As Trump’s return looms, Europe shivers at prospect of facing Putin alone

BERLIN — Europe’s greatest security challenge since the Cold War — the chilling prospect of needing to fund and arm Ukraine without U.S. support — will expose political fault lines at a memorial service Monday that was meant to symbolize EU solidarity.

French President Emmanuel Macron will be among the European leaders arriving in Berlin to pay homage to Wolfgang Schäuble, a statesman widely respected at home for the key role he played in reunifying his country after the fall of the Berlin Wall and in turning Germany into the powerhouse at the heart of the European project.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, however, may well have far sharper messages for Macron next week than the customary eulogies to Franco-German co-operation normally reeled off at EU love-ins. Berlin is increasingly frustrated that France talks a good game on Europe standing alone, but falls woefully short when it comes to supplying military assistance to an EU candidate country fighting for its life.

Ukraine aid will be a topic of discussion when the two leaders meet Monday, an official close to the German chancellor said. The meeting comes at a time when Scholz is increasingly airing his frustration about the level of military aid EU countries are providing to Ukraine.

Donald Trump’s landslide victory in the Iowa caucus earlier this week has only upped the stakes, making it only too credible that Europe will be left to forge its own path against Russia if he ultimately retakes the presidency.

Faced with that danger, behind all the smiles and handshakes expected at the Bundestag ceremony, Scholz will be pressing EU leaders to step up and make bigger contributions to defeating Russian President Vladimir Putin. Starting to turn the diplomatic screws, Scholz is pushing for other EU countries to itemize the arms they are sending to the front, in what looks like an attempt to name and shame his peers before a European Council summit on February 1, at which he will raise the topic of Europe’s dismal military commitments.

It’s little wonder Berlin is smarting. Germany is second only to the U.S. in providing military aid to Ukraine, giving €17.1 billion in assistance through October of last year, according to a tally by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. France, in comparison, has only contributed €0.5 billion, Italy €0.7 billion and Spain €0.3 billion.

All talk

As ever, Macron was quick to respond to the Iowa result with his traditional rhetoric on Europe going it alone — “strategic autonomy,” as he has called it.

“It shows Europe has to be lucid about the U.S,” he told reporters the day after the vote. “That is why we need a stronger Europe, that can protect itself and that doesn’t depend on others.”

Perhaps conscious of the growing frustration about Paris not backing up that talk up with action, Macron announced the delivery of 40 SCALP-EG long-range missiles and “several hundred” bombs to Ukraine in the coming weeks.

In the early days of Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it was U.S. military aid combined with Ukrainian resolve that repelled the Russian attack.

Germany on the other hand was seen as dithering and reluctant, unable or unwilling to give Ukraine the weapons it needed to defend itself; it took overwhelming international pressure, for instance, to get Scholz to authorize the delivery of German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine. Time after time, German officials said they did not want to send heavy arms until the Americans did so. That luxury of waiting for a nod from Washington will probably disappear if Trump wins.

In Germany, the risk that Berlin could potentially be left holding the baby on Ukraine is of increasing concern | Anatoli Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images

While the numbers of weapons’ deliveries show the dynamic is now shifting, Germany has been unable to shake its reputation as a reluctant power — a fact that high-ranking German officials admit is a source of annoyance in private discussions.

An official close to Scholz, who spoke only on condition of anonymity, said that there’s an understanding in Berlin that other European nations are facing constraints — France is dealing with financial constraints, and Spain division within its coalition. Still, Germany will continue to press for more aid for Ukraine, the official said.

Inside Germany, the risk that Berlin could potentially be left holding the baby on Ukraine is of increasing concern, particularly for a country that has a far greater historical sense of the dangers posed by Russia than France does.

“The arms deliveries for Ukraine planned so far by the majority of EU member states are by all means too small,” Scholz said earlier this month. “We need higher contributions.”

Lifeline required

In the EU headquarters in Brussels, there’s also a heightened sense the stakes are rising and Europe can no longer drag its feet. In December, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, an ally of Putin, was permitted to prevent the EU from sending a much-needed €50 billion lifeline to Ukraine’s shattered war economy.

On Tuesday, a day after the Iowa Republican caucus, a seemingly resolute European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen vowed to find a way to approve the funds during the February 1 summit, no matter what. While saying she preferred a unanimous decision by all 27 member countries of the EU, she insisted she was ready to simply cut out Hungary if that were required. “We are prepared for an agreement by 26,” she told Euronews in an interview in Davos.

But the key question European officials are asking is whether Europe is capable of replacing American hard power, particularly given its weak performance in ramping up industrial production to try to supply Ukraine’s needs. Britain and France say they are entering security agreements with Ukraine, but it’s unclear how much that amounts to without U.S. support.

François Heisbourg, a senior adviser for Europe at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, told POLITICO the departure of the U.S. was a potential historical inflection point.

“We’re as unprepared for this change as we were for the end of the Cold War in 1989,” he said. “But that was good news. This is bad news.”

Heisbourg argued Germany’s ranking as the second biggest military donor behind the U.S. is somewhat misleading. Germany, he said, had kept much of its Cold War stock, and provided Ukraine with many old weapons.

“Where there’s a real difference is that the French and Brits are providing weapons that are strategically important and useful, while the Germans are not,” he said. “The Germans are doing box-ticking.”

Germany has indeed continued to refuse to provide Taurus long-range precision missiles to Ukraine out of fear they could be used to strike Russian territory.

On Wednesday, members of Germany’s conservative opposition — who have been pushing for Scholz’s tripartite ruling coalition to provide more military assistance to Ukraine — submitted a motion in parliament calling for the government to deliver the Taurus missiles. A majority of lawmakers rejected the motion.

Norbert Röttgen, a German conservative lawmaker who has strenuously advocated for more assistance for Ukraine, advocated Taurus deliveries, portraying the larger issue as an existential battle.

“Are we ready to stand up for ourselves and our security, or are we more inclined to surrender?” Röttgen said to POLITICO. “There is no way of shying away.”

If Europe were to “shirk this challenge,” he added, Putin’s war “would come ever closer to us.”

Gordon Repinski contributed reporting