns visible progress, and Russian violations bring consequences and compliance rewards. Importantly, they should also ensure European disagreement does not become paralysis and American involvement strengthens the system without owning it.

Designing around a divided West

Washington and European capitals share core interests yet diverge in priorities, attention and risk tolerance. The challenge will be to design a system that can operate with those differences built in.

America

A future American administration, whether populist or merely pragmatic, is likely to approach Russia as a file to manage rather than a sustained strategic priority beyond its nuclear dimension. To the extent it figures in US strategic calculations, Russia is more likely to be seen as part of America’s larger competition with China. Commitments to European security that once seemed permanent will depend on electoral cycles and budgetary politics.

That is why managed disorder should rely on European initiative and pre-agreed processes rather than sustained American focus: durability must be built into the mechanism itself, not assumed from Washington’s resolve.

Europe

European nations will see the landscape through a nearer lens. Russia is not a distant power but a neighbour capable of altering borders by force. European governments agree that Ukraine must survive yet disagree on what survival means: integrated or merely defended, heavily armed or cautiously defensible, anchored fully to Europe or held at strategic arm’s length. Populist and anti-migrant parties are often averse to sustained defence expenditure and will sometimes be open to friendly relations with Russia.

Given the European disagreements and the American focus on China, a genuine transatlantic consensus on a post-war order is unlikely to emerge. What is achievable and necessary is interoperability: a structure in which Europe and the US can act together when aligned and continue functioning when they are not. A framework to achieve managed disorder will therefore need to do two things. First, its stages, tracks and certification mechanisms should be designed to keep working whether or not Washington and European capitals are pulling in the same direction. Second, it should be designed for a permanently divided Europe. Its purpose should be to prevent disagreement from becoming paralysis.

That means creating a European core group: a few countries that can negotiate sanctions positions, military support thresholds, monitoring standards and responses to Russian violations before each crisis arrives. It should include the countries with the greatest military weight, financial capacity and geographic exposure—France, Germany, Poland and the UK, as well as the Nordic and Baltic states. The core group should drive the security logic; EU institutions should anchor the economic, sanctions, enlargement and legitimacy logic.

How to stop Russia from setting the security debate

Russia will seek to widen any post-war process beyond the line of contact in Ukraine. It will want to discuss NATO enlargement, American and Western European basing, missile deployments, military exercises, the Black Sea and the military balance along its western frontier. Europe and the US should expect these demands, but they should neither dismiss them reflexively nor accept them on Russia’s terms. Some issues do raise genuine risks of miscalculation between Russia and NATO. Large military exercises near borders, missile deployments, ambiguous troop movements, air and naval incidents, cyber operations against critical infrastructure and uncontrolled activity in the Black Sea can create crises regardless of the justice of the underlying political claims.

To stop Russia from setting the terms of the debate, European leaders should pursue two distinct negotiations. The first would revolve around the ceasefire and subsequent security arrangement in Ukraine, and must preserve Ukraine as a principal actor. The second concerns the wider Russia-Europe security environment and must prevent either Moscow or Washington from treating Europe as an object of negotiation. Russia will try to conflate the two tracks so that it can use NATO-Russia talks to extract constraints on Ukraine or claim that whatever Kyiv gives up, the West gave up too. European policymakers should resist this and keep the two discussions separate, though separation also has risks: if either track collapses, the other will suffer because both tracks are needed to ensure regional security. The first maintains immediate stability along the line of contact between Russia and Ukraine; the second tackles the wider geopolitics.

Russia will prefer to discuss regional security with America rather than with Europe. It will try to cast Europe as the object of negotiation, not a participant in it. If the American leadership is distracted by other priorities or tempted by bilateral deals with Moscow, it might even support that Russian position. The answer for Europe is to define the terms of engagement with Russia in advance, with frontline states fully involved and with clear limits on what can and cannot be negotiated.

To do that, Europeans need the core group to define common positions before the United States and Russia enter any serious dialogue. European leaders cannot prevent every American side channel with Moscow, but they can limit the damage by insisting in advance on the principles that should govern any regional security conversation. These might include no recognition of territorial conquest, no Russian veto over its neighbours’ alliance decisions, no limits on Ukraine’s sovereign choices and no economic relief without behavioural restraint.

This regional security agenda will make many European leaders uncomfortable. Frontline states will fear that any discussion of basing, exercises, missiles or notification requirements gives Moscow a path back to influence over their security. They have reason to worry. Russia has used previous security conversations to claim rights over its neighbours. It has, for example, consistently used the indivisible security clause of the 1999 Charter for European Security to assert that it has the right to deny its neighbours membership in Western security organisations such as NATO. Despite this record, to exclude regional security from the framework would leave Moscow free to raise it bilaterally with Washington or exploit it during crises.

Regional security therefore is one of the central tests of managed disorder. If the US and Europe refuse to discuss it at all, Russia will use the refusal to justify probing, escalating and direct talks with America over Europe’s head. If they discuss it on Moscow’s terms, it will legitimise coercion and weaken the states most exposed to its power. The only viable course lies between those failures: to create a framework that channels Russian security demands into reciprocal, verifiable and limited mechanisms.

A framework for managed disorder

Every actor has reason to tolerate managed disorder over the alternatives, but tolerance does not sustain itself; it has to be built into rules. Managed disorder therefore rests on at least three mutually reinforcing principles:

Separate where necessary: Europe should first reduce its exposure to Russia with stronger defences and less dependence on Russian energy. Ukraine should tie itself economically more closely to Europe and be able to hold its ground militarily. Effective deterrence is a precondition for any dialogue.

Compartmentalise where you can: Certain issues—nuclear risk, Arctic exploitation, climate change and counter-proliferation—are in everyone’s interest to manage together. Even Russia wants to avoid, say, nuclear war or environmental collapse. The parties should fence such issues off from more neuralgic ones, such as Ukrainian sovereignty, to prevent crises from cascading into areas of mutual benefit. Cooperation here is a limited and mutually beneficial transaction, not the embryo of a broader relationship.

Make engagement conditional: Russia should earn sanctions relief, diplomatic reintegration and economic access by meeting specific, verifiable benchmarks. These rewards should be reversible and calibrated, so that, for Russia, compliance pays and violations are costly. This system does not require faith—just working mechanisms.

Within these pillars, Europe can emphasise defensive resilience and sanctions, while America manages nuclear and global issues. Both are compatible with the same architecture, if properly sequenced.

The stages of managed disorder

Managed disorder will not arrive by some grand bargain. It must grow semi-organically from whatever unsatisfactory deal ends the Ukraine conflict. Progress will be uneven and contingent: each stage will require stability in the previous one and give Russia incentives to value restraint over escalation. Optimistically, it will take years to move from ceasefire management to durable rules, and probably a decade or more before habits, institutions and political constituencies for restraint begin to take root. The framework will thus also need to “fail well” in the sense that Ukraine and Europe need to be able to bounce back if there is a setback.

