By Mick HUME

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Much remains uncertain about the final outcome of the war in Ukraine. On the diplomatic battlefield, competing peace plans (28 points? 19 points? Crimea in? Crimea out?) have been flying backwards and forwards between capitals. Meanwhile in the real warzone, the Russian military continues to rain down military drones and missiles on Ukrainian cities, and the bodies continue to pile up on both sides in fierce street fighting, with no end in sight.

One indirect result of this bloody conflict, however, should already be clear enough. The leaders of the European Union and their UK allies—which we might collectively call Big Europe—have lost the political war over Ukraine. The EU’s claim to be a major global power player in the modern world have been thoroughly exposed as the fantasies of an ageing pretender.

Not for the first time, President Donald has been the breaker of Europe’s globalist dreams. The U.S. president sprang his proposed peace deal with Russia on his European allies, almost without warning. When a U.S. delegation met with Ukrainians in Geneva, European officials were left in the background of the photo-ops, if not outside in the corridor.

Meanwhile the leaders of Big Europe were congregating in faraway South Africa, indulging in an exercise of wishful thinking about their important role. They announced that the Trump-Putin proposal “needs work,” as if they were professors lecturing ignorant pupils.

Politico, the house journal of the Brussels elites, tries to emphasise the significance of this Euro-charade. It quoted one EU leader’s claim that strong Europe would “take a seat” at the negotiating table rather than waiting to be offered one. It endorsed European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s video messaged insistence that “the centrality of the European Union in securing peace for Ukraine must be fully reflected.”

The Euractiv website, however, took a rather more realistic tone. It reported that, as if to underscore the EU’s “helplessness”, the President had “weighed in from South Africa with what looked more like a hostage video than serious diplomacy.” As for von der Leyen’s bold declaration about the EU’s “centrality” to any Ukrainian negotiations, they concluded that “Alas, wishing it won’t make it so.”

Indeed it won’t. The reality is that Big Europe has been able to do little more than add some suggestions in the margins of whatever President Trump is discussing with Russia and Ukraine. Even the idea of bringing Valdimir Putin’s regime to the negotiating table was only made possible by Trump’s threat to impose strict global oil sanctions on Russia, which seemed to produce quicker results than all the EU’s huffing and puffing since the Russian invasion started the war in February 2022.

Of course, it remains far from certain that a lasting peace will result from Trump’s initiatives. The territorial concessions being demanded from Ukraine, whilst based on a recognition of the real state of the war, will be understandably hard to swallow for people that have sacrificed so much in nearly four years of fighting for their sovereignty.

But whatever comes next in Ukraine, it is clear that the EU will not be “central” to deciding it. Big Europe has been posturing as the defender of Ukraine since the war started, without taking any decisive action.

The EU still cannot even agree what to do with the confiscated Russian assets to which Ukraine wants access. When we turn from matters of accountancy to military action, Big Europe’s real impotence is demonstrated by the farce of the ‘Coalition of the Willing.’

Supposedly lead by France’s President Macron and UK Prime Minister Starmer, each of whom is far happier posing on the international stage than facing hostile voters at home, this non-existent force has not proved willing or able to defend an inch of Ukrainian soil. The impression remains that President von der Leyen and the rest of the EU’s tough talkers are willing to stand back and fight to the last Ukrainian.

This is about more than the Ukrainian conflict. The future of U.S.-EU relations and Europe’s place in the world are in the balance.

The special relationship between America and Europe within the Western alliance always looked better on paper than in reality. The West could remain united under U.S. leadership during the Cold War because there was a clear convergence of interests in face of the Soviet Union.

Since the Cold War ended 35 years ago, however, tensions between the U.S. and Europe have come to the surface. This process has accelerated during the Trump era. The populist U.S. president has rejected the globalist policies of recent decades and reasserted the centrality of national interests through his America First worldview.

The world can see that Big Europe’s mask has slipped. It’s pretensions to being a global power player, whilst in reality sheltering under America’s military umbrella, have been thoroughly exposed. Big Europe’s posturing can no longer be carried off and only leaves the likes of Macron and Starmer looking ridiculous. The U.S. itself is not the unchallengeable global superpower of old. But it is still plenty powerful enough to put the EU in its place.

The future depends on whether Europe can get its act together, face up to the new realities, and stop trying to live in the past. That must involve being prepared to defend itself. France and other European nations are now taking the first steps towards re-introducing a form of national service.

However, this only highlights the question raised by U.S. vice president JD Vance at the Munich security conference earlier this year: what exactly is it that Europe’s leaders are defending?

The globalist elites of Big Europe have spent decades rubbishing national sovereignty and democracy, freedom, patriotism and pride in our history. They have created a situation where a once-mighty military power such as Britain can no longer defend its own borders against illegal immigrants in small boats, never mind defending Ukraine’s borders against Russian tanks.

These anti-national leaders cannot now suddenly turn on the patriotic taps and inspire young people to stand up and fight for their nations. Those who imagine that “more Europe” is the answer, via a centralised EU army, could not be more wrong. Who do they think is going to fight for unelected President von der Leyen and her legion of Brussels bureaucrats?

No, Europe needs new leaders who are committed to standing for the founding principles of national sovereignty and democracy, who can galvanise their peoples into action. Fortunately, such leaders are gaining ground.

We need an end to the old elitism and global pretensions of Big Europe, and the dawn of a new age of realism and a Europe of sovereign nations, standing in alliance for shared values. And standing alongside the people of America in defence of Western civilisation. We all have much to gain, and too much to lose.

Original article: europeanconservative.com