• Cooperation with Türkiye could enhance Europe’s strategic depth, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. The signal from 2025 is not a breakthrough, but stabilization—and in today’s geopolitical environment, that is meaningful

The author is Executive Director of the Geneva Center for Security Policy (GCSP) and former Secretary General of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

ISTANBUL

The year 2025 showed that Europe can act strategically when pressure is high and consensus is forced by events. This does not mean that Europe managed to overcome the structural limits of its current political and institutional architecture, but it managed to deal with its constraints effectively. Obliged to respond to a settlement process driven by the new US administration, Europe stepped up to the plate and made it clear that the war in Ukraine—a core issue of European security—cannot be resolved without Europe at the negotiation table. Europe has also shown the capacity to act by securing financial support for Ukraine through 2027. The 90-billion-Euro loan stabilizes the embattled country and sustains its defense, while Russian Central Bank assets remain frozen. It is also evidence of the strength of the pragmatic forces in Europe that want to seek a fair and sustainable end to the conflict—one that protects Ukraine’s sovereignty effectively, without trying to weaken Russia strategically for decades to come.

Building strategic capacity: Progress but challenges remain

European strategic autonomy is a function of political commitment, institutions, and capacities. When it comes to defense and security, 2025 confirmed that Europe has entered a period of sustained rearmament. Defense spending continued to rise, with a growing number of EU and NATO European states meeting or exceeding the 2 percent of GDP benchmark. More importantly, the composition of spending began to shift: ammunition stockpiles, air defense, long-range fires, and industrial capacity featured more prominently than pure prestige platforms. This reflects lessons learned from Ukraine and marks genuine progress in defense readiness. That said, defense readiness remains constrained by fragmentation. Procurement is still largely national, interoperability gaps persist, and delivery timelines stretch into the late 2020s. European defense industrial initiatives show promise but struggle with scale and speed. Still, Europe in 2025 proved capable of mobilizing defense resources in an impressive manner. Support for Ukraine illustrates both Europe’s strengths and weaknesses. Financial assistance remains substantial and politically resilient, even as the war drags on. Military aid, while significant, has been slower and more contested, often hostage to domestic coalition politics and capacity limits. Decision-making under unanimity, particularly on sanctions and security-related funding, continues to slow responses and empower spoilers. Coalitions of the willing often manage to compensate.

External relations: Adjusting to a harsher world

Europe’s external relations in 2025 evolved under conditions of heightened uncertainty and a reduced margin for error. The relationship with the United States remains central but has become more conditional, less predictable, and less reliable. While transatlantic cooperation remains strong, the political subtext is shifting: Europe is not only expected to carry more of the burden but must also assert its interests much more forcefully. 2025 reinforced the reality that American attention is finite and increasingly transactional. The current Administration’s behavior at home and abroad, in particular acting according to the logic of regional spheres of interest, has raised questions as to what extent we still share the same values and principles. This has clearly sharpened European awareness that excessive dependency carries strategic risk and therefore needs to be reduced. At the same time, Europe realizes that if it wants an end to the war in Ukraine, it needs US political leverage to bring both sides to the negotiation table and US security guarantees to sustain its settlement.

Relations with Russia hardened further. By 2025, Europe had largely abandoned any residual belief in near-term normalization. The relationship stabilized into managed hostility: sanctions were entrenched, energy decoupling deepened, and military deterrence became the organizing principle. This may reduce Europe’s vulnerability to the perceived Russian threat, but it also eliminates leverage, locking both sides into a prolonged standoff. It is particularly unfortunate for Europe that it has no effective platform for dialogue with Russia, making it heavily dependent on US diplomacy.

China continues to pose a complex challenge. In 2025, Europe continued its cautious recalibration, seeking neither full decoupling nor strategic accommodation. De-risking advanced selectively in technology, supply chains, and investment screening, while trade volumes remained high. Europe wants to avoid being drawn into the negative effects of the geopolitical US-China rivalry and to defend its interests vis-à-vis China confidently without furthering confrontation. This is obviously a difficult balancing act.

In the Middle East, Europe remains influential economically and diplomatically, but limited hard power and divergent member state interests prevent it from assuming a more strategic role. Perceived double standards in dealing with the parties to the conflict further constrain its impact on the region. It contributed to positive developments in the region, such as the “Gaza Peace Plan,” in a significant but largely reactive way. The region underscored a recurring theme: Europe is effective as a stabilizer and donor, but as of now, less so as a shaper of outcomes.

An opportunity to rebuild European security in 2026?

Looking ahead, developments regarding the war in Ukraine will strongly influence Europe’s trajectory in 2026. If current attempts to end the conflict succeed and produce a broadly acceptable outcome, political attention, energy, and economic resources may be reallocated to reconstructing Ukraine and a European security order. Ending the conflict should not abruptly stop efforts to strengthen European strategic capabilities in the defense sector. This would be unwise since deterrence will remain a crucial pillar in the European security order for years to come. It would, however, allow us to allocate more attention to managing and stabilizing deterrence and confrontation, and to gradually reintroduce some elements of cooperative security. Most urgently, we should consider measures of military risk reduction. If the 5000 km long line of contact between Russia and the West is not properly managed, there will be a huge risk of unintended escalation. This is why we need to reinvigorate crisis communication channels and establish rules to prevent and manage incidents in the air, at sea, and on land. An end to the war could also open up space for a return to military transparency through confidence- and security-building measures. A medium-term objective is to bring the current arms race to an end through arms control agreements, particularly in hotspots such as the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea, and along the Russia-NATO contact line.

Türkiye: A quiet rebalancing

Relations between European countries and Türkiye in 2025 were pragmatic rather than transformative. Tensions did not disappear, but cooperation quietly expanded in areas of mutual interest: migration management, energy transit, Black Sea security, and regional diplomacy. The war in Ukraine continues to underscore Türkiye’s strategic relevance, particularly as a regional power, mediator, and logistics hub. While EU–Türkiye relations remained politically frozen at the formal level, bilateral engagements deepened. This functional rapprochement suggests cautious potential for 2026. If managed carefully, cooperation with Türkiye could enhance Europe’s strategic depth, especially in the Eastern Mediterranean and Black Sea. The signal from 2025 is not a breakthrough, but stabilization—and in today’s geopolitical environment, that is meaningful. That said, as with European security as a whole, much will depend on further developments regarding the war in Ukraine. Should there be an end to the hostilities that is acceptable to relevant stakeholders, the first steps toward constructing a European security order could be undertaken. Türkiye could play an important role in such an endeavor as a bridge- and coalition-builder.

*Opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Anadolu.