The EU leaders are meeting in Brussels to, first and foremost, answer questions that US President Donald Trump has raised since his first days in office regarding defence and further support for Ukraine.
European leaders are trying to keep pace with the enormous acceleration in the European defence sector initiated by Washington's new policies. Their summit today is the second in a row in just two weeks and with the same agenda, which shows that the Europeans have drastically accelerated the decision-making process.
While this acceleration was imposed and they had to react to it, the content of their agreements is still open and fraught with many obstacles.
The dilemmas to which the Europeans must respond, including at the current summit, go beyond the potential of one or two summits at the top. For example, does the EU want to become a military superpower, and, depending on the answer to this question, does it have the potential to do so?
New defence strategies on the table
The European Commission and its head, Ursula von der Leyen, are among the influential groups in the EU pushing for the bloc to respond positively to the previous two questions.
Ahead of the summit, the Commission adopted a White Paper on the future of European defence as an operationalisation of the previously adopted ReArm Europe strategy. One of its proposals to increase the EU's defence capabilities is the introduction of the uniform procurement of weapons and equipment at the EU level.
EU wants to use the authority of its size and economic power to procure faster and cheaper weapons for its members
This means that the EU wants to use the authority of its size and economic power to procure faster and cheaper weapons for its members instead of leaving them to search for suppliers on the global market.
The most important part of these strategies is undoubtedly the EU's intention to mobilise €800 billion to increase its defence capabilities by the end of the decade.
A boost from the largest economies
In its efforts for the largest possible defence autonomy, the EU Commission is following a grouping of the most developed European economies as well as the largest military powers, whose rapid gatherings after the American shift regarding Ukraine accelerated agreements between Europeans.
This new model of intra-European defence cooperation has given a new and faster pace to the search for answers to American intentions to reduce not only its security presence on the continent but also its support for Ukraine.
It also introduced a new, important quality in the creation of intra-European defence plans by including Britain, which, together with France, is the leader of this bloc.
Europeans are already facing obstacles when implementing plans to increase their defence capabilities
However, Europeans are already facing obstacles when implementing plans to increase their defence capabilities. The plan to mobilise €800 billion for this sector is fraught with numerous economic risks, as well as diverging interests among EU members.
Of the expected total amount, the Europeans want to provide the largest part, €650 billion, by relaxing the defence spending regulations, which would allow EU members to increase allocations for defence for an additional 1.5% of GDP.
This is exactly what Germany intends to do. Future chancellor Friedrich Merz has announced a "spending bazooka" so that defence costs above 1% of GDP will not be included in the constitutional debt brake that limits the budget deficit to 0.35% of GDP.
Given that Europe's largest economy and leading military power is leading the way in rapidly increasing defence capabilities, it is logical that many other EU member states will follow suit.
Ukraine is the biggest test of European defence capabilities
But despite a large proportion of Europeans following and agreeing with German policies, especially the economic measures, the increased ambitions in military expenses will hit a brick wall with some because their economies simply cannot sustain such a course.
Part of the €150 billion that the EU intends to spend on strengthening its defence capabilities will consist of loans. Many EU members, especially those in the south, are already over-indebted, so new (imposed) borrowing will strain their economies.
Part of the €150 billion that the EU intends to spend on strengthening its defence capabilities will consist of loans - Donald Tusk, Ursula Von der Leyen
The proposal of the EU Commission is to make part of the approximately €300 billion, which exists in the EU budget for infrastructure projects in the poorer members of the Union, available for them to spend on defence. But this model would be voluntary, which means that some EU members would find it difficult to forgo funds for building infrastructure that their constituents are interested in and divert them to buying weapons.
These obstacles standing in the way of the Europeans' efforts to emerge as a military superpower directly affect their ambitions to engage in the peace process around Ukraine from a position of strength.
In this respect, it was not encouraging for the Europeans, and especially for Kyiv, that the plan for €40 billion in military aid for Ukraine presented by the EU High Representative, Kaja Kallas, was removed from the summit agenda.
The Europeans agreed to spend only about €5 billion on ammunition procurement for Ukraine, rather than doubling the aid.
