Security
Stocks, factories, lead times. Deterrence is not a percentage on a slide.
Finland's president and Norway's prime minister got 90 minutes with Putin and a list of Russian demands. Denmark bristled, Sweden warned of appeasement and Brussels 'took note'. The call achieved little. The reaction says more about Europe.
Paris police counted the same 110,000 marchers as last week. This time the looting largely stayed away. Order turned out to be a choice, and the Trappes suspect has told police what he did with the Saturday France didn't choose it.
The White House says the first lady brokered a truce for starving, Russian-occupied Oleshky. The same day, the Commission announced an 'expectation' of a seat at peace talks that Moscow says will stay three-way. One of these is diplomacy.
A gunman killed a 26-year-old and shot a 12-year-old girl in a headscarf eight times, her mother says. France's anti-terror prosecutor suspects a racist motive. On the eve of Le Pen's party congress, the right has to apply its own rule.
Ankara has sent the Mecca defence pact to parliament: an attack on one signatory means help from the others. Turkey says its NATO duties are unaffected, yet the three have already agreed to rush forces to Saudi Arabia against the Houthis. The pact is a symptom of thinning American guarantees, and Europe has no Turkey strategy.
Washington has cut its brigades in Europe from five to three and says “we still love you”. Romania, Poland and the Baltics are offering cash to keep US troops, while the EU’s €150bn defence loan fund has paid out about 9 percent. The east pays twice.
UNIFIL’s 7,500 peacekeepers start leaving southern Lebanon after 31 December. The EU’s answer is a training mission of about 100 soldiers that won’t go south, with Paris and Rome already competing to command it. Hezbollah keeps its guns.
Ukraine’s military Starlink was slowed without warning, and Kyiv says it could no longer shoot down jet-powered drones. Brussels answered with a seven-month negotiation and a satellite network whose first launches are due in 2029. The billionaire is not the problem.
Another suspected Russian spy is arrested in Germany, and US intelligence calls the Leipzig airport drone the opening shot of a campaign Putin ordered. The GRU colonel linked to it is already under EU sanctions. Europe keeps winning the arrests and losing the argument.
António Costa says the EU will 'normally' cover two thirds of Ukraine's new €70bn need for 2027. Helping Kyiv is right. Calling a loan repayable by Russian reparations a loan, and 'burden-sharing' a plan, is not.
Drones have hit ships off Romania and Bulgaria, with 23 sailors dead or missing in two weeks. NATO answers with patrol planes and “situational awareness”, and still won’t say whose drones they are. Deterrence starts with saying the word Russia.
Europe sent advisers to a working dinner in Oslo and the Commission celebrated being in the room. The Kremlin said the proposals lacked substance, and Kyiv got cluster warheads overnight. A seat is not leverage.
