From Ukraine to the Strait of Hormuz: Europe Confronted with a Shifting World

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As we commemorated on February 24 the entry into the fifth year of the war in Ukraine, a new flashpoint erupted in the Middle East. American and Israeli strikes against Iran, Iranian retaliation targeting U.S. bases but above all infrastructure and partners in Gulf countries, and explicit threats to maritime flows through the Strait of Hormuz are ushering in a new phase of major instability. The region — with the Strait of Hormuz at its epicenter — accounts for a crucial share of global energy trade: any lasting disruption will translate into higher energy prices, renewed inflationary pressures, and very tangible consequences for Europeans’ daily lives.

Beyond the economic impact, however, what we are witnessing is the continued fragmentation of international relations. War in Europe, an expanding conflict in the Middle East, persistent trade tensions, technological and industrial rivalries: the international system is entering an age of enduring conflict. In this context, Europe is no longer facing a temporary crisis. It is confronting a change of era.

Ukraine: The Long Haul of Solidarity

Five years after February 24, 2022, the war in Ukraine has profoundly reshaped European choices. It has transformed our energy, budgetary, industrial, and military policies. It has also reshaped our relationship to security. As Jacques Delors reminded us in 1993, the European peoples looking toward the Union did not dream solely of prosperity, but of joining a “pact of peace and mutual understanding.” Ukraine reminds us that this pact is never guaranteed.

This month, Isabelle Montoya’s analysis of EU support to Ukraine in 2026 and the saga of the reparation loan shows how European solidarity has entered a complex technical, financial, and institutional phase. Supporting Ukraine is no longer just about adopting emergency packages and sanctions against Russia; it now also means designing instruments and shaping a future for the country. In the same spirit, Tefta Kelmendi underscores how enlargement to the Balkans has become a matter of European security. Enlargement is no longer an abstract horizon; it is a strategic decision.

From Assistance to Power

All these conflicts also highlight an undeniable reality: Europe can no longer separate climate, competitiveness, and security. The debates on financing European rearmament, to which Bertrand de Cordoue devotes his proposals, illustrate this pivotal moment. How can we sustainably finance an industrial and capability-building effort without undermining budgetary cohesion?

This question also runs through discussions on the next Multiannual Financial Framework. Investing in defence, industrial resilience, and the energy transition, while preserving social cohesion, has now become a central political trade-off.

This evolution also concerns our industrial and technological policy. The debate over Europe’s lag behind Chinese robotics, analyzed by Sacha Courtial and Dominique Jolly, goes beyond competitiveness: it touches on strategic autonomy. Discussions around “Buy European,” examined by Elvire Fabry and Nicolas Köhler-Suzuki, reflect this tension between commercial openness and the protection of critical capacities.

Security and Openness: A Structuring Tension

Irregular migration, which Jérôme Vignon explores through an in-depth European analysis and infographic, illustrates another dimension of this transformation. Here again, security has become central — but it cannot be reduced to closure.

Similarly, reflections on a possible “alliance of middle powers,” proposed by Guillaume Duval, question Europe’s capacity to reshape partnerships in a polarized world. Euro-African multilateralism, which Guillaume Arditti calls to elevate to a strategic level by mobilizing more private capital, is part of the same challenge: how can Europe remain a balancing power in a fractured international system?

Europe Facing Itself

One of our upcoming debates will ask: “Europe: A State in Denial?” The phrase, the title of Sylvain Kahn’s latest book — and the theme of our forthcoming discussion with him — deserves reflection. The European Union regulates digital markets, negotiates trade agreements, finances armament programs, supports a country at war, and prepares for strategic enlargement. It acts. But does it fully embrace what this capacity for action entails?

Recent history teaches us one lesson: Europe moves forward when it transforms constraint into a project. The financial crisis led to the banking union. The pandemic paved the way for an unprecedented common borrowing instrument. The war in Ukraine has launched the debate on European defense. The new escalation in the Middle East, with its energy and geopolitical repercussions, reminds us that our economic security is inseparable from international stability. We can no longer regard conflicts as peripheral.

Europe is entering an era in which security — military, energy, technological, democratic — becomes the matrix of integration. The risk would be to respond with a purely defensive reflex. The real challenge is instead to consolidate a political project capable of providing protection without renouncing openness, and power without abandoning cooperation.

As Jacques Delors suggested, our partners are not merely asking for assistance. They aspire to join a pact of peace, security, and mutual understanding.

It is up to us to ensure that this pact remains credible — over time.