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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor

‘No turning back’: how the Ukraine war has profoundly changed the EU

From left; Giorgia Meloni, Olaf Scholz, a Ukrainian T-72 tank, Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Vladimir Putin.
From left: Giorgia Meloni, Olaf Scholz, a Ukrainian T-72 tank, Emmanuel Macron, Ursula von der Leyen, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Vladimir Putin. Composite: Getty/Shtterstock

“The EU has changed. There is no turning back. We have turned out the lights behind us and there is basically only one way.”

The words of the Danish politician and EU commissioner Margrethe Vestager at a conference in May neatly reflect the mood among the Brussels elite, taken aback at their own ability to shed EU bureaucratic torpor, defend Ukraine, embrace enlargement and move closer to fulfilling Ursula von der Leyen’s ambition for the EU to become a “geopolitical force”.

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