The sequencing below shows how war-termination mechanisms can become stabilisation tools, then arms-control practice, then institutions. This is deliberate. America and Europe should commit openly to this trajectory, making clear that progress depends on Russia sticking to core principles. Even so, however technical the criteria for moving from one stage to the next may look, all the parties will accept progress only if their domestic politics allow it.

Stage 0: Secure a ceasefire (prerequisite)

A ceasefire, negotiated principally between Ukraine and Russia, is the prerequisite for everything that follows. It would be good if that ceasefire laid the groundwork for a more stable peace, but experience suggests that it will only nod in that direction and leave much unsaid. In the end, the purpose of a ceasefire is to stop the shooting rather than to ensure permanent peace. In Ukraine, that would be an accomplishment in itself and would at least open the door to the more sustainable process outlined below.

Stage 1: Freeze the status quo (~years 0-2 after ceasefire)

The first phase is about preventing a return to large-scale violence, preserving Ukraine’s survival and creating minimum conditions for a wider managed confrontation. It should embed the principle that behaviour has consequences. Monitoring and verification should come first—they enable later agreements by normalising inspections, data exchanges and the idea of measurable compliance. Those, in turn, provide the basis for rewarding Russian restraint.

This phase should establish baseline rules and mechanisms.

Military movements

• No renewed large-scale offensive action.
• No forcible changes to a clearly delineated line of control.
• No systematic attacks on European critical infrastructure.
• No escalatory hybrid campaign against EU or NATO states.
• Restrictions on long-range missiles and strike platforms near the line of contact.

The goal is to contain friction along the line of control and normalise external verification so that incidents do not spiral.

Communication and monitoring

• Humanitarian corridors and prisoner-of-war exchanges as first channels of dialogue.
• A Russian-Ukrainian military hotline with protocols for reporting ceasefire violations, troop movements, drone incidents and humanitarian emergencies.
• A joint or tripartite monitoring mechanism, potentially with UN endorsement even if not UN-staffed.

Monitoring in this phase should not be confused with Western intelligence assessments. A ceasefire mechanism needs visible procedures that both Russia and Ukraine can invoke when incidents occur. The American and European governments will also rely on classified intelligence, satellite imagery and Ukrainian reporting to assess whether Russia is preparing to attack again, but Russia need not accept those assessments for America and Europe to act on them. The two systems serve different purposes: the ceasefire mechanism manages incidents and referees disputes; intelligence assessments guide deterrence and enforcement.

Administrative

• A process for property claims, compensation and occupied-territory inventories.

Property claims will likely be one of the war’s most politically corrosive legacies. The framework must acknowledge them early, even if it cannot resolve them. Ukrainians have lost homes, businesses and land in occupied territories. Russian state assets and other linked private assets are frozen or seized across Europe. European nationals, companies and institutions have outstanding claims from pre-war investments. Left unaddressed, these grievances will curdle into domestic pressure against any government trying to sustain the framework. Experience from other post-conflict settlements suggests that unresolved property claims only get harder to settle and easier for spoilers to exploit the longer they sit.

This stage should therefore set up a dedicated arbitration channel for property claims, compensation and an inventory of assets in occupied territories. It should give affected populations a visible, legitimate process they can trust to address their claims eventually, even if immediate restitution is impossible. Otherwise, these issues become structural weaknesses that Russia, populist parties or affected lobbies can later exploit to fracture European cohesion.

No formal milestone marks the end of Stage 1—readiness to advance is a practical judgement. Triggers for progression to the next stage could include six to twelve months without major violations, inspectors consistently granted access or functioning communication demonstrated during minor incidents.

Stage 2: Stabilise the front (~years 2-4)

Once violence subsides, the next task is to keep it that way. This requires partial demilitarisation and transparency along the Ukraine-Russia and NATO-Russia contact lines. The logic resembles the earliest cold war confidence-building measures: small, technical arrangements that reduce risk without requiring political alignment.

Two tracks

Stage 2 creates, as noted, the two parallel negotiation tracks with Russia: one on the Ukraine-Russia contact line, Track A, and the other on NATO-Russia, Track B. Progress or failure in one track should have no bearing on the other, and the scope of Track B explicitly excludes Ukraine’s sovereign choices. Ukraine should be consulted before any Track B arrangement that materially affects its security. It should have no veto over NATO decisions, but it should not be treated as an object of them either.

The purpose of the negotiations would be to make the signs towards confrontation easier to read. Russia should be able to tell which US and European actions reflect routine deterrence from those signalling preparation for escalation, just as America and Europe need a clear read on which Russian moves stay within declared force posture and which mark renewed aggression. Ukraine, in turn, should know what kinds of Russian movements will trigger US and European responses—and frontline European states should trust that de-escalation measures will not come at their expense. The framework seeks to reduce the danger that military ambiguity becomes political panic.

Transparency measures and limits on destabilising deployments would increase predictability without weakening deterrence. The test is practical: a measure belongs in the framework if it reduces miscalculation while preserving the ability to defend Ukraine and NATO territory.

Examples of measures for each track include:

Track A—Contact line management (Ukraine-Russia, Western-facilitated)

• Reduced-force and weapon-limited zones on both sides of the line of contact.
• Restrictions on long-range strike systems or designated platforms near the line.
• Direct communication channels between local Ukrainian and Russian commanders, with agreed protocols for use during incidents.
• On-the-ground monitoring and inspection access, potentially with neutral observers.
• Verified pullbacks of heavy artillery or long-range systems from designated exclusion belts.

Track B—NATO-Russia military transparency (NATO-led, Ukraine consulted)

• Advance notification of exercises above a defined unit size along NATO’s eastern flank.
• Hotlines between NATO and Russian military commands with agreed rules of use.
• Observer arrangements for major exercises under agreed formats.
• Early data exchange on force levels and positions where this increases predictability without weakening deterrence.
• Technology-enabled transparency—such as satellite imagery, opensource intelligence aggregation, pattern detection—to support rather than replace agreed notification and inspection procedures.
• A restart of American-Russian strategic stability talks. 

Crisis channels

Stage 2 should also expand crisis communications into separate channels, each with a limited purpose. A Ukraine-Russia channel should manage incidents along the line of contact. Exercises, air and naval encounters, forward deployments and missile notifications would run through a separate NATO-Russia military channel. A political channel—bringing together the European core group, the US, Ukraine and Russia—should handle cases that risk triggering sanctions snapback or military escalation. And the Black Sea requires a fourth channel, covering naval movements, commercial shipping, mine clearance, port access and other maritime incidents, with Turkey centrally involved.

The Black Sea requires special attention. Ukraine’s security depends on its land frontier as much as it does on Odesa—the country’s principal port and the conduit for the bulk of its grain exports, without which Ukraine would be cut off from global maritime trade. Turkey’s control of the Black Sea and its diplomatic channels to both Moscow and Kyiv make it indispensable here.

