EU Leaders Confront Deep Divisions on Ukraine Membership and Defense at Cyprus Summit

As European heads of state and government dined together on Thursday in the Cypriot resort of Ayia Napa, on the first day of a two-day gathering largely focused on global politics, any sense of triumph ebbed as they confronted the many challenges and crises on their plates. While they had the luxury of not needing to put their names to a joint statement that evening, their conversation ― over lamb and ravioli ― once again exposed how hard they find it to agree on the way forward.

The good news had come earlier when, after months of delay ― mainly down to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s intransigence ― his country and Slovakia dropped their vetoes on the funds for Ukraine first agreed in December. The EU also approved its 20th round of sanctions on Russia. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the Ukrainian president who joined the EU talks, seemed jollier than he had been in months, one diplomat present for some of the discussion in Cyprus said.

Not ‘realistic’

But the celebration will be short-lived. The next item on the EU’s agenda is whether, how and when to get his war-torn nation into its club. It is a likely component of any peace deal with Russia and, while the path to EU membership looks a little more feasible now Orbán is on his way out after a brutal election defeat, it is nothing like straightforward.

The turquoise waters that provided the stunning backdrop to the summit could not disguise the EU’s fractures. While Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal told reporters he favored “accelerating” Ukraine’s membership, Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković all but scoffed at the idea of Kyiv joining anytime soon. “I don’t think it’s realistic that it’ll happen on the first of January ’27,” he said. Croatia, which became the latest member of the bloc in 2013, “was relatively fast” to do so and it still took “six years to negotiate.”

That sounded different again from the approach French President Emmanuel Macron set out. It was “important to give a precise timeline to Ukraine and Moldova,” he said.

For years, if there has been any EU unity at all, it has been in fighting Orbán. With him gone ― and after he skipped what would have been his final summit ― even the illusion of that common front has vanished. “Leaders against Ukraine’s EU accession can no longer hide behind Orbán’s stance,” said one EU official closely involved in the talks. Like others in this article, the were granted anonymity to discuss Thursday’s confidential discussions.

Operational plan

On defense, too, leaders are butting heads, but tried not to let it show. With the war in the Middle East still unresolved, Nikos Christodoulides, the president of Cyprus, which is not a NATO member and was struck by Shahed drones in the early days of the Iran conflict, sought to steer the conversation toward the bloc’s security. For European countries outside the transatlantic alliance, or those unnerved by Donald Trump’s questioning of it, the EU’s barely used Article 42.7 is attractive. In case of armed aggression against an EU country, it requires other governments to come to its aid.

“We need to have an operational plan,” said Christodoulides. The EU needs to work out “what is going to happen in case a member state decides to trigger the specific article.”

Christodoulides wanted to use the meeting to present the other EU leaders with a roadmap for how 42.7 could become operational, a senior Cypriot official told POLITICO ahead of the talks. “It could be something like the activation of the EU civil protection mechanism, which allows any country hit by a disaster to request emergency assistance,” the official said. “It’s not going to be up and running after this summit,” the official added, “but the preparation should start.”

But the discussion among leaders was mainly about geopolitics and energy prices in the end, three diplomats said. The article 42.7 discussion barely got off the ground and “was mentioned as part of the wider discussion” by Christodoulides, a fourth diplomat said.

Not Europe’s war

In a sign of just how high the stakes are for the EU, Christodoulides argued there cannot be peace in the Middle East without Europe. “We cannot reach de-escalation in Iran without the active participation of the European Union,” he said.

Yet many European leaders are still loath to get meaningfully involved in the conflict, with the prevailing feeling in Brussels and other capitals that it is simply not Europe’s war, and discussion centering on little more than moving around warships already stationed in the region.

Earlier on Thursday, Trump said he had ordered the U.S. Navy to “shoot and kill” with “no hesitation” boats laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz. European leaders skirted the subject.

For them, Thursday’s dinner was more about setting the course for the next few months. Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said that while things may become somewhat smoother without the pugnacious Orbán, “there are other countries in Europe with leaders who do not always go along with” the European consensus.

De Wever — who burnished his own credentials as an obstructionist when he refused to allow the EU to funnel frozen Russian assets from a Brussels-based financial depository to Ukraine last year over fears Moscow would retaliate against Belgium — said it was “slightly overestimated” how much smoother European summits will be without Orbán at the table.

At its halfway stage, and — for now — free from the burden of having to put their names to any firm commitments, leaders could avoid really putting that to the test. But they’ll soon have to.

Gabriel Gavin and Giorgio Leali also contributed to this article.