The rupture in the transatlantic relationship has left European leaders struggling to know how to think, let alone act, with any autonomy.Europemost urgently needs a mind of its own on the Middle East.
Tragically, EU governments were just beginning to turn the page after a year and a half of complicity with the Israeli government’s war crimes in Gaza. Donald Trump’s obscene plans for aGaza “riviera”and “humanitarian” initiatives that breach humanitarian principles were creating distance with the US, and European governments were starting to craft their own course.
France and Saudi Arabia hadplanned a conferenceon the two-state solution, which might have led to Paris’s recognition of Palestinian statehood. More significantly, the EU hadaccepted a reviewof the EU-Israel association agreement, which, in light of Israel’s war crimes, should lead to the suspension of EU preferential trade with Tel Aviv, but now may not.
However, Israel’s military attack on Iran and the US’s ambiguous yet evident support for this belligerence have upended Europe’s shift towards greater autonomy and moral clarity.
Of course, there is no love for the Iranian regime in EU capitals because of its human rights violations and military cooperation with Russia, notably in the war in Ukraine. Moreover, Europe rightly remains adamant that Iran should not have nuclear weapons. There is particular alarm over the International Atomic Energy Agency’s mostrecent reporton Iran’s breaches of the non-proliferation treaty.
But we have traditionally stood firm on the need to resolve the Iranian nuclear question through diplomacy. This is why in the early 2000s European negotiators invented the “E3/EU format”, comprising diplomats from France, Germany and the UK alongside the EU high representative to mediate on Iran’s nuclear file.
Today that world is gone. When Trump launched a direct negotiation with Iran, Europe was sidelined, excluded from any mediation process. Now, with Israel’s military assault on Iran, we have failed to position ourselves with the necessary clarity: where was the denunciation of the bombing as a breach of the UN charter (article 2), and the additional protocol to the Geneva conventions (article 56), which specifically prohibits attacks against a state’s nuclear facilities? It is one thing to uphold Israel’s (or any other state’s) right to self-defence. Quite another to legitimise pre-emptive strikes.
This chronic impotence arises because Europe has traditionally viewed the world through a transatlantic lens. On most international issues, it has, for decades, worked hand-in-glove with Washington, using aid, trade, diplomacy, sanctions, defence and EU integration to support US foreign policy aims, convinced that the overarching values and interests were shared.
Only on rare occasions have European countries openly opposed the US – as France and Germany did with the Bush administration over the US-led war on Iraq in 2003. Even where there is a difference of approach, Europe has sought to influence US foreign policy by mitigating its hard edges rather than thwarting it. European mediation on the Iran nuclear weapons question, for example, led to the joint comprehensive plan of action in 2015. And as the global rivalry between the US and China deepened, EU governments distanced themselves from US calls for decoupling the western and Chinese economies, instead promoting the softer alternative of “de-risking”.
Trump’s foreign policy wrecking ball, however, has created a world in which Europeans have to stand on their own feet. And they are struggling.
OnUkraine, Europe has learned the hard way and stands firm, maintaining financial and military assistance to Kyiv while exploring ways of filling the gaps in the event of US disengagement.
But apart from Ukraine, we are at a loss. It is true that Europe has toughened up on Beijing; it is no longer starry-eyed about China’sbelt and road initiativeand the strategic risk posed by Beijing’s policies in Europe. The EU has started screening Chinese investments in Europe andraised tariffson Chinese electric vehicles.
But Trump’s mixed signals mean that Europe needs to figure out alone what it thinks and wants from Beijing. The EU cannot afford a trade war on multiple fronts, especially if its own trade talks with Washington derail.
European governments also know that there is no way they can meet climate neutrality by 2050, now enshrined in law, without cooperating with China, which is a leader in the green economy. Even in the unlikely event of a comprehensive “deal” between Trump and Xi Jinping, it’s hard to imagine Europeans reverting to the old days in which China was solely viewed as an economic partner and ally in defence of multilateralism. Europeans need to develop their own ideas and policies independently of an erratic White House, but they don’t know how to get there.
In its political wavering on the latest war, Europe has neither won favour from Washington nor improved its standing with Israel. In the meantime, it has lost all credibility as an honest broker with Iran. The cherry on the cake is that Russia has angled itself as a possible mediator instead, with Trump winking at this preposterous proposition.
The risk is that Europe will also now block its own route to a more morally principled approach to the horrors in Gaza: the coming days will tell if the EU suspends its trade agreement with Israel, or if that too is put on the back burner.
Ukraine is Europe’s foremost security interest. Yet war, chaos and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East – which could be the unwanted consequence of the Israel-Iran war – are more consequential for Europe than for the US. So far, the European response is a far cry from thought or action, independent of the US.
Nathalie Tocci is a Guardian Europe columnist