A 30-metre purple banner, hanging on the side of the European Commission’s Berlaymont building, is festooned with stars and reads: “United for our Future, 2024-2029”.
Across the road, the leaders of the European Union member states and its institutions huddled in a room for hours on Wednesday to discuss how this unity could be achieved in the face of generational geopolitical upheaval.
But the pursuit of unity has taken on new significance in a moment of extreme turbulence and polarisation. Everywhere its leaders look, they see powers trying to divide it.
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In the United States, president-elect Donald Trump shows the same disdain for the EU that he does with most other multilateral forums. He has vowed to wage a trade war on the bloc and abandon Kyiv, leaving the funding of Ukraine’s war against Russia to Europe.
China, meanwhile, is often accused of trying to “divide and conquer” Europe by offering economic incentives to members to water down their support for broader EU action against Beijing.
On both fronts, Brussels fears EU members will pursue side deals of their own that would weaken the union.
“Everyone talks about unity, but actually everybody is out to get the best deal for themselves and to avoid the absolute worst,” one EU diplomat said when asked about Trump.
Kaja Kallas, the bloc’s top diplomat, arrived for the European Council meeting telling reporters, “if we want to be a geopolitical power we need to act in a united way, then we can be strong and serious on the world stage”.
But behind the rhetoric, there is a fear that a bloc that has been stronger than its parts for 70 years could fall through the cracks of the biggest geopolitical shift in decades.
This fear was woven through discussions at Thursday’s summit that took in Ukraine, the Middle East, “Europe in the world”, a debate about the US, China and everything in between. On these big topics, unity is increasingly elusive.
On China, Kallas delivered strong criticism of Beijing’s support for Moscow, according to diplomats briefed on the private discussion.
On a recent trip to Kyiv with new European Council President Antonio Costa, former Estonian prime minister Kallas was told China was providing satellite technology to aid Russia’s attack drones. But the pair were asked to tone down public criticism of Beijing by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who sees utility in not alienating the world’s second-biggest economy, according to several sources.
Meanwhile, powerful members including Germany said during the debate there was still ample room for cooperating with China, pointing to the “partner, competitor, rival” lens through which the EU has categorised its ties with Beijing since 2019.
As the leaders were talking about the need for unity, 2,200km (1,400 miles) away in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin was with one breath voicing a willingness to negotiate with Ukraine if requested by Trump, and with the next threatening to rain hypersonic missiles on Kyiv.
Speaking to journalists in a packed room in Brussels, Zelensky described Putin as “crazy” and voiced fears that any ceasefire would be manipulated by Moscow, which would surely not keep the peace.
“I think he also thinks he’s crazy. He loves to kill – that’s dangerous for everybody,” he said.
Zelensky said he would welcome Trump warmly when he was inaugurated but that there was no hope of Europe alone being able to support Kyiv’s war effort.
“I believe the European guarantees won’t be sufficient for Ukraine. It’s impossible to discuss only with the European leaders, for us real guarantees, current or future, are Nato,” he said.
“From the very beginning of next year we need unity between the US, EU and countries of Europe, to achieve peace. Only together the US and Europe can stop Putin.”
Trump, meanwhile, is threatening to bring a reckoning to Europe which hangs on to a liberal rules-based order when most other powers have left it behind. But their will to hold onto it is often followed by statements about wanting to work with Trump. To many, the two are incompatible.
“We see this struggle between the forces that want to have the world order where ‘might makes right’. We see on the other side the EU with its allies where we have a rule of law and we want to have a world that is rules-based,” Kallas said.
Asked whether the EU and US would become engaged in a trade war, she said: “There are no winners in trade wars – that is very clear ... If the US is looking at China, then we should stick together, I mean Europe and United States. If we are having a trade war between US and EU, then [the one] who is laughing out loud is China.”
Faced with these manifold challenges, a form of political inertia has taken root in Brussels. Despite years of discussions around how to prepare for the potential return of Trump, diplomats this week cautioned against making too many plans around an unpredictable character.
“It is very difficult for leaders to see if they’re on the same page without knowing what the page is,” said one diplomat ahead of the summit, which they said would not be “about decisions, but about exchanging views”.
Arriving for the summit on Thursday, Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda said Europe had to “stop being the ‘countless discussions club’”.
As the event finished, divisions were on full show. At a joint press conference, Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said there could only be peace talks on Ukraine’s terms.
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, rounding off his country’s rotating EU presidency, disagreed.
“I saw many things on the battlefield, but I don’t see how it brings a solution. If you can’t find a solution on the battleground, you need to negotiate, you need diplomacy,” said Orban, a right-wing populist.
“Diplomacy should lead the way, otherwise we will not see the end of the war – we will only see losses and losses.”
More from South China Morning Post:
- EU leaders set to avoid direct accusation over Chinese role in Russia’s war in Ukraine
- China, EU ‘very aware of what’s at stake’ in trade talks: Spanish envoy
- Chinese names added to EU sanctions list over Russia’s war in Ukraine
- China-EU trade war a ‘lose-lose’ situation, top diplomat Wang Yi warns
- EU-China agenda stalls under Donald Trump’s long shadow
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