These channels should be linked by notification rules but should not be merged into a single negotiation. Their value lies precisely in compartmentalisation: failure in one channel should not bring down the rest.

Overall, these measures create predictability rather than normality. The metrics are practical: fewer surprises, lower risk of misinterpretation, calmer borders. Communication at the tactical level buys stability at the strategic one. The aim of the monitoring is to make suspicious behaviour visible enough, early enough that American and European governments can respond before ambiguity becomes paralysis.

Informal progression to Stage 3 could follow after 9–18 months of ceasefire compliance, a functioning inspection regime or verified pullbacks of heavy artillery or long-range systems from designated exclusion belts.

Stage 3: Manage deterrence (~years 4-7)

If stabilisation holds, America and Europe should shift their focus from military capability to deterrence. The relationship with Russia may remain adversarial, but it must be clear why and, within limits, predictable.

This stage should distinguish rearmament from deployment. At first, it should leave Europe, Ukraine and Russia to rebuild their armed forces. Capping rearmament outright would be unpopular, difficult to verify and potentially damaging to deterrence. The early aim is narrower: to curb the most destabilising forms of rearmament by regulating where forces are placed, how movements are notified, which exercises require observers, which long-range systems create escalation risks and what kinds of external assistance to Russia would trigger penalties. In short, managed disorder should allow rearmament but make it less surprising, less offensive in posture and less likely to spark a crisis.

Hybrid activity is a harder problem because Moscow has made it part of its regional strategy. Disinformation and cyberattacks cannot be managed through traditional arms control. The US and Europe cannot negotiate a clean cyber or hybrid non-aggression pact with Russia, but they can set conditions for participation in a wider framework. Russia cannot stop the drone war in Ukraine while continuing an infrastructure war across Europe and still expect sanctions relief and cooperation. A reduction in major hybrid attacks should become part of the price of entry into the framework.

This will require clear thresholds. Not every disinformation campaign warrants a crisis response, and not every cyber incident will carry a signature that all governments accept. But hybrid attacks on critical infrastructure, electoral processes, or political figures should carry consequences when evidence reaches agreed standards. The US and Europe should create a certification process that assesses such activity and links it to sanctions, diplomatic access and the pace of wider engagement. Attribution will remain contested, but the absence of perfect attribution cannot excuse permanent grey-zone coercion.

Both sets of rules—on rearmament and on hybrid activity—belong to the same emerging arms-control agenda, which could include:

1. Geographically bounded force ceilings near Ukraine and NATO’s eastern flank.
2. Reciprocal notification of major troop movements and exercises.
3. Observer access to certain drills under agreed formats.
4. A dialogue on missile deployments and dual-use systems, initially without formal treaties.
5. Additional transparency measures for storage or deployment locations of sensitive weapons.
6. Agreed thresholds for major hybrid activity, including sabotage of critical infrastructure, coercive migration operations, cyber operations against essential services and attacks on defence production, linked to certification and penalties rather than formal arms-control limits.

The US would lead this part because of nuclear considerations, while Europe anchors the conventional posture. Russia may well test boundaries, so deterrence must remain credible. But even imperfect predictability is safer than total opacity.

Triggers for informal progression to the next stage could include routine functioning of transparency mechanisms, no large undisclosed deployments near the line or political space inside EU and US capitals for conditional economic measures.

Stage 4: Build cooperation silos (begins early; matures over 7-10 years)

Cooperation in limited areas can help keep the wider framework from collapsing. Even after a ceasefire in Ukraine, Russia will still be able to destabilise Europe indirectly through hybrid operations within European borders and its wider neighbourhood. A managed framework will therefore need to go beyond Ukraine without assuming that cooperation in one domain signals goodwill or leads to broader reconciliation.

The purpose of functional cooperation is twofold. First, it can give Russia limited, visible benefits from predictable behaviour. Moscow values status, access and the recognition that it is an indispensable interlocutor. Carefully chosen cooperation channels can provide these at relatively low cost, provided they remain conditional and reversible. Second, such channels can reduce Russia’s incentive to use theatres outside Europe as pressure points. If Russia gains a stake in, say, Arctic safety, it may have more to lose from turning it into a battlefield.

The US and Europe should choose these areas carefully. Cooperation should start soon after a ceasefire wherever interests overlap. It can include humanitarian and economic essentials—fertiliser and food exports, prisoner-of-war exchanges—alongside maritime and safety measures such as Black Sea commercial shipping and nuclear safety. The early purpose is to improve people’s safety and daily lives rather than to preserve the peace. If the framework holds, functional cooperation can institutionalise and spread into two further clusters: maritime and Arctic cooperation, such as search-and-rescue and maritime deconfliction; and technical safety cooperation, such as space debris monitoring, counter-proliferation and climate and environmental data exchange.

The Arctic presents a distinct challenge. Before the war, it was one of the few spaces where Russia, America and Europe cooperated despite wider tensions, but that cooperation has since collapsed. Finland and Sweden’s accession to NATO, Russia’s militarisation of the High North, competition over energy and shipping routes, and Chinese interest in Arctic access have turned the region into a sharper theatre of rivalry. A functional Arctic track could help prevent accidents, manage search-and-rescue obligations, preserve basic environmental data exchange, and reduce the risk that military incidents in the High North spill into wider confrontation.

Functional cooperation could also help manage the Black Sea, building on the channel already established in Stage 2. The aim should be to cut the risk that a naval incident spirals into a wider escalation.

These channels should also serve as tests of Russian behaviour. Russia cannot expect cooperation in the Arctic while sabotaging European energy infrastructure, or maritime deconfliction while strangling Ukraine’s economy in the Black Sea. Functional cooperation should therefore rest on a spoiler clause: major destabilisation in one domain should cut benefits in others, though minor incidents, such as temporary denial of port access, should not automatically break compartmentalised cooperation. The point is to preserve communication during confrontation, but without allowing these channels to become sanctuaries for Russian bad behaviour. A standing certification mechanism should assess whether Russian actions remain compatible with continued participation; major violations, such as sabotage of critical infrastructure or using mercenary forces to destabilise European interests abroad, should trigger wider consequences.

Functional silos can also discipline European divisions by allowing limited contact with Russia where it serves security, while preventing that contact from becoming a general political thaw. This distinction lets hardline states accept narrow, security-driven engagement without conceding that Russia has been forgiven, while allowing more accommodating states to engage practically without waiting for a broader reconciliation that may never come. Silos also give European publics a clear rationale: certain risks require communication even among enemies.

The task for the bilateral re-engagement is to prevent unconditional normalisation by channelling it: bilateral contacts should be registered, reported to the core group where security-relevant and subject to spoiler clauses. Left unmanaged, bilateral contacts could become the pathway through which sanctions erode and Europe fragments.

China may play a limited role in this stage in areas where its interests—Arctic access, nuclear stability, maritime trade—align with predictability. Beijing will understand that stability preserves the economic access it values; Russian defection narrows it.

