It’s over. As we’ve been arguing since Donald Trump returned to the White House (just five weeks ago, though it seems like years), Europe is now alone, America’s commitments to the vaunted ‘transatlantic alliance’ are not worth the paper they’re written on.
For close observers of the bizarre display in the Oval Office yesterday, several points were clear:
- It was an ambush. The whole meeting was a set-up, with the cameras there to ensure he would be humiliated and Trump would have a justification to pull Ukraine’s military aid, which he has now done. The presence of JD Vance, whose interventions sounded scripted supports this. Gerald Knaus, of the Berlin-based European Stability Initiative, unpacks it here.
- Zelenskyy handled it well. Recognising what was happening, Zelenskyy had no choice but to stand up for himself and his country. Given what Trump asked of him – sue for peace and sign away Ukraine’s mineral wealth – there was no point in taking a knee and pursuing the obsequious path blazed this week in Washington by Macron and Starmer. As Slawomir Dębski, the prominent Polish strategic thinker, recounted: If Zelenskyy “wanted to surrender to Putin, he would have gone to Moscow, not Washington.”
- Europe must FINALLY step up. While Europe doesn’t have the military stockpiles to supplant the US as Ukraine’s main supplier of matériel, it can do more to help and will have to step up, both with more financial aid and matériel. Next week’s Council meeting in Brussels needs to focus on one issue: How to save Ukraine.
- Nota bene: Germany needs a government like the day before yesterday. It’s time for the Social Democrats to end the usual coalition kabuki and get down to brass tacks. Too much is at stake.
CHATTER IN THE PROVINCES
Berlin’s newly unemployed
#OpenToWork. Quite a few German politicians might be updating their LinkedIn profiles these days, as they are facing the ruins of their political careers after Sunday’s election.
Finance Minister Christian Lindner and his Free Democrats (FDP) were eliminated from parliament. Lindner could embrace a life as a stay-home dad to his reporter-cum-marketing-consultant wife, who is expecting their first child. A multi-millionaire, by some accounts, he can afford it.
Better call Kuhle. Some fellow FDP frontbenchers are not as lucky and will return to day jobs appropriate for a pro-business party with a message built around lazy-shaming. Lindner’s deputy Johannes Vogel previously worked for the national employment agency. Deputy parliamentary leader Konstantin Kuhle will return to being a lawyer.
Annalena Baerbock seems reluctant to bid adieu to her jet-set lifestyle. The foreign minister would take a new international post, “if she can get one” with her contact book, that is “bigger than Mark Rutte’s”, her peers told German magazine Spiegel. Too bad that most vacancies have just been filled – including by Rutte.
Others will hang about like The Walking Dead, despite everyone wanting them gone (SPD co-leader Saskia Esken) or because 400,000 signatories of a petition want them to stay (Economy Minister Habeck). The defeated chancellor, Olaf Scholz, will continue muddling through – from now on as an ordinary backbencher.
He might take inspiration from Armin Laschet, the former Christian Democrat leader who lost the 2021 election. He is living his best life as an MP and has been spotted taking selfies and eating a currywurst (or two) at receptions around the capital.
FOURTH ESTATE
It’s the end of the ‘Die Welt’ as we know it (and ‘MD’ doesn’t feel fine). Over in Germany, continental Europe’s largest newspaper publisher, Politico owner Axel Springer, appeared to have gone full quisling Friday night when its flagship broadsheet Die Welt ran a commentary under the headline: “Zelenskyy’s behaviour threatens European security.”
At first glance, the piece, which led the outlet’s homepage on Friday night, appeared to signal a sea change, given that Die Welt and Springer have been among Ukraine’s staunchest supporters in Germany since the beginning of Russia’s all-out invasion in 2022. The Ukrainian flag even flies outside company headquarters.
The backlash wasn’t long in waiting. Dagmar Rosenfeld, a former senior editor and now publisher of another Springer affiliate, tweeted: “No, Zelenskyy is defending Europe’s freedom. That was always Welt’s position as I knew it.”
Then, Robin Alexander and Paul Ronzheimer, Springer’s two most prominent editorial voices weighed in, supporting Rosenfeld, as did Johannes Boie, a former editor-in-chief of Bild and Welt’s Sunday edition.
The whole episode threatened to devolve into what Germans have come to call der Shitstorm.
As regular readers of The Chattering Classes will know, it’s been difficult to keep up with the drama at Springer in recent weeks. After Donald Trump accused Politico of being a “LEFT WING ‘RAG’” and cancelled more than $8 million in subscriptions, Springer went into full damage control mode, culminating in CEO Mathias Döpfner’s peace offering in the FT last week, in which he characterised JD Vance’s unhinged speech in Munich as “inspiring”.
Döpfner is inspired no more. Following the backlash over Friday’s Die Welt column, the headline was changed to “A shock for Ukraine”.
Following the revision, a commentary appeared Saturday afternoon from Döpfner under the headline “Trump and the future of Europe – our world order is wobbling”. The text is part mea culpa, part call to arms.
“Many transatlanticists, including myself, wanted to believe that there was constructive concept beneath the provocative speeches and posts,” Döpfner wrote. “This hope has been destroyed,” he added. “Trump means what he says and this no longer has anything to do with the America, anchored in the rule of law, that stood by Europe’s side for decades.”
It’s an extraordinary departure for the CEO and soon-to-be biggest shareholder of a company that has made supporting the transatlantic alliance one of its core values.
Watch this space.…
THE CAROUSEL
Blast from the past. Older denizens of the Bubble will remember the FT’s Peter Spiegel, the paper’s former Brussels bureau chief who went on to head the paper’s newsroom in London before heading to the US, where he was managing editor.
Spiegel started his new job this week as managing editor of the crisis-ridden Washington Post. The switch, we understand, comes after Spiegel made a move for the FT’s top job, now occupied by Roula Khalaf. We’re told he made overtures to the FT’s Japanese owners last year, news of which, unfortunately for him, promptly made its way back to Khalaf, who shifted him to a new position of “weekly columnist”. Instead, Spiegel found refuge at the Post.
Wire wisdom. If only he’d listened to Omar of The Wire fame: “You come at the [queen], you best not miss.”
That’s it for this week. Remember: Send tips to Transom@euractiv.com.
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