EU leaders and officials doubled down on their support to Ukraine after Donald Trump halted all military aid from the United States to the country on Monday evening.
The move came just hours after the U.S. president told reporters that he’d yet to even discuss such a pause — and three days after the president’s berating of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office.
“We are living in dangerous times. Europe’s security is threatened in a very real way,” said Commission President Ursula von der Leyen while presenting a new plan to unlock up to €800 billion of additional defense spending over the coming years.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said Trump’s decision “highlights the urgent need for a fundamental shift in Europe’s current policy” and called for increased investment in defense.
“The era of relying on others to address fundamental international challenges on our behalf is over. Now is the time for Europe to move decisively from words to action,” he wrote in a post on X.
France’s Europe Minister Benjamin Haddad said the decision “pushes the peace further away.”
“Essentially, if we want peace, would halting arms supplies to Ukraine bring us closer to peace or push us further away? It would push us further away because it would only strengthen Russia’s position on the ground.
“We need to put pressure on Russia, not on Ukraine, as it seems to be happening in recent weeks,” Haddad told France 2.
In the U.K., where the government has tried to pitch itself as a bridge between Europe and Washington, ministers were at pains to avoid commenting on Trump’s latest move.
British Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner said on “Good Morning Britain” that her boss Keir Starmer “won’t be derailed by announcements from the White House” because he is “laser-focused on getting peace.”
“President Trump is a different politician to me and different to Keir [Starmer], but the one thing I have seen is that our prime minister, Keir, is able to have that constructive dialogue, and he will do that, and he has a huge amount of integrity, and he won’t do it on the airwaves,” she told broadcasters.
Frans Timmermans, former EU climate chief and current leader of the Dutch Labor-Green alliance, called the move “reckless.”
“Unbelievable. With this reckless action, Trump is putting the security of Ukraine and the rest of Europe at risk. This is not a peace strategy; this is bowing to Putin. It is up to Europe to show leadership and fill the gap. The Netherlands must also contribute to this effort,” Timmermans wrote on X.
Romanian interim President Ilie Bolojan insisted that Romania remains “a committed and reliable ally” to Ukraine.
“NATO is our strongest defence pillar, and Romania remains a committed and reliable ally. We must step up investments to strengthen our defence capability. Europeans and Americans need to work closely together to achieve a just and lasting peace in Ukraine,” he said.
French Socialist MEP Raphaël Glucksmann said on French BFMTV that “Europeans are alone.”
“We are alone today, we Europeans. We are alone in the face of war on European soil, we are alone in the face of the war in Ukraine, alone in the face of Putin. And we must urgently understand how vertiginous this moment is,” he said, adding that Europe must “build our own defense, fill the American void, and help Ukraine resist.
“Not just because we are in solidarity with Ukraine, but because our own security as Europeans is at stake,” he said.Noah Keate contributed to this report.
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