After a sustained period of compliance, the framework should offer Russia visible but reversible dividends for restraint: expanded diplomatic channels, ministerial-level meetings, greater facilitation of agricultural and fertiliser exports, enhanced participation in Black Sea or nuclear-safety mechanisms, and broader bilateral contacts. The aim is to show that restraint changes the terms of engagement.

The trigger for the next stage might be two to four years of stable front lines, deterrence and transparency mechanisms working as intended, and proof that narrow cooperation holds without spilling over or being exploited.

Stage 5: Institutionalise managed disorder (> 10 years)

If earlier stages mature and survive disruptions, an institutional architecture can begin to consolidate. Many elements may start earlier but will take shape over the long term. Institutionalisation marks a recognition that competition must be permanently managed. This day may never arrive, but it matters as an aspiration. Comparable cold war institutions took 25 years or more to emerge. For example, the Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe (CSCE) was launched in the early 1970s but it only became a standing institution, the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), in 1995.

Potential forms for institutions include:

• A US-Europe-Russia Risk Reduction Commission meeting at ministerial and military-to-military levels.
• A modular arms-control instrument replacing parts of the Conventional Armed Forces in Europe and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces frameworks, eventually bringing in other countries—notably China.
• A dual-track diplomatic structure: Washington–Moscow for nuclear or global issues; Europe–Moscow for regional security and Ukraine arrangements.
• A standing crisis-management protocol with predefined escalation control steps.
• An institutional layer consolidating the crisis channels of earlier stages, created through standing bodies, regularised military contacts and agreed evidentiary standards.

This stage is ambitious, uncertain and far off. It would require political durability inside Russia, Ukraine, the US and Europe. But it should remain visible as the horizon. The framework must offer a picture of a stable destination even if the road there is long.

The path to stability runs through this framework; it structures a rivalry that will continue whether we prepare for it or not. The logic is incremental: ceasefire enables monitoring, monitoring enables transparency, transparency enables limits, limits enable rules, rules enable institutions. Each step must be earned through behaviour, not granted on faith. None of this works, however, if Europe cannot act as one.

How to overcome division paralysis in Europe

European cohesion will require a system that stops any single state from vetoing responses that the group has already agreed. The model should borrow from the Iran nuclear deal of 2015: participating states determine upfront what counts as a violation and what counts as a compliance milestone. Those criteria, once set, cannot be revised downward. The states most exposed to Russian pressure would write their red lines into the rules before the politics of the moment can erode them. A standing committee of the participating states then decides by qualified majority whether Russia has met a given criterion. If it has, the agreed reward or penalty follows automatically—unless a majority votes to block it.

This process flips the usual logic. The current system requires consensus to impose a snapback or advance a tranche of sanctions relief; the new one will require consensus to waive either. A hypothetical pro-Russian Hungarian or Slovak government seeking to delay consequences will need to openly vote to do so and bear public responsibility for that choice, rather than block it quietly through procedural abstention. Similarly, a frontline state such as Poland or a Baltic country will need to find a majority to block rewards once Russia demonstrably meets an agreed milestone. Frontline states appear to lose power here, but their red lines have already been written into the rules.

Spelling out in advance which consequences are appropriate for a breach would also help keep Europe united: cautious states will not tolerate escalation over every minor incident, and hawkish ones will not tolerate impunity for major violations. Proportionality will keep both cautious and hawkish states invested in the framework, rather than defecting to national responses. A three-tier system would make this balance work: minor procedural breaches might suspend talks or freeze a tranche of sanctions relief; material violations—such as denial of inspection access—may trigger limited snapback; major ones, such as attacks on defence production, should trigger full enforcement. This governance mechanism is only part of what will enable Europe to act cohesively within the framework; practical principles must also operate across every stage, beginning with crisis communication.

Operating rules

Several rules should apply throughout the framework. Managed disorder cannot rest on hopeful assumptions about Russian restraint or rationality. The framework must treat future violations as probable and place the burden on Russia to prove it is complying, not on America or Europe to show that it is not. In practice, that means adopting a presumption-of-violation approach: if, say, Russia denies inspectors access to a missile site, the refusal counts as a breach and triggers penalties. Sanctions relief, military deployments and cooperation channels continue only when Russia’s behaviour is visible and verifiable. If Moscow wants the benefits of a more predictable relationship, it must make compliance easy to see.

Crisis communication should begin from the outset. In a post-war environment, contact matters more than cooperation. Channels should allow the parties to clarify incidents and prevent local violence from escalating. These channels should be compartmentalised—for example, a line-of-contact mechanism should not depend on progress in NATO-Russia talks—so no single crisis can consume the whole framework.

Technology can help in this process, but monitoring cannot depend on it alone. Surveillance, satellite imagery, financial tracking, customs data, open-source intelligence and AI-assisted pattern detection can all improve visibility. But they cannot substitute for political judgment, agreed evidentiary standards and negotiated consequences.

In all stages, sanctions relief should be tied to periodic certification rather than ad hoc diplomacy. The certification mechanism described above—which includes the EU, the US, Ukraine and relevant European core group states—should govern the pace of sanctions relief, the triggering of snapback provisions, and the determination of whether conditions for stage progression have been met. It cannot eliminate political discretion, as that is impossible, but it can narrow it by defining operational and measurable criteria as precisely as possible. If Russia blocks inspections, moves forces without notification, conducts major hybrid attacks or violates agreed military limits, the default should be suspension or reversal of relief unless participating governments decide otherwise.

Why the alternatives are worse

Managed disorder will make no one happy. It will not deliver justice for Ukraine, reconciliation with Russia, strategic autonomy for Europe, or a restored US-European consensus on Russia. It will leave many questions unresolved and many grievances intact. But the relevant comparison is not with an ideal peace that cannot exist. The relevant comparison is with the conceivable alternatives. All of them are worse than managed disorder.

The alternatives below are ideal types. Few policymakers advocate for any of them in pure form. But examining each in isolation reveals why none can resolve the underlying problem and why mixing them without a governing framework tends to magnify their worst features.

The first alternative is regime change in Moscow. Many Europeans and Americans have concluded that no stable order with Russia can exist while Vladimir Putin or a Putinist system remains in power—a view with real force, given how central revisionism, militarism and hostility to the West have become to the current government’s legitimacy. But as a strategy, regime change offers no credible path from the world we inhabit to the world we want. Neither the US nor Europe can engineer a liberal transition in Moscow or build a European security order on the assumption that Russia will soon become a different country. Nor can they rely on sanctions, battlefield losses or elite discontent to produce a more palatable successor. A Russia after Putin could become less aggressive, but it could also become more nationalist, more chaotic or more determined to prove that the war was not lost.

The second alternative is permanent isolation. This approach would contain Russia through sanctions, diplomatic exclusion and military pressure. It has obvious appeal. Russia should pay a lasting price for aggression. But isolation alone will not manage the next phase. Sanctions will erode without a political strategy. European governments will divide over costs and enforcement. China, Turkey, the Gulf states and others will create channels around US and European pressure. Russia will adapt and wait for fatigue in the US and Europe. Permanent isolation may punish Russia, but it will not by itself create rules for regional security or Ukraine’s defence.

