Almut MÖLLER

Director for EU & Global Affairs and Head of Europe in the World Programme, European Policy Centre

Given the profound change of direction of US foreign and security policies, a group of European countries is moving decisively to rebuild the European security architecture. This will impact the EU’s cohesion. But the risks of a more differentiated EU are outweighed by the urgent need to preserve Europe’s capacity to act in light of an existential threat of another war in Europe.

The return of Donald Trump to the White House means that Europeans have to adapt fast to a tremendous shift in US foreign and security policy. The impact on Europe and the EU is profound and goes well beyond the future of European security: Europeans will have to do no less than rebuild both the political and security architecture for their continent. The post-WWII architecture is no longer, and Europe has very high stakes in ensuring it takes its destiny into its own hands now and shapes what comes next.

This profound European rewiring will have to rethink the old approach of a division of labour between the European pillar of NATO and the EU and its members, as well as non-EU members, such as the United Kingdom, Turkey or Norway. It will take place as pre-existing internal divisions within the EU deepen further, as these will be fuelled from the other side of the Atlantic. Not all EU members will be pulling in the same direction on these fundamental matters, as interventions by the governments of Hungary and Slovakia suggest, and liberal Europe needs to take decisive action against being destroyed both from outside and within.

The urgent need to form a group of countries that moves decisively now is evident, and we have seen this nucleus emerge around the E5+ (France, Germany, Italy, Poland, the UK plus other countries) grouping since the February 2025 meetings in Paris. This will affect the overall cohesion and purpose of the EU, but the implications of a lack of action would be far worse.

All of this means that questions of governance mechanisms of the EU’s contribution to security need to look much further than the EU, the role of the new Commissioner for Defence, and the interaction with the High Representative/Vice President, the new EP committee, or the European Defence Agency. All of them will have to play a role but in a completely revamped architecture. This is no longer about a division of labour between NATO and the EU. It is rather about a new overall structure to keep Europeans safe.

In a discussion paper in July 2024, together with EPC colleagues, we revisited modes of differentiated integration. Our conclusion then was that the most pressing need to get things done was in European security. The model that we put forward is one that protects the DNA of the EU: if a group of EU countries is ready to progress against the opposition of a limited number of national governments and can only do so outside the Union, this process should follow the notion of a ‘supra-governmental avantgarde’, allowing the willing member states to extend the level of cooperation/integration outside the EU treaty framework, while adhering to a transparent set of predefined principles, including the commitment to ‘replicate’, respect and promote the Union’s supranational nature. It must be clear, we argued, that this avantgarde is not an inter-governmental construct – even if it was established outside the EU treaties – but that it was rather something like a ‘mini-EU’ with binding rules and strong supranational features, including the specific role and involvement of EU institutions. Given there is a strong role for non-EU countries, first and foremost the UK, such a concept will have to find ways to combine both elements. This will not be easy – first and foremost for political reasons, but also concerning legal and institutional questions.

In more concrete terms, such a supra-governmental avantgarde should: 1) be open to all member states willing to join and respect common underlying principles; 2) involve or even strengthen the role of EU institutions in the differentiated areas, including the Commission and the European Parliament; 3) keep non-participating member states informed; 4) refrain from setting up new permanent parallel institutional structures outside the Union; and 5) aim to integrate the legal norms adopted and the cooperation initiated outside the EU into the Union’s treaty framework as soon as possible.

If the participating member states adhered to these core guidelines, they would not ‘only’ be able to move forward, they could also do so in a way that would respect the community method.

To be frank, cooperation outside the Union’s framework will create challenges for the EU system, in terms of legitimacy but also in challenging existing areas of integration, for example, by funding no longer being channelled through the Union. It carries the risk of undermining the EU single market, the backbone of the EU, and it could play into the hands of political forces on the far right and far left, who want to actively undermine the EU institutions to establish a ‘Europe of nation-states’.

However, at this point, the risks of a more differentiated EU are outweighed by the urgent need to overcome blockades and preserve Europe’s capacity to act considering an existential threat of another war in Europe.

Photo credits: European Union