As Donald Trump's United States threatens to break off from Europe, and Vladimir Putin's Russia pushes forward with its imperialist aims, there is a lot of pressure on Europeans to beef up their security. On Thursday, March 20, all eyes were on a meeting between European heads of state in Brussels, which once again addressed the issue of defense for the 27 member states. All of them reiterated their intention to rearm, and, except for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbàn, to extend military support to Ukraine, as had previously been discussed at the summit held in the Belgian capital on March 6.
But it was a few hundred meters from the Schuman roundabout in the heart of the EU institutions district, at the Sofitel hotel on Place Jourdan, that talks took a crucial turn on Thursday. In the morning, Christian Democrat leaders from the right-wing European People's Party (EPP), the leading political force within the European institutions, met there to prepare for the summit.
Around the table were 11 leaders of European Union (EU) member states, including Greece's Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Poland's Donald Tusk, as well as Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and EPP President Manfred Weber. The likely future German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, had canceled his visit at the last minute, in order to continue his negotiations in Germany for a coalition agreement with a view to forming a government. But there is no doubt that Merz would have agreed to the conclusions of this pre-summit, as without his approval the decisions could not have been taken.
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