The third alternative is normalisation. This approach would treat a ceasefire as the end of the problem and move quickly toward restored diplomatic channels, trade and a wider European conversation with Moscow. Some governments and firms will want this as soon as large-scale fighting stops. They will argue that Europe needs stability to recover and a way to stop Russia from becoming still more dependent on China. Some engagement with Moscow will eventually prove necessary. But normalisation without conditions would reward aggression without securing restraint. It would tell Russia that conquest brings only a temporary crisis followed by eventual reintegration. It would weaken Ukraine, divide Europe and invite Moscow to test whether another round of coercion might yield another round of concessions. Engagement has value only when it forms part of a structure of leverage. Without that structure, it becomes appeasement by exhaustion.

The fourth alternative is unmanaged confrontation. This outcome is the most likely default because it requires no decision. Europe and America would continue to arm Ukraine unevenly, maintain sanctions haphazardly, talk to Russia episodically and respond to crises as they arise. NATO would reinforce some areas, neglect others and debate deployments after Russia tests them, leaving Ukraine dependent yet insecure. Russia, meanwhile, would keep probing European defences with hybrid tactics, even as Washington cuts its own deals with Moscow. European governments might denounce such freelancing while failing to offer a coherent alternative. In this world, rivalry persists and even grows, and no one sets the rules.

Unmanaged confrontation gives Russia more ambiguity to exploit, gives the United States more room to improvise over Europe’s head, and hands European governments more opportunities to defect from common positions. It also leaves Ukraine with less clarity about what the US and Europe will support and what they will not. Every crisis becomes a test of will, credibility and domestic politics. The result would not be principled firmness. It would be recurrent improvisation under pressure.

These alternatives also share a deeper flaw. Each assumes that one element of the problem can solve the whole: Russian transformation, Russian isolation, Russian reintegration or Western toughness. None can. The post-war confrontation will require deterrence and dialogue, punishment and incentives, European unity and coalitions of the willing, Ukrainian agency, American involvement and European hedging. Any strategy that chooses only one side of these tensions will collapse when reality supplies the other.

An operating system for a bad peace

If this trajectory does not take hold, the alternative is easy to imagine because it resembles the past decade: a ceasefire that freezes rather than manages the conflict, Russia regrouping and probing again when the balance shifts, Europe tiring under sanctions and domestic cost, the US distracted and inconsistent, and Ukraine trapped in recurrent wars. In such a world, escalation would be governed by crises rather than rules, and could arrive suddenly, triggered by accident, misunderstanding or opportunity.

America and Europe cannot choose a world without Russia, nor can they wish away their own disunity. But both Europeans and Americans can choose whether to confront Russia through chaos or through structure. Managed disorder is a strategy for containing escalation, preserving Ukrainian sovereignty, limiting Russian coercion and ensuring that rivalry remains predictable rather than world-ending.

The path forward begins in Ukraine. If policymakers treat war termination as the end of the problem, they will fail to respond to broader Russian concerns and leave Europe vulnerable to the next Russian offensive. If they instead treat war termination as the opening phase of a long process, they can shape the incentives and capacities that will govern the next decade.

A structured adversarial framework, rooted in credible deterrence and bounded by conditional cooperation, is the best available foundation. Managed disorder is not permanent peace, reconciliation or a just settlement. It is an operating system for a bad peace.

About the authors

Jeremy Shapiro is the research director of the European Council on Foreign Relations. His areas of focus include US foreign policy and transatlantic relations.

Samuel Charap is Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy and a senior political scientist at RAND. His research interests include the foreign policies of Russia and the former Soviet states; European and Eurasian regional security; and US-Russia deterrence, strategic stability and arms control.

Bob Deen is the General Director of the Netherlands Institute for International Relations “Clingendael” and specialises in matters of European security, with a focus on Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Central Asia. Before joining Clingendael in 2020, he worked as Head of Section and Senior Adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.

Hiski Haukkala is the director of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. He is also an adjunct professor of international relations at Tampere University and a senior research associate at RAND Europe. He is the author of numerous books and articles on EU foreign policy, Russia and International Relations.

Ivan Krastev is chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, Sofia, and a permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, Vienna. He is the author of “Is It Tomorrow Yet? Paradoxes of the Pandemic”, among many other publications.

Hanna Notte is the director of the Eurasia programme at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Based in Berlin, she has written extensively about Russian foreign policy and is the author of We Shall Outlast Them: Putin’s Global Campaign to Defeat the West (W. W. Norton & Co).

Jim O’Brien is a distinguished visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations. He previously served as Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs in the Biden administration.

Acknowledgments

This paper is the collaborative product of a working group that met several times over the course of more than a year, comprising the authors above and Michael Kimmage of the Kennan Institute. Jeremy Shapiro took the pen on this paper, but the working group shaped, debated and contributed to it in essential ways. All of the members of the working group except Michael Kimmage fully endorse the paper.

The authors would also like to thank Kat Fytatzi for her patient and incisive editing. Kat’s editing was painful, but in exactly the right way. Nastassia Zenovich applied her usual genius for the graphical representation of extremely verbal ideas to a paper that badly needed it. She has our eternal gratitude. We’d also like to thank the Andrew Carnegie Foundation for the funding and patience that made this project possible.

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The problem

For the second July running, a controversial decision from President Volodymyr Zelensky has sparked protests across Ukraine. Last year it was his attempt to weaken two anti-corruption bodies. This time it is the dismissal of his popular young defence minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, after just six months on the job. Zelensky cited a breakdown of relations between the ministry of defence and the military leadership as a key reason for his decision.

Fedorov was blunter. In a scathing statement, he criticised the commander-in-chief of the armed forces Oleksandr Syrsky for choosing loyalty over performance, sticking to outdated ways of war fighting, and sabotaging necessary reforms. “Instead of working out how to asymmetrically defeat Russia”, Fedorov said, “[Syrsky] has worked out how to split the country.” Such internal strife is the last thing Ukraine needs. But Fedorov’s allegations also call into question whether Western military assistance for Kyiv is being used in the best possible way. 

The solution

Zelensky has proposed Yevhen Khmara to replace Fedorov, subject to approval by parliament. Khmara is a respected military commander and the acting head of Ukraine’s security service, so has credentials as a military leader. But Ukraine’s parliament must also decide whether he can be a trustworthy manager in the job.

This is, of course, Ukraine’s sovereign decision to make. But it is a consequential one for the rest of Europe, too: at the end of the second quarter, defence accounted for roughly 80% of Ukraine’s annual budget, with almost a third of this coming from external partners (who also supply a lot of the country’s civilian needs). The EU and European countries are by far Kyiv’s biggest financial and miliary backers. And how these funds are spent matters for Ukraine’s success; as does whether its military strategy, supplies, recruitment and procurement are aligned. The resources also need to be used efficiently. Fedorov’s allegations thus deserve proper scrutiny.

