By Bart H. Meijer and Lili Bayer
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Europe is “at the start of a new era” and needs to learn to rely on itself, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp said on Monday as the continent scrambles to react to U.S. President Donald Trump’s stunning reversal of decades of major U.S policies.
Veldkamp’s remarks came after Friedrich Merz, the winner of Sunday’s German general election, questioned whether NATO would remain in its “current form” by June and said Europe must quickly establish an independent defence capability.
“The era that started at the fall of the Berlin Wall is now over,” Veldkamp said, when asked about the remarks by Germany’s likely next chancellor as he arrived for a meeting of European Union foreign ministers in Brussels.
“As Europeans, we need to organise, not only within the EU but with the Brits and the Norwegians and other countries that want to participate, to face the new challenges that are presented to us, also by Trump,” he said.
European officials have been left flat-footed by Trump’s decisions to hold talks on ending the war in Ukraine with Russia, spurning both Kyiv and Europe, and by his administration’s warning that the United States was no longer primarily focused on Europe’s security.
“We have all turned into Gaullists,” said Veldkamp, in a reference to former French President Charles de Gaulle, “which means we are committed to our transatlantic relationship, but with realistic expectations for what that means”.
MORE SANCTIONS
The EU ministers agreed on yet another package of sanctions against Moscow, to coincide with the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, before a flurry of meetings in Brussels, Kyiv and Washington on Ukraine in the coming days.
European Union leaders will meet for an extraordinary summit on March 6 to discuss additional support for Ukraine, European security guarantees and how to pay for European defence needs.
“I would never have thought that I would have to say something like this in a TV show but, after Donald Trump’s remarks last week… it is clear that this government does not care much about the fate of Europe,” Merz told German public broadcaster ARD after his conservatives’ election win.
Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky said Europe would have to show strength but work to keep ties with the United States.
“We all can feel the change in the U.S. rhetoric, especially like the last two-three weeks,” Lipavsky said as he arrived at the Brussels meeting.
“But it doesn’t mean that we stop this engagement otherwise. Exactly the opposite,” he said.
SHOW OF SUPPORT
Also on Monday, multiple EU leaders and ministers visited Kyiv to show support for Ukraine, while France and Britain’s leaders will meet Trump in the United States this week.
“Our first priority remains to empower Ukraine’s resistance,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in Kyiv.
“We must speed up the immediate delivery of weapons and ammunition,” she added. “And this will be at the heart of our work in the coming weeks.”
Ukraine would benefit from EU plans to scale up European arms production and defence capabilities, she said.
The EU’s 16th package of sanctions against Russia, which foreign ministers agreed on Monday, includes a ban on primary aluminium imports and sales of gaming consoles, as well as listing owners and operators of 74 so-called shadow fleet vessels used to evade sanctions.
(Reporting by Andrew Gray, Bart Meijer, Lili Bayer; writing by Ingrid Melander; Editing by Tom Hogue and Alex Richardson)