Ukraine’s European partners should not back any one choice of new defence minister. But they should make clear that, whether it is Khmara or somebody else, Fedorov’s replacement must be a credible, competent and trusted partner. This means he or she should be proven as a commander, but also be able to continue Ukraine’s defence reforms and address problems related to mobilisation, relations with the military, and corruption in the sector. Fedorov’s replacement should also be committed to continuing to build up the country’s defence technology base.

Context

Before he became defence minister in January 2026, Fedorov headed Ukraine’s digital governance revolution. He transferred his tech-savviness to the ministry of defence and is widely credited with Ukraine’s recent advances in defence technology which helped turn the tide against Russia. Several military commanders have defended Fedorov’s work as defence minister and supported his claims against Syrskyi; others in the military have spoken in favour of the commander.

In his statement, Fedorov remained loyal to Zelensky but rumours about the outgoing official’s political ambitions have been circulating for weeks. Whether there is any truth in them or not, protesters see this as a motivation behind the president’s reshuffle. And the views of the public matter. Ukraine’s defence is a whole-of-society affair, partly sustained by volunteers and the private sector. So, Zelensky will need to dispel these rumours—a country at war can hardly afford to make decisions based on political preference at the expense of competence or defence logic.

The onus is now on Zelensky to convince everyone that Khmara is the man for the job. While parliament approved a new government led by Sergy Koretsky on July 15th, this did not include the names of the president’s (constitutionally required) proposals for defence and foreign ministers. Barring an extraordinary session, MPs will only reconvene in mid-August. This means they have time to reflect and engage in a dialogue. This should result in a defence minister who commands not just the president’s trust but also that of the military, society—and international partners.

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In the latest episode of ECFR’s WOMENP podcast, Ellie Geranmayeh is joined by three leading Lebanese voices— Alia Moubayed, senior economist; Randa Slim, Middle East Programme director at the Stimson Center; and Maha Yahya, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut—to unpack the consequences of the trilateral framework deal signed by Israel, the US and Lebanon.

Lebanon is among the countries most impacted by the US and Israel’s war against Iran. Following the death of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Hezbollah resumed direct attacks against Israel in March, plunging the country back into conflict. Around 4,000 people in Lebanon have since been killed and over a million displaced, with Israeli ground forces now occupying parts of south Lebanon.

In June, Israel, the US and Lebanon signed a historic—and controversial—trilateral framework deal, with the parties meeting again in July to discuss the implementation phase, including the withdrawal of Israeli forces from occupied parts of Lebanon. But with a ceasefire between the US and Iran unravelling, the durability of the Lebanon deal is unclear. Together, Ellie, Alia, Maha and Randa discuss whether the deal can bring lasting peace to Lebanon and how international players can support efforts to stabilise the country.

Listen to all past episodes of ECFR’s WOMENP series.

This podcast was recorded on July 16th, 2026.

Bookshelf:

The Best Kind of American: A True Story of Murder, War, and America’s Undoing in the Middle East by Kim Ghattas

Beirut Blues by Hanan Al-Shaykh

A House of Many Mansions: The History of Lebanon Reconsidered by Kamal Salibi

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This week, Mark Leonard welcomes Camille Grand, secretary general of ASD Europe and special adviser to ECFR’s European Security programme, and Marta Prochwicz Jazowska, deputy head of ECFR’s Warsaw office and policy fellow, to discuss what the outcome of the NATO summit in Ankara means for Europe’s security. They draw on ECFR’s recent policy brief “Making defence European again” to assess whether the alliance has emerged stronger—or simply avoided a crisis.

European leaders left Ankara relieved that US president Donald Trump has reaffirmed US support for NATO and avoided announcing major troop withdrawals, but fundamental questions about Washington’s long-term commitment remain unresolved. Mark, Camille and Marta explore how Europe can strengthen its own defence capabilities while maintaining NATO as the cornerstone of collective security.

Can Europe build the military capabilities it still lacks? How should responsibilities be divided between NATO, the EU and smaller coalitions of willing states? What would a more credible European nuclear deterrent look like? And can Europe strengthen its own defence without weakening the transatlantic alliance?

This podcast episode was recorded on July 9th 2026.

Bookshelf ·

The Sleepwalkers by Christopher Clark ·

The Great Delusion by John J. Mearsheimer

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European leaders breathed a sigh of relief as US president Donald Trump departed last week’s NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey. Despite a few unseemly moments in which Trump reiterated his desire to seize Greenland and nonsensically ordered a halt to all trade with Spain, the meeting went off without any major catastrophes.

Most importantly, Trump did not announce any major troop withdrawals from Europe or any moves to leave the alliance. He even had warm words for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, and pledged to grant Ukraine a license to manufacture Patriot air-defence missiles domestically. By the end, even Trump proclaimed that there was “love” in the air.

But optics aside, the summit was an absurd exercise. NATO leaders revelled in their pledges to increase defence-related spending to 5%, even though everyone knows that this arbitrary number means nothing in the absence of deeper discussions about capabilities. The figure was pulled out of thin air last year to appease Trump. In the months leading up to the summit, the same leaders had worried that Trump would withdraw the US from the alliance or dramatically reduce its presence in Europe, which would then find itself at the mercy of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. 

That is why NATO leaders expended so much energy preparing a summit that would not allow for any unscripted moments. Fears that the mercurial US president would use the occasion to undermine the alliance were palpable. When the moment came, European leaders reportedly fell over themselves to praise Trump, with NATO’s secretary general, Mark Rutte, leading the sycophantic charge.

Some commentators believe that saving NATO and keeping the Western alliance alive was worth this self-abasement. But by kowtowing to Trump and indulgently harking back to the good old days of the transatlantic relationship, Europe’s leaders are risking more than just their dignity.

Consider the period following the fall of the Berlin Wall. After the initial euphoria, many parts of the former German Democratic Republic (East Germany) were emptied out as their populations left, even as property prices were driven up by an influx of wealthier West Germans. The result was a wave of nostalgia for a lost world, expressed in films like Good Bye, Lenin!

The term coined to describe this emotion was Ostalgie (“Eastalgia”), and it has shaped German politics and culture for almost 40 years now. Although many East German writers have criticised such sentimentality for trivialising East Germany’s decades-long repression, some see it as the key to understanding what ails Germany’s eastern regions today. There one finds a widespread refusal to acknowledge that the world has changed, a habit of free riding, and a tendency—occasionally—to look ridiculous, such as when East Germans parrot Russian talking points on Ukraine.

Ironically, Europe’s problem today is not just that Ostalgie has held back eastern Germany; it is that a new malady, Westalgia, has taken hold. It was on full display in Ankara.

Westalgia has several key features. The first is a refusal to acknowledge that the world has moved on. By acting as if US security guarantees are still as ironclad as they were under the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations, and by continuing to purchase US weapons, they hope to turn back the clock. But a better strategy would recognise that America has changed in fundamental ways. Even if a Democrat moves into the White House in January 2029, US retrenchment will continue.

Europe’s hyper-reliance on American power clearly had an infantilising effect

Those who want to turn back the clock naturally see the past through rose-tinted glasses, even though elements of the post-cold war settlement were not to Europe’s advantage. Specifically, Europe’s hyper-reliance on American power clearly had an infantilising effect. Even when caught between a predatory Russia, a fickle US and a coercive China, Europeans are still wont to downplay and underestimate their own power and influence.

The second feature of Westalgia is a tendency to free ride. Just as eastern Germans grew accustomed to the transfer payments and subsidies (the infamous Solidaritätszuschlag, or “solidarity tax”) that flowed eastward after unification, so have Europeans become accustomed to America bankrolling their security. As a result, Europeans have under-invested, not just in defence but also in their industrial base, technological sovereignty and energy independence.

Instead of complaining that US citizens no longer want to be responsible for defending Europe, and instead of spending billions of dollars to satisfy Trump’s vanity, Europeans would be better off having a serious conversation about how they could fight a high-intensity conflict on their own, if necessary. Instead of spending an arbitrary share of their GDP on defence, they should critically evaluate their capability gaps and adjust their spending to match their needs. Coffers are tight everywhere, but it will be easier to justify expenditures on weapons if they appear less geared toward flattering Trump.

Third, in their subservience to the US president, Europeans often do not hide it well, which prevents them from being taken seriously—be it by Trump, Putin, or Chinese leader Xi Jinping. If there is one man who presumably respects Rutte less than Rutte himself, it is Trump. Europe will garner the world’s respect only when it stands up for itself. 

Whereas Ostalgie was a bottom-up phenomenon, Westalgia is being driven by elites. Of course, European politicians need to allay their skittish electorates’ fears. But if they want to succeed in the 21st century, they must stop selling nostalgia and start looking to the future.

This article was first published by Project Syndicate on July 15th 2026

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Problem

Italy’s 2027 electoral campaign has begun. So far, the contest has been defined by opposition parties exploiting what they see as prime minister Giorgia Meloni’s flaws in government policy on Russia, Ukraine and defence spending.

One person in particular is fuelling this criticism: former general Roberto Vannacci and his far-right party, National Future (Futuro Nazionale). With Meloni struggling to justify her commitment to Ukraine, NATO and the EU, and an Italian left radicalising along pacifist lines, National Future embodies an ideological nationalism which could prove indispensable for Italy’s right-wing bloc ahead of 2027.

Vannacci is also a Trojan horse for Russian influence inside Italy. He has publicly stated that he would have “no problem” accepting party and legal funding from Moscow or Beijing, and has adopted a transactional, sovereigntist posture modelled closely on Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. Domestically, this is an easy argument to win: a recent ECFR policy brief confirmed that Italians are favourable to resuming imports of Russian gas and oil. This openness to Russia is compounded by his military past: Vannacci was Italy’s military attaché in Moscow, raising anxieties about counterintelligence and security.

Should National Future enter a governing coalition, Vannacci’s background could shatter the EU’s collective security consensus. A Rome influenced by Vannacci would actively block EU defence initiatives, veto sanctions and leak sensitive security coordination. For Meloni, normalising Vannacci would trigger an immediate rupture with the European mainstream with which she has been cooperating since 2022. Ultimately, he alone could paralyse Brussels’ capacity as a coherent geopolitical actor.

Solution

To fully grasp the extent of the danger that Vannacci poses to the EU, Europeans need to look beyond the playbook of contemporary European populism. While figures like Marine Le Pen have spent years achieving dédiabolisation—meticulously distancing themselves from Vladimir Putin’s regime to capture mainstream credibility—Vannacci is highly likely to align himself with the pro-Russia Alternative for Germany (AfD).

Italians and Europeans alike should thus not treat National Future as just another right-wing movement. Instead, Vannacci—who also sits in the European Parliament—should be dealt with as a strategic issue. Whether or not National Future joins a second Meloni government, his party’s emergence demonstrates that Europe’s mainstream must no longer simply contain the far right or the far left. Now Europeans need to preserve the credibility of democratic politics as new radical actors reshape the political landscape.

Meloni should exclude National Future from any form of governance. She needs to resist this new far-right siren call by using the political capital she has built in the EU since 2022: she has been at the forefront of support for Ukraine, collaboration on trade, initiatives on migration, and contributions to EU reactions to international developments. Importantly, Meloni has maintained a friendly relationship with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.

However, the conservative mainstream also needs to react. It is normalising anti-EU parties by seeking their political support at the EU level and in the European Parliament. Building a cordon sanitaire around anti-EU forces requires everyone’s engagement: EU conservative leaders should work together to show their voters that they reject such extreme views. Pragmatic collaboration will also help overcome some divisions which are freezing decision-making on issues such as Russian security threats and migration.

Context

Meloni entered office in 2022 and gradually established herself as a pragmatic conservative leader, separate from more openly revisionist forces on the European right. But her recent decision not to attend a Coalition of the Willing meeting in Paris on July 13th highlights the pressure she is under, ahead of Italy’s 2027 election, to focus on domestic commitments instead of European debates on Russia, Ukraine and defence.

Here, Vannacci is a key force. National Future, which he founded only four months ago, is polling around 6% and establishing itself as the second-largest force in Italy’s right-wing bloc. Vannacci’s platform combines nationalist rhetoric, opposition to military support for Ukraine, openness to legally permissible Russian and Chinese electoral funding, and a confrontational approach to liberal democratic values.

His ideological trajectory mirrors the social architecture, ethnonationalism and systemic Euroscepticism of the AfD. Vannacci is not constrained by regional economic interests or coalition dynamics, unlike the leader of Italy’s right-wing League party, Matteo Salvini. This defines Vannacci as a loose cannon; National Future is well-positioned to capitalise on societal anxieties and economic grievances to pull the Overton window toward radical revisionism.

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To nobody’s surprise, the US and Iran are back at war. After Washington launched a new series of strikes on Iran on July 8th, the two are exchanging fire on assets across the Gulf. Once again, movement through the Strait of Hormuz, the world’s major thoroughfare of oil exports, is minimal and global fuel prices are creeping back up.

North Africa, still reeling from the consequences of the fighting earlier this year, is nervously watching on. Egypt’s and Tunisia’s finances are suffering and the balance of power between Morocco and Algeria looks shaky, as does Libya’s delicately poised political status quo. The war’s corrosiveness is pushing the region closer to instability. This was true after the ceasefire, and even moreso now it has been broken.

For Europe, north Africa’s travails are a security and economic threat. But they are also an opportunity for Europeans to finally redevelop their relations with their southern neighbours by helping buttress them against this tumultuous new world and in turn, protect themselves against future unrest.

Taking blows

As import-oriented economies, North African countries are largely dependent on streams of global currencies, and they are increasingly energy hungry. This makes them hyper vulnerable to the Iran war’s geopolitical and geoeconomic fallout, as the first wave of fighting made all too clear.

When Iran closed the strait of Hormuz in February and struck energy terminals across Arab gulf states, it hit energy markets and upended budgets across the region. The Tunisian government, for example, already locked in a Sisyphean struggle to find enough foreign currency for key monthly imports and loan repayments, designed their budget with an assumed price of oil at $63 per barrel, only to see it soar to over $100. They almost depleted their emergency reserve within the first few weeks of the war and relied on quiet energy loans from neighbours. Egypt, similarly, was forced to go to Libya and costly spot markets after Israel declared force majeure on key gas exports following the gulf shutdown. The government even forced 24-hr metropolises into darkness after 9pm. The region now faces this new round of fighting with the energy stores depleted and the coffers dry.

North Africa’s oil economies were also affected. Algerian and Libyan hopes to leverage high oil prices have been stymied by loans to neighbours, production limits and domestic energy demands. Libya—which depends on fuel imports and suffers from massive fuel smuggling operations—had their first unified budget in years gravely unbalanced before even being signed.

It is not just energy. Exports of two seemingly innocuous chemicals, urea and sulphur, have also been hit, crippling a fertiliser industry central to north African economies (and food supply). Morocco is home to the world’s largest phosphate exporter, while Egypt, is one of the world’s largest consumers and exporters of fertilizer. Tunisia’s phosphate industry is a jewel of its economy, yet entirely dependent on imported materials. As a region that imports over half its food, the falling export revenues and raised costs of domestic agriculture are acutely painful. Government costs are rising, labour-intensive industries contracting, exports falling, while the prices of basic foodstuffs inflate in a region where food insecurity already doubled between 2019 and 2024.   

The long-term damage

North Africa’s longer-term struggle will be maintaining the foreign currency streams that fund imports and, by extension, social programmes. In other words, the war has triggered consequences that will become new structural realities

After the shock of these initial blows, North Africa’s longer-term struggle will be maintaining the foreign currency streams that fund imports and, by extension, social programmes. In other words, the war has triggered consequences that will become new structural realities.

As calm returned following the initial ceasefire, energy, fertiliser, food, tourism and shipping markets began returning to normal. This gave regional governments some clarity over cashflows. And, with the diplomatic structures from the ceasefire in place, markets are proving slightly more resilient following the recent outbreak of violence. However, the renewed war is still young and the future ominous. For North Africa’s two largest foreign currency streams—remittances and Arab gulf investments—the omens are even worse, leaving the region in crippling suspense over what comes next.

The Gulf is north Africa’s main labour market, especially for Egypt which has 3.3 million nationals in the region. Remittances from this labour are a vital stabiliser for the region’s poorer economies, with increasing importance during tough times as a forex supply and economic ballast that governments do not have to pay for.

Last year, the value of remittances to Morocco was around €11.4bn, roughly 8% of GDP; it is already 10% higher so far this year. In Tunisia it was €2.6bn, 5.6% of GDP but making up around 30% of Tunis’s foreign currency reserves. In Egypt the statistics are even more concerning as remittances grew a startling 40.5% year-on-year to €36.2bn, roughly 12% of GDP.

The Gulf is also the largest source of foreign investment. It has repeatedly bailed out Egypt, provided a rare source of foreign projects in Tunisia’s otherwise seized economy, and in Morocco, the UAE alone accounts for 19% of foreign direct investment.

Given the scale of dependence, even small constrictions in Gulf labour markets and investments could destabilise these economies through hitting remittances and GDP respectively. Among North African capitals, there is a deep-seated fear that Gulf economies are much harder hit than let on, with anecdotal expectations of mass layoffs and cuts to foreign spending.

Instability ahead

This is a grim forecast for already suffering economies with simmering unrest. Poor finances have fuelled a long-running battle between Tunisia’s government and protestors while 2025 saw Morocco’s worst protesting since 2011’s Arab Spring. In the shadow of the Iran war, cost-of-living and inequality issues will only worsen. Similar anxieties drove Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi to send air-defence systems to the Gulf and visit Abu Dhabi, to shore up the relationship after the UAE expelled thousands of Pakistani labourers seemingly as punishment for Islamabad’s diplomatic efforts.

Amid it all, the rivalry between Algeria and Morocco has intensified. Thanks to the energy crisis, Algiers leveraged high oil prices to: accelerate energy-sector development; consolidate its trilateral Maghreb union (that pointedly excludes Morocco); court Europe with energy; and advance the trans-sahara pipeline linking Nigerian and Nigerien oil to Algeria’s export terminals.

This has toppled the regional balance of power in Algiers’s favour, just as Rabat’s closest allies—the US, the UAE and Israel—are otherwise occupied. As their pantomime rivalry is the pivot on which regional stability and politics rests—especially given their spiralling arms race—this misbalancing could lead to heightened tensions and other flashpoints throughout the region most notably over the Western Sahara.

In Libya, high oil prices enticed Turkey and the US to try and use the lure of energy sector developments and the potential for profiting off them as bait for a new political agreement. Unsurprisingly, this has only stoked mass protests from a population long-promised elections and struggling with the worst cost-of-living crisis since the 1950s because of the kleptocracies this deal is trying to unite.

Fertile ground for Europe

As the region’s political economy teeters on the edge, it might seem that there is little Europe can do to stop a cascade of instability it was never really involved in. But at the precipice of crisis is also a platform for Europe to advance its strategy to transform relationships with North Africa, most recently articulated in the EU’s pact for the Mediterranean. Given the pact’s purpose is to redevelop Europe’s southern relations and build closer working partnerships, there is no better moment to see it through. After all, a friend in need is a friend indeed.

Both the EU and its member states can help stabilise the situation and in turn, improve relations. Interested countries, like Spain, France and Italy could donate or cheaply loan their Special Drawing Rights—an asset provided by the IMF designed to supplement a state’s foreign exchange reserves—to ensure struggling regional economies ride out the storm. Alongside this they should encourage the European Commission to extend the food and resilience facility for the southern neighbourhood to help struggling states deal with the fallout of the fertiliser crisis.

Such steps would help Europeans develop credibility and good will, stabilise the neighbourhood and lay the groundwork for expanded EU engagement in north Africa. The commission could then build on this in the long-term by going to regional capitals with plans to develop green power generation, facilitate European private-sector investment, and develop infrastructure through Global Gateway. This would satisfy the region’s energy and economic imperatives while developing the green energy imports and nearshoring environment that Europe needs.    

After a year of unrest, North Africa may very well stabilise itself, but there is a decent chance it could deteriorate into polycrisis. Regardless of the outcome, if Europe refuses to respond it will once again be assuming the position of the passive bystander, the worst geopolitical role possible at a time of either great opportunity or dire crisis.

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